painting a swan in watercolour

Watercolour tutorial — how to paint a swan and its reflection (step-by-step)

A graceful white swan, softly lit and mirrored in still water — this step-by-step watercolour tutorial shows how to paint a swan and its reflection at a relaxed pace, so you can work slowly and enjoy the process.

I’ve been waiting ages to paint a white swan, and this lesson focuses on one of my favourite effects: backlighting. Backlight creates a lovely glow around the bird and gives you a chance to explore pretty shadow colours — warm greys, soft blues and subtle violets — rather than plain dull greys. The calm water and clear reflection help to set off that glowing light, so we’ll pay special attention to edges, value relationships and the way colour reads in a reflection.

What you’ll learn...

• Composition and simple sketching for a convincing pose and reflection.

• How to preserve the whites and plan where the light will fall.

• Mixing the soft, cool shadow colours that make a white swan read as three-dimensional.

• Techniques for painting feather texture and subtle fine details.

• How to paint reflections in water: softening edges, lowering contrast and repeating colour notes.

• Final glazing and finishing touches to keep the glow and depth.

This is a full, written step-by-step lesson on Patreon — perfect if you like to follow along and paint at your own pace.

🍃 Follow the full tutorial on Patreon and paint along with me.

Happy painting!