Dosage (Water Control) 101

The most important key to getting the results you want in watercolor is understanding how water interacts with your paint. More or less water can completely transform your results. So it’s important to understand how much water you’re adding, and where you’re adding it. In this post, I’ll tell you as much as I’ve learned so far about this skill – although ultimately it’s one of those things where you just have to get your brush wet and get a feel for it!

A note on terminology: Most people call this skill “water control.” Personally, I’ve been trying to get away from the language of power and control when I talk about watercolor. I don’t like to feel adversarial with the materials, as if I’m struggling with them or subduing them. I prefer to think of water as my collaborator. After all, I am asking it to do some of the work and add its own creativity! So I’ve decided that when I refer to the amount of water you add to your painting, I will use the word I heard used for it in French language Youtube videos, dosage. (French accent optional.)

There are three places you can put more or less water to change your results: in the paint, on the paper, or on the brush.

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Are watercolor paints toxic?

After seeing some information about nontoxic alternatives to the common color Cadmium Red, I began to wonder: are watercolors toxic? Should I be concerned?

tl;dr not really.

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Watercolor Brushes 101

A selection of brushes: Da Vinci Casaneo Quill #4, Princeton Velvetouch Flat Wash 3/4″, Etchr Round #10, Princeton Heritage Round #10, Princeton Velvetouch Round #8, Etchr Round #6, Princeton Heritage Round #3, Princeton Velvetouch Round #2, Princeton Velvetouch Script Liner #2

Of the major categories of watercolor supplies (paint, paper, brushes), brushes were the last ones that I got into. Actually, I put it off, improving my paints and papers while continuing to use cheapo brushes from the discount bin (which I chose based on the color of their handle.) It just seemed complicated! There are so many brushes with various attributes, and I had no way of telling what’s good and bad about them.

Well, I’ve now done my research, so if you’re still stuck where I was six months ago, let me break it down for you! 

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What’s the best masking tape for watercolor?

A pile of tapes I’ve tried.

Lists of watercolor supplies usually including “masking tape,” but what’s it for? Why do you need it? What do you do with it once you’ve got it? And what’s the best kind to get? When I was first gathering watercolor supplies, I often found myself frustrated with the vagueness on supply lists. I wanted more detail so that I could get it right the first time. Since I did not get it right the first time, let me pass my hard-won wisdom onto you!

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How to Build a Watercolor Palette from the Ground Up

I spend a lot of time researching paints before I buy one, planning how it will fit into one of my existing palettes: what niche it will fill; how it will play with my other paints; what I’ll be able to paint and mix with it that I can’t do now, or can’t do as easily. I’ve had some triumphs (THIS COLOR IS AMAZING) as well as some missteps (Huh, I just… never use this one.) So I have A Lot Of Thoughts on how to build a palette from the ground up that works for you, full of lovely paints you’ll enjoy and that will be versatile enough for everything you want to do! 

tl;dr All this is subjective. There are no rules. Get the colors you want.

Six well-loved tubes of paint from the Daniel Smith Essentials collection.

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Supplies Deep Dive: Watercolor Paint, How Does That Work?

One of the most important supplies for watercolor is paint itself. Oh, okay, you could go back and forth all day with galaxy brain paint hipsters about whether the real most important supply is the paper, the brushes, or the water, mannnnn. But paint is pretty important, anyway.

A bin containing far too many tubes of watercolor paint.

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Adventures in Daniel Smith Dot Cards II: Earth Tones

Swatches of earth tones overlaid over Daniel Smith dot cards on a messy desk.

Previously: After swatching out all the colors from my 238-color Dot Card, I gave my thoughts on all the exciting color categories: yellow, red, purple, and so on. Now, I give my thoughts on the earth tones and grays. I know these can be important colors, especially in realistic landscape and portrait paintings (neither of which I have admittedly really done), but gosh, it’s hard to get excited about them.

Since I started painting I have actively resisted getting into earth tones and browns; the closest I get is having Quinacridone Gold which many people would consider more of a warm yellow. I just always want bright colors instead! Which is honestly not a bad impulse in watercolor, because you can always make muted tones from brights (by mixing complementary colors), but you cannot go the other way around. Anyway, life’s too short to buy paints that don’t spark joy.

But maybe I am missing something? Maybe earth tones CAN spark joy? Will this dot card change my mind??!

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Adventures in Daniel Smith Dot Cards

Daniel Smith dot cards

This Christmas, my Secret Santa gave me the Daniel Smith 238-color dot cards, a sampler that lets me paint just a li’l with (almost) all of Daniel Smith’s colors! This has been amazing, because I was previous learning about colors one-at-a-time, and I always felt like there were more Daniel Smith colors that I didn’t know about appearing from the ether all the time.

With these dot cards, I have been obsessing about color, trying to figure out the optimal palette for me. I’ve almost lost sight of why I’m doing it (to paint pictures). It’s all about the color baybee! Color for its own sake. Who cares about paintings. 

To make my hyperfocus episode not totally feel like a waste of time, I thought I’d share with you some of my experiments in color. I spend hours (days) swatching out colors so you don’t have to! 

Settle in with the beverage of your choice (not to be confused with your dirty paint water) while I summarize my takeaways, one color family at a time.

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Why I love watercolor.

I’ve tried various types of art, but there’s something special about watercolor: it feels like all the skills I’ve honed in various other art forms – photography, pen and ink, colored pencil – are coming together into one perfect mega-medium. Why does it appeal to me so much?  The real answer is that it’s totally … Read more