Watercolor Tips N' Tricks

Watercolor is by far one of my favorite art mediums. I've been using watercolor ever since I was little. It definitely took a little while to get the hang of it but now it's all I really use. It's a really nice, easily manipulated material to get your desired affect. There's a handful of helpful tricks I've learned over the years. I believe everybody should know these tricks to allow them to have the best results possible when using watercolor.

Tip number one would be to keep track of how much water you're using. There is always the possibility of using too much water. Too much water will cause the paper to curl up as it dries. Too much water can also cause the color to spread beyond the desired area and create muddy spots. Before you add color to your watercolor paper, make sure you have just a thin wash of water on the area of the paper you want that specific color. Along with this, too little water will lead to dry, chunky, splotches of color that appears too opaque for watercolor. It wouldn't be as easy to spread and it wouldn't mix well with the other colors.

Tip number two is paint backwards. Your watercolor paints are meant to be semi transparent therefore even dark colors are "light". You should start painting with lighter colors first and build up to the darker colors through layering. If you put down the darker colors first, the lighter ones will not appear as light as you wanted them to.

Tip number three is to make sure you have all necessary materials handy before you start painting. Be sure to have a few paper towels to sop up any excess water and clean your brush in between colors. Another material that would be needed is a paint pallet. This will be used for mixing colors and adding water to colors. Scratch paper is yet another necessity. You will use the scratch paper to test your colors before applying them to the actual painting. It will allow you to see if it's the desired shade, if you need to add more water, or have less water.

I hope you found these tips and tricks helpful and will be able to put them to good use! They've definitely helped me over the years.