Watercolour Techniques: The Complete Guide to Start and Improve

Contrary to popular belief, watercolour is a completely accessible medium that allows you to create beautiful works quickly.

In this article, I talk about the key watercolour techniques—the essentials for beginners—as well as some more advanced methods for intermediate watercolour artists. If you’re looking for material recommendations, check out my article on the topic here.

The Basics: Mastering the Fundamental Watercolour Techniques

If you’re just starting with watercolour, here’s an introduction to the essential techniques, with illustrations and practical exercises. 

Understanding Water Control: The Key for Beginners

Watercolour doesn’t use thick paint like acrylic or oil; instead, it uses a wash, which is a mixture of water and pigment. Even when working from tubes, you don’t use the paste directly—you always add water to get a liquid or, at most, a slightly milky consistency.

With pans or dried tube paint, you need to reactivate the colour by wetting it. Some shades take longer than others to fully activate. It’s best to avoid stirring in the pan; let the water do its work until the paint is ready to use.

A unique feature of watercolour is that you lighten colours by adding more water. You can create an infinite range of values (from light to dark) with a single colour. One challenge is creating both very light and very dark shades.

To create a dark colour: use very little water. Start with the pan and gradually add water rather than adding more pigment. To create a light colour: use very little pigment. If your wash is too dark, you’ll need to dilute it heavily—start with water and add pigment gradually.

Practice Exercise

To explore and understand water control, create a swatch chart of your palette using little water and then a lot of water. This is an excellent exercise to learn how your colours behave: how do they activate? Are they dark, light, or mid-tones? What extreme values can you achieve?

Water control is crucial in watercolour. I’ve dedicated a full 1 hour 50-minute module in my online course to mastering it, which makes learning the other techniques much easier.

Washes: Covering Large Areas with a Light Wash

A wash is a technique I mainly use to paint very light skies. To get an even result, tilt your paper slightly so that excess water pools where you want to continue painting, and then absorb it at the end with a well-dried brush. Gradually adding water to your brush allows you to create smooth gradients.

Simple wash / add water to the brush and wipe it on the rim of the glass / continue the wash

Wet-on-Wet: Creating Soft Blends and Merges

A defining feature of watercolour is that pigments migrate as long as the paper is wet. The wet-on-wet technique allows for beautiful blending effects.

It involves applying a fairly concentrated wash to a wet area (or an area previously painted with a wash). Pigments diffuse into the wet paper, creating effects ideal for colourful skies or soft, varied backgrounds.

 

Check out my YouTube video to learn how to master the wet-on-wet technique and create a colourful piece.

The effect I love most is blending: the meeting of two wet colours. This technique also allows for creating blurred areas by replacing one colour with clear water. Experimenting with blends requires time: make simple circles or lines, observe how different pigments behave, and explore your palette. To master water control, you need to both under- and over-dilute and find the right balance.  

Blendings

Blurs

Check out my YouTube video to learn how to master blendings and create a minimalist landscape.

Dry Techniques: Using Your Brush to Paint Without Drawing Skills

While wet techniques create backgrounds or abstract effects, dry techniques are used to add details. A brush is a fantastic tool even if you don’t know how to draw.

It allows for spontaneous shapes that can be combined to form botanical elements or landscape details. The key is learning to hold and manipulate your brush: angle and pressure are essential.

Brush held 1/ vertically, 2/ angled parallel to the stroke, 3/ angled perpendicular to the stroke

point / pressure / point

pressure / point

Combining a soft background with details on dry areas is my signature for creating minimalist landscapes. Small elements can be added using brush gestures, inclination, and pressure.

 Sheets from my online course "The Basics of Watercolour Through Minimalist Landscapes"

Dry-on-Dry: Creating Texture

This technique is useful for reflections on water or reliefs on mountains. Apply wash to your brush, blot it lightly, then press or rub it on the paper, or use quick gestures to leave white areas. Works best on textured paper (e.g., cold-pressed). 

Wipe the brush / press the brush onto the paper / make a quick, sharp gesture

Work from my course "The Basics of Watercolour Through Minimalist Landscapes" created using this technique

 

Advanced Techniques and Creative Effects

The Magic of Salt 

Masking Fluid: Preserving Whites or Bright Colours

          

In Summary 

Resources for Further Learning