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3 Watercolor Tricks Beginners Always Miss

Paint light to dark, let layers dry, and save your whites. Three fixes for muddy watercolor paintings. More beginner guides: https://50plushub.com/

What you'll learn

  1. Paint light to dark. Trick one. Always paint light to dark. Watercolor is transparent, so you can deepen a color later, but you can never make it lighter. Start pale and build up.
  2. Let each layer dry. Trick two. Let every layer dry completely before adding the next. Painting into a damp layer is what turns colors muddy. When in doubt, walk away for ten minutes.
  3. Save your whites. Trick three. There is no white paint in watercolor. Your brightest white is the bare paper, so decide where the light hits before you start, and paint around it.

Full transcript

Trick 1. Always paint light to dark. Watercolor is transparent, so you can deepen a color later, but you can never make it lighter. Start pale and build up. Trick 2. Let every layer dry completely before adding the next. Painting into a damp layer is what turns color's muddy. When in doubt, walk away for 10 minutes. Trick 3. There is no white paint in watercolor. Your brightest white is the bare paper, so decide where the light hits before you start and paint around it.

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