Viral watercolor tutorial
- Japanese artist @shibasaki_art posted a watercolor tutorial using a 12B pencil on April 23. - The video went viral with 28.8K likes, 3.1K reposts, and about 1.3M views. - Viewers praised the technique and accessibility, turning the clip into one of today's biggest art shares. (x.com)
A watercolor tutorial from Japanese artist Harumichi Shibasaki spread across X on Wednesday after he showed how he uses a 12B pencil to build a painting before adding color. (x.com) Shibasaki posted the clip on April 23, 2026, from his @shibasaki_art account, and the post had about 1.3 million views, 28,800 likes, and 3,100 reposts later that day. (x.com) The artist is better known online as “Grandpa Sensei,” and his official site says he has about 213,000 followers on X and 3.4 million followers across social platforms. (watercolorbyshibasaki.com) A 12B pencil is an unusually soft, dark graphite pencil, which lets artists lay down deeper shadows than the harder classroom pencils many beginners know. Shibasaki has been testing that darker look in recent videos, including a YouTube upload titled “The Darkest Pencil? Testing the ‘12B’ for the First Time! My Honest Review.” (youtube.com) That made the X clip easy to read even without sound: viewers could see the heavy graphite marks first, then the watercolor settle over them. Shibasaki’s YouTube channel has built a large audience around that kind of step-by-step demonstration, with 2.12 million subscribers listed on the channel page. (youtube.com) Shibasaki’s online following has grown well beyond short clips. His official site says he has taught painting for 50 years, and his main YouTube channel has passed 1.7 million subscribers, while TikTok lists his account at 1.2 million followers. (watercolorbyshibasaki.com, tiktok.com) His recent catalog shows the same formula: familiar tools, plainspoken instruction, and demonstrations aimed at beginners as well as experienced hobbyists. Recent YouTube uploads include lessons on spring greens, acrylic gouache water, and watercolor depth, mostly drawing tens of thousands of views each. (youtube.com) By Thursday, the 12B post had become one of the day’s biggest art shares on X, with the reaction centered less on novelty than on how clearly the technique translated in a short video. The clip turned a specialist material into a simple visual lesson: darker pencil in, richer structure under the wash. (x.com, youtube.com)
