With the festive season fast approaching I thought it would be nice to get into the spirit of things by offering this watercolour painting of my local town, Colwyn Bay in North Wales modified into a Chocolate box watercolour Christmas scene.

With over 2 hours of video I will guide you through the drawing, masking and watercolour painting so you will achieve a beautiful watercolour painting which you can hang proudly on your wall over the Christmas period or give as a gift, you could also get it printed as your family Christmas card this year!

For those of you with a bit more experience you could use an old photograph of your own high street as the background and, following my instruction on masking out the snowy bits,use my drawing template for the foreground, great idea for gifts this Christmas.

I have edited out the drying times so this is quite an intense tutorial at 2 hours so it would be a good idea to watch the course through first and make sure you have plenty of time set aside to do each section.

I have kept the colour pallet to a minimum (see the free preview video "tools required") and you will need just 3 brushes plus some old brushes for the masking fluid (more below).

This watercolour painting relies heavily on masking fluid so if you can buy an old rigger brush and an old quarter inch flat brush from a jumble sale or charity shop, this is better than ruining your good brushes with the masking fluid. You will also need either an old fan brush or a toothbrush to apply the masking fluid using the "splatter" technique described in detail in the tutorial.

If you are not happy with your sketching skills I have provided a detailed template and instructions on how to use trace down paper.

see you soon David