Water to Paint Ratios – Why is it Important to Watercolor?

I’ve been doing watercolor for nearly my entire life.  I picked it up as a child and I absolutely feel in love with this medium of art.  However, much to my surprise, when I got to college – I was informed that watercolor is considered one of the hardest art mediums that one can conquer.

SO WHY IS IT THAT WATERCOLOR IS SO DIFFICULT?

Well, one of the reasons is because watercolor has many different elements to it.  It’s not just like acrylic where you add light paint to make a color lighter and dark paint to make a color darker.

  • SOME ELEMENTS OF WATERCOLOR TO CONSIDER:
    • Such as is your paint opaque or is it transparent?
    • Does it have granulation or not?
    • How does it respond to water?
    • Is it a good color for glazing?
    • How well can one color stretch with water? (also known as paint to water ratios).

So as you can see, watercolor is a bit more complex – due to these elements.  And that’s not even considering color theory, color mixing, and conceptual design with color.

WHY ARE PAINT RATIOS SO IMPORTANT?

But now you might be wondering, are paint ratios really that important?  To that I would ask – are learning letter sounds important to reading?  You could try learning every word in the dictionary based solely on memorization – but that’s alot of work and very frustrating.  Personally, I believe this skill is foundational if you truly want to understand how to work with watercolor.  This skill will help you understand what you paints can actually do on wet and dry paper as well as when to use them in an illustration.   Personally, I believe this skill is so important I created a course discussing this topic only.

If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated with color mixing – this skill might be the root of your problem.  Before we can approach mixing two colors – we first need to understand how one works.  This is one reason why watercolor can be so difficult – but if you break it down as I do in this course – that mystery starts to disappear.

No one ever taught me this skill.  Rather I learned it through trial and error over many years.  In fact in many high school and even college watercolor courses I took – it was just kind of assumed you should know it before starting any watercolor course.  This is why I created this course first – as a foundational course to my other courses.  Because I don’t want you to have every skill necessary to succeed in this art medium I love so much called watercolor!

So please join me and I hope to see you in the course!  Plus, Happy Holidays – a special discount is in store for you below!

CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO GO DIRECTLY TO THE COURSE AND GET 10% OFF!

HERE’S SOME SNAP SHOTS FROM INSIDE THE COURSE

CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO GO DIRECTLY TO THE COURSE AND GET 10% OFF!

About Author

Hi there! My name is Carrie and I'm a Watercolor Misfit! What's a Watercolor Misfit? Well, anyone who is willing to try new things and not afraid to get their hands covered in paint! So what do you say, are you a Misfit-ian?

3 Comments

  • Pat
    May 6, 2020 at 12:27 pm

    Hi. I am a beginner and your course seems very relevant. Can you confirm that the course covers using paint from pans. I think is different to get color water ratio from pans than from tubes, because from pan already there is water needed as first step.

    Reply
    • Misfit
      May 12, 2020 at 10:05 pm

      In the course, I only use tubes – since everyone starts from the same place. However, as you start to understand the paint to water ratios on your paper and palette – you can easily change to pans. I’ve had many students start with one tube paint – learn the ratios and then switch to their pan sets. Hope that helps :)

      Reply
  • Pat
    May 17, 2020 at 8:05 am

    Thank you! That makes sense! I am signing on! I like your approach to teaching, especially covering basic things. Essential to give confidence to beginners and shorten the trial and error!

    Reply

Leave a Reply