How Sketchbooks Make You a Better Watercolour Painter
If you want to improve your watercolor painting, there’s one simple tool that can make a world of difference: a sketchbook.
Whether you’re new to watercolor or have been painting for years, keeping a sketchbook is one of the most valuable habits you can develop. Not only are sketchbooks a fun, low-pressure way to explore creativity, but they also help refine essential skills that will directly enhance your watercolor paintings.
Let’s explore 7 of the reasons that sketchbooks are such a powerful tool for watercolor artists and how they can help you grow as a painter.
1. Sketchbooks Are Convenient and Portable
One of the great joys of watercolor is how simple the supplies are, but sometimes, even setting up a small watercolor kit can feel like too much. Sketchbooks offer a quick and easy alternative. With just a pencil, pen, or a few dry media like watercolor pencils, you can keep your creativity flowing—even when you don’t have time to paint.
Because they’re lightweight and portable, sketchbooks allow you to fit in a little restorative creative time wherever you are, whether it’s during your morning coffee, on a lunch break, or while traveling. The more often you engage with art, the more your skills will naturally grow.
2. Sketchbooks:A No-Pressure Space for Creative Exploration
Unlike a full watercolor painting, which can sometimes feel like it needs to turn out well, sketchbooks are naturally low-pressure. They’re meant for exploration, not perfection. This makes them an ideal space for playing with ideas, testing techniques, and simply enjoying the process of making art.
Developing an easy, enjoyable sketchbook practice not only keeps your creativity flowing but also helps you stay connected to your art without the fear of “messing up.” And as a bonus, every sketch builds skills that will ultimately enhance your paintings.
3. Sketchbooks Build Drawing Confidence (Which Improves Your Painting!)
At its core, watercolour painting is just drawing with a brush. The more you sketch, the more confident you’ll become in your ability to place shapes, observe proportions, and capture gesture—all essential skills for watercolour painting.
Even quick, loose sketches help train your hand-eye coordination and strengthen your understanding of form. Over time, this makes it easier to approach watercolor paintings with confidence, even when working freehand.
Once you have done a drawing of your subject, no matter how quick or loose, painting that subject becomes much more comfortable.
4. Sketchbooks Let you Experiment with Composition Before You Paint
Planning a painting can feel overwhelming, especially when working on a larger piece. A sketchbook allows you to quickly test different compositions on a smaller scale before committing to a full painting.
You can try:
Testing different orientations (portrait vs. landscape)
Adding or removing elements to see what strengthens the composition
Playing with focal points to create a more dynamic painting
By working out these decisions beforehand, you’ll approach your final painting with more clarity and confidence.
5. Strengthen Your Value Structure with Sketchbook Exercises
Value (the lightness or darkness of a subject) is one of the most important elements in a successful watercolor painting. Sketchbooks are a great place to train your eye to see and simplify values before adding color.
One effective exercise is notan sketches, where you break a subject into just two or three values (light, mid-tone, and dark). This helps clarify the overall structure of your painting and ensures strong contrast. If you’ve been part of my membership, the Happy Painters Hub, you might remember doing this for our lavender series!
6. Plan Your Watercolour Approach
Sketchbooks aren’t just for drawing—they can also be a valuable space for planning how you’ll approach a watercolour painting.
For example, while sketching sunflowers very simply with chunky crayons, you might notice how much easier it is to block in shapes without getting lost in the details. This can inform your watercolour approach, helping you simplify complex subjects and paint with more confidence.
It is also a chance to think about how watercolour is different from the supplies you are drawing with which is another helpful way to come up with the best strategy when you transfer over to watercolour.
7. Try New Sketchbook Challenges to Keep Growing
Mixing up your creative process can help keep your artistic practice fresh and engaging. Since watercolour typically involves painting light to dark on a white surface, why not challenge yourself by sketching on toned or black paper?
This is exactly what we did in our Sunflowers in Watercolour month in the Happy Painters Hub - (click here if you’d like to find out more about that.)
Working on a darker background forces you to think differently about highlights and contrast, giving you a new perspective on light and form. Plus, exploring different mediums can be a fun and inspiring way to break out of creative ruts.
Final Thoughts
A sketchbook is so much more than just a collection of paper bound between covers or a side hobby!
I’m sure you’ll agree, sketchbooks are an incredibly valuable tool for watercolour painters. They help build drawing confidence, strengthen composition and value skills, and provide a low-pressure space for creative play.
Best of all, they make it easy to keep creating, even on busy days.
If you don’t already have a sketchbook practice, why not start today?
Grab a simple sketchbook, a few favorite tools, and let yourself enjoy the process. You might be surprised at how much it enhances your watercolour journey!
And if you’d like to follow along with us in the Happy Painters Hub, you’ll get a new sketchbook project that helps you create a whole series of joyful watercolour paintings every month.
The membership is closed for most of the year and only open by special invitation… lucky you… you just found one of these invitations 👈🥳
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