About r/Watercolor
In its own words:
A place for everything to do with watercolor painting. Submit your current paintings, give and receive critiques. Post resources such as tutorials, ask questions, learn about and the art of watercolor!
Community guide
r/Watercolor (#981, about 1.1 million) is for watercolor painting—share work, ask for critiques, post tutorials and questions. Digital pieces and AI images are not allowed.
What belongs
Paintings and technique talk (about 60 posts/day; mostly images and galleries). Rules require watercolor-related, non-AI work; they ban missing attribution on others’ art, spam, improper critique, art-request posts, NSFW art and AI-generated images.
Versus oilpainting, DigitalPainting and painting
DigitalPainting and oilpainting use different media; painting is the broader umbrella. This room is water-media only.
Practical pointers
Credit any work that isn’t yours; don’t upload AI stand-ins or commission requests.
The community was created on Jan 15, 2012, which makes it 14 years old. Since Nov 2, 2026, it has gained 1,126 subscribers (+0.10%). It sits just behind r/playboicarti (#981) and ahead of r/Rabbits (#983) in our ranking.
What sets r/Watercolor apart
Compared with other large communities, r/Watercolor leans heavily on images (63% of recent posts; the typical Top 100 subreddit sits at 22%). r/Watercolor is more of a browsing community than a debating one: 5.3 comments per post on average, well under the Top 100 median of 13.0. For its size it is unusually busy: about 55.1 new posts a day per million members, more than 87% of the Top 100. Its rhythm is strongly tied to time zones: the busiest hour (16:00 UTC) sees about 3.6× as many posts as the quietest (05:00 UTC).
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 9, 2026, r/Watercolor went up from 1,078,251 to 1,085,403 subscribers (+7.2K, +0.66%). That is about 140 new members per day. The chart shows 10 weekly subscriber counts.
Top posts on r/Watercolor this week
What the community upvoted most over the last seven days, as ranked by Reddit (collected Nov 8, 2026).
- A Watercolor Illustration for a Winter Taleu/dominiquewatercolors · Nov 3 · image
- Kyoto, new watercolor 8x10”u/CaterinaWatercolors · Nov 4 · image
- The Beauty of a Winter Dayu/dominiquewatercolors · Nov 6 · image
- There’s a big, annual art exhibition this weekend. I’m submitting these 5 watercolors, hoping one will nab an award. Which has the best chance do you think?u/cjwatercolor · Nov 5 · gallery
- AI Watercolor Updateu/shine4819 · Nov 4 · gallery
- Watercolor Parisu/erkanfmercan · Nov 1 · gallery
- Watercolor chickensu/slothsloth_ · Nov 4 · gallery
- Totally unexpected, but my illustration was awarded 3rd prize in a contest.u/2025Artist · Nov 6 · gallery
- The Silence of Winter by the Creeku/dominiquewatercolors · Nov 2 · image
- Thank you for the overwhelming response to my latest watercolor, Here's another one I painted a couple of weeks ago.u/moktarin · Nov 7 · image
All-time top posts
The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/Watercolor, from 2024 to 2026, ranked by Reddit.
- My mum is obsessed with pigs so I painted this for her birthdayu/artwithimmy · Jan 14, 2025 · gallery
- Painted a Watercolor of a Paint Brush with a Watercolor Paint Brushu/rohmakhan · Apr 2, 2026 · image
- Major hand injury left me with permanent shaky hand and no confidence.u/Gridleak · Apr 15, 2024 · image
- My painting "Midnight Ramen" got a full page in the Best of Watercolor magazine this yearu/onewordpoet · Jul 8, 2025 · gallery
- 168 hours later, my pigment cabinet is finally complete ❤️u/emmalian · Apr 30, 2026 · gallery
- Watercolor I did of some fish in a kelp forestu/mad_atlas · Sep 19, 2024 · image
- Can’t tell if I love or hate itu/ambibambi90 · Nov 13, 2025 · image
- Watercolor sketchbook from my recent trip to Colombiau/Dervi92 · Sep 15, 2024 · gallery
- water studyu/Straight-Avocado8263 · Aug 21, 2024 · image
- Watercolour teacupsu/shelleypriorfineart · Apr 19, 2026 · gallery
What r/Watercolor talks about
Across 436 recent posts (Oct 29–Nov 5), the words that come up most are “painting”, “watercolour”, “painted”, “paint” and “practice”. Other frequent themes are paper, paintings, portrait, study, help and art. Recurring phrases include “river h2o”, “marian gardner”, “happy halloween” and “water color”. By format, 63% are images, 27% are galleries and 7% are text posts.
Activity and best time to post
r/Watercolor gets about 60 new posts a day. The public archive holds 203,033 posts and 1,070,607 comments in total, about 5.3 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Thursday (72 posts) and the quietest was Monday (57). Posting peaks around 16:00 UTC and is lowest around 05:00 UTC.
Rules of r/Watercolor
The moderators of r/Watercolor list 8 rules. In short:
- Posts must be watercolor related - NO AI!
- No proper attribution for non original content
- Self Promotion
- Spam
- Improper Critique
- Requesting Art
- NSFW art is not allowed
- No AI Generated Images!
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/Watercolor and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How many subscribers does r/Watercolor have?
r/Watercolor has 1,085,403 subscribers (Nov 9, 2026), which makes it the #982 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 7,152 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 9, 2026.
How old is r/Watercolor?
r/Watercolor was created on Jan 15, 2012, so it has been around for 14 years.
How active is r/Watercolor?
Very active: r/Watercolor gets about 60 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 203,033 posts and 1,070,607 comments. In a sample of 436 recent posts we counted 314 different authors.
When is r/Watercolor most active?
Based on post counts from Oct 29, 2026 to Nov 4, 2026, the busiest day was Thursday and the quietest Monday, and most posts arrive around 16:00 UTC, with the fewest around 05:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What is r/Watercolor about?
The community describes itself as: “A place for everything to do with watercolor painting. Submit your current paintings, give and receive critiques. Post resources such as tutorials, ask questions, learn about and the art of watercolor!” Recent post titles often mention painting, watercolour, painted, paint and practice. Most posts are images (63%).
Is r/Watercolor safe for work?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/Watercolor as an 18+ (NSFW) community, and its own rules forbid NSFW content. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
How do I post on r/Watercolor?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/Watercolor accepts both text and link posts, with images, videos, galleries and polls enabled. It has 8 posted rules, starting with: “Posts must be watercolor related - NO AI!”; “No proper attribution for non original content”; “Self Promotion”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
Which communities are like r/Watercolor?
Communities with similar topics include r/oilpainting (1.1M), r/DigitalPainting (3.7M), r/minipainting (1.3M), r/painting (4.6M) and r/learnart (1.7M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 9, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/Watercolor.