What looks wrong?
Medium
Subject
Symptoms tick any
Likely mistakes
13 matches- Dull, chalky colours from adding white gouache or too much water Partlyabout 20 min
- Skin tones that look pink or grey Rescueabout 20 min
- Copying every detail of a reference without simplifying Rescueabout 35 min
- Colour palette fights: unplanned mix of many chromas Rescueabout 30 min
- Local colour only: ignoring reflected light and temperature Rescueabout 25 min
- Shapes all similar in size Rescueabout 25 min
- Muddy colour from overmixing too many pigments Partlyabout 15 min
- Painting the next layer before the first is dry Partlyabout 20 min
- Subject has no focal point Rescueabout 20 min
- Washes too pale after drying Rescueabout 15 min
- Brushes too small leading to fussy detail Rescueabout 15 min
- Leaving no white paper: lights painted over Partlyabout 25 min
- Pencil lines showing and smeared under glazes Partlyabout 15 min
Dull, chalky colours from adding white gouache or too much water
“My colours look milky, dusty, and dead after I tried to lighten them.”
Cause
Traditional watercolour relies on white paper showing through transparent pigment to create light. Stirring white gouache or excessive white pigment into transparent watercolour scatters the light, producing an opaque, chalky finish.
30-second test
Hold the dry painting under strong direct lamp light; if the light passages look cloudy and opaque like dry plaster, they contain too much opaque white.
Can it be saved? Partly
Chalky paint can be partially lifted, but it often leaves an underlying cloudy haze that resists full restoration to luminous transparency.
Browse by cause
Most faults trace back to one of eight habits. Start here if you know what went wrong in your process, not what it looks like.
- ObservationDrawing what you think exists instead of what you see.28
- MeasuringProportion, angle and placement errors that checking would catch.17
- MaterialsPaper, paint, tools and how they behave.17
- Drying and timeWaiting, layer order and drying behaviour.8
- CompositionHow shapes sit on the page.15
- ColourMixing, temperature and saturation.22
- EdgesHard, soft and lost edges.12
- FinishingFinal stages, protection and presentation.10
Tools that run in your browser
- Proportion gridLay a grid and measuring lines over a reference photo to check where things sit.open
- Value squintTurn a photo or your own painting into 3, 5 or 9 tones to see whether the lights and darks hold.open
- Colour mud checkMix up to four swatches and see which pairs are likely to turn grey.open
- Drying timeTypical touch-dry and recoat times for each medium, with a time to check again.open
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129 mistakes, nine media
Every entry has a short description of the fault in the words artists use, a test you can do in half a minute, numbered fix steps, a verdict on whether it can be rescued, and a drill to stop it happening again. The full list can be filtered by rescue verdict and difficulty. Where a fix is a judgement call the page says so, and the sources behind the advice are listed.