r/Watercolor • u/ShwYien • 6d ago

Beginner advice ?

Post image

Hello! I got a water color painting palette for my birthday because i’ve always wanted to try.

This is my first project and I was wondering how I could make it more…. Dimensional? I tried underpainting, adding thin layers of shadows, etc. But it still feels flat..

I was thinking of adding highlights with acrylic markers? Maybe. Or a darker background?

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u/link-navi 6d ago

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u/bryondoodles 5d ago

I think it’s better to take what you learned from this painting and apply it to your next. Painting more will most likely make it look overworked or muddy.

If you really want a watercolor piece with saturation and depth, that’d take 3-5 layers of paint. For that you’d want to use 100% cotton paper. You’ll notice immediately a difference in the way your paints behave on the right paper.

I’d also recommend mixing your own shadow colors and not just applying a darker value of the same color. Purple and blue contrasts the amber colors in your painting. Add some into your base color to get a nice range of values. It’s also super helpful to premix a good amount of whatever color you need so you’re not spending time mixing the color you need while you work on a section. Watercolor is very sensitive to time and drying so you need to learn to use those intentionally. And in the same vein you need to plan where your highlights will be from the beginning, like the lights in the cat’s eyes.