Explore watercolour

Watercolours sometimes fail through a lack of visual cohesion, due to any number of causes. Perhaps a local mixture is too strong, calling attention to a part of a painting we didn’t intend; or too weak, like a pale flesh colour on a sunny day. It could be inconsistency in a shadow colour applied throughout a painting, which disjoints rather than unifies a composition. An inadvertently high contrast between two elements might unintentionally draw our eye from the focus we intended, or one colour may have a hue that is incongruous, through its temperature or depth of tone. There are several ways to avoid many of these incongruities:

1 Simply keep practising.

2 Think about your mixtures as you work and ensure that colour choices and water contents are those you intend and are compatible with what is already laid.

Ingredients might also be consistent and (right). Alternatively, paint shadows in the same operation as the object that casts them, to keep paint flowing and help develop unity.