Watercolor tutorial goes viral
- Japanese artist @shibasaki_art posted a watercolor tutorial using a 12B pencil that rapidly went viral on social platforms. (x.com) - The clip earned about 28K likes and 1.3M views, praised for its technique and step-by-step clarity. (x.com) - The video is being reshared by artists and hobbyists as an accessible lesson in hyper-realistic rendering. (x.com)
A watercolor tutorial by Japanese artist Harumichi Shibasaki is ricocheting across social platforms after he demonstrated how he uses a 12B pencil to build dark values before painting. (youtube.com) Shibasaki posted the full lesson on YouTube on April 16, 2026 under the title “The Darkest Pencil? Testing the ‘12B’ for the First Time! My Honest Review.” The video followed an earlier 10B-pencil lesson that he said had already drawn more than 400,000 views. (youtube.com) On his official site, Shibasaki describes himself as a watercolor artist and “Grandpa Sensei,” and lists 1.737 million YouTube subscribers, 838,000 TikTok followers, 213,000 X followers and 202,000 Instagram followers. The same site says his combined social following has reached 3.4 million. (watercolorbyshibasaki.com) The clip landed with viewers who do not usually buy specialist art gear because the lesson centered on one concrete tool: a very soft graphite pencil used to push shadows darker than a standard classroom pencil. Shibasaki’s recent channel lineup has mixed those material tests with longer watercolor demonstrations and live streams. (youtube.com, yutura.net) Shibasaki has been building this audience for years, not weeks. The Asahi Shimbun reported in 2023 that he began uploading watercolor tutorials in March 2017 and had spent decades teaching painting classes in Chiba Prefecture before becoming a YouTube fixture. (asahi.com) That reach widened during the coronavirus stay-at-home period, when he added easier-to-copy lessons using pencils and crayons and later expanded onto TikTok. Asahi reported that those lower-barrier materials helped him win younger Japanese fans, while Artnet traced a broader international jump to his short-form video presence. (asahi.com, news.artnet.com) His official biography says his popularity rests on 50 years of experience as a painting instructor and a calm speaking style, and that combination shows up repeatedly in coverage of his videos. Asahi said fans described the lessons as easy to follow and soothing enough to watch when they were tired or in the hospital. (watercolorbyshibasaki.com, asahi.com) The new 12B lesson fits the format that made him durable online: a familiar teacher, a simple material test, and a step-by-step demo that beginners can copy without formal training. Seven years after he started posting tutorials, Shibasaki is still turning basic drawing tools into mass-audience art lessons. (youtube.com, asahi.com)
