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I wouldn’t say they’re all bad. Clare and Bay St. Girl are both rather nice. Maybe a bit too reliant on the reference photos.

Yeah, this list is crap. Did you just do a google search? It’s only half good. But the bad half makes the good half look like crap. This is a pretty transparent effort to get web traffic, and it’s insulting.

Maybe three of these warrant being on a list titled “50 Beautiful Watercolors.” I agree that anime characters in watercolor are ridiculous! Very disappointed in this list…

sigh.

I’m semi inspired…

Great selection of work — thank you!

Anyone likes my SMOKER ? http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3348/3521905045_b3a2dff60f_o.png
I know I should update my flickr;-)

hi, you really should see the watercolours from Carcamo: http://gcarcamo.blogspot.com/

These are nice. But I’m being left with a strong desire to see the original ones now lol.

LOL. Didn’t like our opinion? Here, we’ll change it to make you happy and get more gushing comments. Bold! Innovative! Successful! Please, you don’t need to edit your blog post because somebody on the Internet doesn’t share your opinion. Grow up, Smashing.

@Matt – “Customer Satisfaction” has NOTHING to do with changing one’s opinion on something, which is essentially the case here.

It’s more related to “Is something broken/not working? Let us fix it for you!” It’s being nice to your customers and making them feel like human beings, rather than just statistics.

Secondly – this blog post is NOT a “product”, it’s a person’s ( Or a few peoples ) opinion on what THEY find to be 50 beautiful watercolor paintings.

So, because they like something that you don’t, they should change it to suit you? Why do you matter so much? Is it your opinion up there in the post?

Unless you, yourself, wrote it and came up with the list, your opinion in it shouldn’t matter that much.

Like it or don’t like it, that’s your choice, but to think someone should alter THEIR OWN opinion of something just to suit YOU, is complete and total BS.

this guy is the upcomming talent from belgium:
http://users.skynet.be/brechtevens/

this book: Ergens waar je niet wil zijn
will be available in english from 2010

Wow…Thx for posting this guys…pretty inspirational.

I always sucked at watercolor….

Nice glance over. Not sure why all the snobs are complaining. Most of the works robably wouldn’t make the MoMA, but definitely worthy of a blog post and some friendly exposure.

Not sure why people continue to try to judge that which can’t be judged. Art is in the eye of the beholder.

Outch, that’s terrible ! The girls portraits, the cars…the Zebra ! So cheezy.

As a w/c artist myself, thanksfor putting this diverse &beautiful grp of paintings out there! And letting others who may not always have a chance to see how cool a medium it can be.

Nice compilation. Thanks for sharing :)

Very nice collections, thanks.

There is some really, really mediocre work here – student grade stuff. I spotted one immediately as a fake – a 100% digital watercolor. If you click through to flickr on the Greek Church / Mosque, it even says “digital watercolor”. 4-5 others are digital or digital in part. This should be thoroughly explained up top, that some are digital. Oops…watercolor is obviously not someone’s forte…

As a watercolorist myself, only 10-12 pieces above are professional or close to it, and only 3-4 are gallery quality, mature work. Just sayin’…

so beautiful paintings.

بہت عمدہ
awesome

I can’t judge your selection, it may be a question of personnal preferences. I notice however that you often present very contemporary design, introduce the bahaus avant garde and its follower, whereas for watercolour, photography and illustration you focus on old-fashionned amateurs.
Some have not mature technicall skills, but the problem is more their comprehension of contemporary art.
I would so like to see Smashing Magazine covering surrising and innovative artists.

hhhmmmm. . . well below average for a post on smashing.

I love the work by Geliografic Studio!

These are absolutely lovely, though I would like to see a list of techniques used if that information is possible to get! It looks like some of these were at least digitally enhanced, if not digital to begin with, and I’d like to know what’s possible and what’s not if I’m to incorporate watercolors into my designs.
I agree with Matt, and appreciate your work in striving to find better pieces for this post. I do NOT agree with Luke, who’s perhaps missing the point of posting inspirational work and showing different artistic techniques. If his design is purely based on the digital, I feel bad for his clients.

Oh, Smashing. Why do you do this? I realise that you’re trying to provide a diverse selection of posts to inspire people, but it seems like more often than not, the posts like this that are outside of your typical design purview are poorly-researched and poorly-executed. Before I even got to the actual artwork, I knew this post was going to be a disappointment; the intro has no actual content and makes it clear that the writer knows very little about the subject matter and was just B.S.-ing to fill space. As for the art itself, even if you ignore the cliched and digital arguments, some of the pieces are god awful, further supporting the idea that the author has no idea what he’s talking about.

That said, I also agree that this new trend of “correcting” posts that get negative feedback is both distasteful and disheartening. You should be crafting posts that are strong enough to stand on their own merit, without you having to make excuses or corrections.

Please, Smashing, have the courage of your convictions. You uploaded a post with paintings that some find cliche, others lovely, others interesting technically. (I saw examples of all of the above in the paintings shown.)

Part of what makes blogs challenging and interesting is that the poster is “out there” in a sense, stating and dating some opinion on a given subject. They may be wrong, they may change their minds. Over time the blog can reflect an evolving maturity of thought.

Changing posts in response to readers removes the virtue of having a time-stamped post (unless you’re dealing with a typo or some similar item). It is of course fine and even admirable to admit you changed your mind – but there are better ways to do this than direct blog edits. Suggestions:
* Post a separate “update” section to the blog.
* Use the strike tag through items you’re editing, and note the edit change in the text.
* To indicate a sea change in your post’s direction, use a separate post to discuss and share the changes, linking to the original from the new post, and to the new post from the original.

I love Smashing design, but love is diminished when it loses respect. Stand up for your opinions! And when they stir dissent and discussion, be glad you started an interesting conversation :-)

worst post ever! Where is creativity in those watercolor paintings? The style is stuck in the 19th century.

“nice to see images that were made with human hands “unplugged””

…but note that many of these are not really watercolors. they are simply photoshop…a watercolor means you use water and color on paper. otherwise it’s a digital painting done in a watercolor style.

Really like the paint brush one, really taking this medium to a new level.

I apologize for my earlier harsh comment. I am a student of watercolor painting and when I saw the title, “50 Beautiful Watercolor Paintings,” I looked forward to an enjoyable morning viewing some truly good works. However, the title of the article was misleading. I understand that art is subjective but there are certain criteria that must be met for a painting to be considered passable by most viewers. Composition, draftsmanship, color choice and technical ability to name just a few. Most of these pieces fail to meet those points and many truly are poorly done, as I see them. Watercolor is a tough medium to master and usually requires years of study and practice. Perhaps many of these paintings were done by amateurs or beginners and I would not want my opinion to discourage any of them. That’s just what it was, too; my opinion, and, to be fair, two or three of the paintings show promise.

I think they are very good, i like them a lot. i like how they are opening up a new style of thinking, and there not the same old stuff like trees, water, people, animals, etc. there different, and they are beautiful i like every single one of them in a different way. they make me want to bring out my creative side and start painting again.. :D i truely think that they are the 50 best watercolor paintings that are different :D

this is really amazing!

i think it’s unfair that people are saying that some of this work stinks clearly all the work here has had an enormous amount of effort put into it….plus they never said that it had to be beautiful to the viewer the person who posted this just thought they were beautiful so stop being so critical….c=

some of them are a little cliche but i think gator and clare are really beautiful

whew!!!!…great art works…wish i can do that…ha ha ha would you like to give me one of your paintings??? please??? i like it
thank you

I think the work was beautiful, some cliche but well done, some creative, moody, that’s what art is. No one said it was the Louvre, its a collection of “50 beautiful Watercolors” not 50 of the best in the world ever or anything, so I think all the negative folks should calm their bit. People are just sharing their work, those “critics” should be constructive, what techniques could be worked on, what perspectives should be changed? Don’t just complain, show us your work, show us what your creativity can create. Also, if you don’t like it so much why do some keep coming back to the board? Go back to your art book and scanner. Great work folks regardless of your art training or lack thereof, regardless of your mediums.

Includes some very nice work. I would guess that the very negative comments come from jealous artists or would-be artists who can’t do as well themselves. Luke’s critique that this is so 19th century just shows his ignorance. I suppose he would say the same about Norman Rockwell. Or how about the Beatles, using all those ancient chords? They aren’t creative at all, are they Luke? I suppose you think atonal music is better? Hey Brannan “dude”, are you “for real”? For sure? My dog could make a more intelligent comment than you have. Artbizman, don’t worry, no one cares about your critique so you won’t discourage anyone. Who cares what you say? Certainly not an artist. It would be interesting to see the work of some of the negative critics, such as artbizman, so we can all judge how their work compares to the work they so arrogantly criticize. Talk is cheap. Anyone can claim to be an expert or a critic. The proof is in the artwork. So let’s see some links to your artwork, artbizman, and be sure to provide some space for feedback so we can critique your stuff. Frankly, the only thing that matters in the real world is how the art sells. I always laugh at critics who sneer at work by successful artists like McNight or Kinkade. It’s probably just jealousy that people prefer their art over the poor critic’s art. Grow up.