It’s a good question and when I started painting, thankfully not one I thought to ask because by happy chance they were the first medium I painted with. Coming from a position of enthusiastic ignorance I just grabbed a brush and got on with it! That was a while ago and although I paint and draw using many different mediums I’ve never lost that enthusiasm for what watercolour can bring to a painting.

So why are watercolours scary to paint with? Read on to find out how to solve some of the most common problems that cause artists to shy away from this wonderful medium.

My painting has ended up all muddy and dull colours!

This is a common complaint, and the reason watercolour paintings can end up muddy is because each layer of paint you add to your work has to be applied with a degree of caution. If the paint underneath is still damp, the colours will mix together and create a murky colour you probably didn’t want. A little patience and leaving that first layer to dry will ensure you can create clear and bright layers rather than mud. Also choose your colours carefully - transparent colours tend to be easier to mix in my view, and less prone to going muddy. And there is another common reason for dull colours, which leads us on to….

The paints are very expensive for such tiny tubes!

Don’t be fooled. That tiny tube might be pricey, but it is like Dr Who’s tardis (UK readers only?!) I’ve got a 15ml tube of indigo paint that I’ve had for about three years now and I use indigo all the time.

It gets said a lot, but it’s the most useful advice I’ve ever been given so here it is again: use the best paints you can afford - artist quality if possible, at least for the colours you use most often. These are richer in pigment, last much longer, and crucially, you only need a tiny bit on the wet brush to create a big juicy layer of colour, so there’s no reloading the brush mid-way or scrubbing away at the paint pan to get the pigment you need.

I’ve had student paints. The colours were dull and my brushes ended up blunt because of all the scrubbing. Now I use artist quality paints which I decant from the tubes into my palette and allow to dry before I use them. This gives me rich, gorgeous colours and is very economical, plus you can share colours with other artists easily - I love finding out which colours other people enjoy using.

I can’t paint over my mistake!

Acrylics and oils all have their own challenges, but what they excel at is allowing the artist to either wipe off unwanted areas of paint, or once dry, cover the mistake completely with a fresh layer. Watercolour is certainly less forgiving in this respect as once it’s on the paper it’s basically a permanent feature. Some watercolours can be gently lifted off with a clean wet brush and a soft cloth or tissue to blot with but any of the more staining ones like ultramarine blue are unlikely to budge.

This is good and bad in equal measure. Yes, it’s super-annoying when you make a blunder and can’t wipe it off. On the other hand, I find it much easier to create a fresh, lively painting in watercolour because I’m not waiting days or weeks for paint to dry between layers.

Embracing mistakes and going with the flow is part of being a watercolourist because as any artist will tell you, watercolours have a mind of their own. Sometimes the mistakes end up being the most interesting bits, which is joyful. Sometimes the whole lot goes in the bin. That is not so joyful but learning to roll with it is a valuable lesson; once I’ve stopped grumping about the wasted paper I try to find something to learn from the mistake so that the paper isn’t actually wasted.

Oh, and you can always just flip it over and use the other side…

I got carried away and covered the whole sheet of paper with paint. How do I put the white highlights back in?

This one is probably the number one problem experienced by artists who are starting out in watercolour. In acrylics or oils you have the option to add your brights and lights at any point but many painters like to put them in right at the end, over the top of all the other layers, all sparkly and zingy.

That ain’t gonna work with watercolour. Flipping the process around takes some practice but the goal here is to leave the highlights of the painting - those bright areas of sparkle on the sea, for example - white from the very beginning.

Instead of painting on the highlights at the end, thinking about them before you begin is critical. If you can do it, leave blank areas of paper where those highlights will be. If you think you can’t be trusted not to cover the whole paper in paint, there is a plan B - use masking fluid or white crayon to pop those highlights in as waterproof areas before you start sloshing paint. If this all goes wrong, plan C is to get a tube of white gouache paint, which is opaque and chalky. You can add highlights in at the end with this but it requires a gentle touch, otherwise it can look a bit like Tipp-Ex.

gariguette strawberries, ink and watercolour

I put loads of paint on and it’s all dry but my paper has gone all wobbly.

This is easily fixed. Paper or cotton watercolour sheets ‘cockle’ when wet. A bit like clothes shrinking the first time you wash them as the fibres move and tighten up. You can prep in advance and tape them to a board, wet them all over and let them dry before you use them, OR you can do what I do because I am never that organised.

Wait until your painting is completely dry, lightly wet the entire back of the paper with a paintbrush or sponge, and then flatten your work of art between a couple of boards. I usually add a sheet of greaseproof paper on the painted side and kitchen roll on the wet side. Once the paper is dry the painting should be flat. If you are worried about this method, try it out with a painting that went wrong first!

If you’ve never tried watercolours, why not give them a go?

They might have their character flaws but the colours can be amazing; transparent and glowing in a way that’s unique to the medium. The way the paint settles into the dimples in the paper, the transparency that lets the light glow through.

I still get excited when I dip my brush into the unassuming little pan of paint on my palette and paint a tidal wave of glorious pigment on to the paper. They are apparently the hardest medium to forge, which would make sense given they’re never 100% controllable.

But that’s ok. If they were 100% controllable, how would anything magical or unexpected happen? And that in a nutshell is what makes watercolours so fantastic to work with.

Why are watercolours so scary to paint with?