9 Tips to Avoid Muddy Colours
Watercolour is the medium of light but there is a fine line between creating a beautiful and vibrant painting full of colour and detail and ending up with a dull and muddy mess.
What are muddy colours?
When we refer to muddy colours or ‘creating mud’ on our watercolour paintings we mean we have lost the vibrancy that watercolour paintings are renowned for. The colours on your painting might appear dull, lifeless or lacking in vibrancy. They just look …….meh.
How do you avoid making muddy colours when you paint with watercolour?
Choose the right paper
First, make sure the paper you’re using is of good quality. Choose 100% cotton watercolour paper. I mainly use Arches watercolour paper, but Fabriano Artistico is a good paper to use and Saunders Waterford is another paper I have used with success.
Invest in quality paint
The quality of the paint you are using will also affect the vibrancy and intensity of your colours. Investing in artist-grade paints is always worth it and will help you achieve better results. Artist-quality watercolour paints are typically made with a higher concentration of high-quality pigments, resulting in richer, more vibrant colours that are easier to mix and blend.
Don’t mix too many pigments together.
Each colour you use has a pigment code. Most colours have a single pigment but there are some that are made from a blend of pigments. Colours such as Indigo or Sepia are made from multiple pigments. When you mix, it’s best not to use more than three pigments in one mixture otherwise you risk mixing a dull, muddy colour.
The temperature of a colour affects mixing.
Yellow is a warm colour but there are warm yellows and cool yellows…….confusing right? I can see you scratching your head here.
There are also warm reds and cool reds and there are warm blues and cool blues.
The temperature of the colours we choose to mix together affects the mixture we create.
Green is a cool colour. If you mix a cool yellow with a cool blue you will get a vibrant green.
A cool blue and cool yellow make a vibrant green.
If you change the temperature of one of the colours, say use a cool blue and a warm yellow, the colour you mix will be much more subdued and not as vibrant.
That less vibrant colour might be perfect for what you want to do but it may not be as fresh and bright as you want it to be. So understanding the temperature bias of the colours you are mixing is really important.
A good tip I can give you is to work out the colours you want to use on your painting before you start and then do some colour swatching. Mix the colours you’ve chosen together in different ratios and make a little chart for yourself. If there are any colour mixtures that are jarring or dull - and they don’t appeal to you then maybe rethink your colour choices - it might have something to do with the temperature of the colours you have chosen.
Complementary Colours mix Grey
Complimentary colours, when mixed together make grey.
Complementary colours, when mixed together, make gorgeous greys. Complementary colours are those colours that are opposite one another on the colour wheel…. yellow and violet, red and green and blue and orange.
Sometimes if you mix them on your painting without realising you might get some grey areas that you don’t want, so be aware of that when you are painting.
Opaque Colours can Create Mud
Opaque colours may have a tendency to increase the risk of mixing a muddy or dull colour. When you mix an opaque colour into a watercolour mixture, it might make the mixture appear dull and less vibrant. The opaque pigments tend to overpower the transparent pigments.
Keep your palette clean
Some artists like to paint with a dirty palette- and that’s fine- they probably know what they’re doing. But if you are just starting out I think it’s a good idea to clean your palette between paintings. Doing that will minimise the chances of you dipping into colours that might muddy your fresh mixes.
Does dirty water make your paint mixes muddy?
My water container.
Some artists say it is important to keep your water clean when you paint in watercolour.
I’m not convinced that it is really important though. I don’t think that dirty water increases your chances of mixing muddy colours…….unless it’s super duper dirty.
I change my water if it’s dirty when I want to wet the white areas of the paper because I want to keep them pristine before I paint them and I don’t want dirty water leaving a tide mark anywhere.
I use a big bucket of water when I paint - the one pictured above holds over three litres. I often paint with a second container of water as well. When I’m mixing I’ll wash my brush in one of them and I’ll use the other one to wash out my brush between colours while I’m painting. If you are using a smaller water container it might be a good idea to replace it with fresh water from time to time (or use a larger one).
Make sure layers of paint are dry before you paint over them
Here is my final, and what I think is the most important, way to avoid making muddy paintings……drum roll, please!
Whenever you are painting you must make sure the previous layer is completely dry before you paint over it. As well as that, paint delicately - don’t use too many brushstrokes. Use a good size brush if you can so you can limit the number of times you paint over an area.
I think this is the major reason why a painting will become muddy…..because you fuss with it too much. You disturb those underlying layers because you’re dabbing at your paper too much with your brush.
I hope these tips were helpful. If you have any more let me know in the comments.
You can watch this video on muddy colours.
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