Diagnose / Causes / Colour
Colour mistakes
Mixing, temperature and saturation.
- Colour drying lighter or darker than wet swatchGouache. Tones that looked balanced on the palette dry significantly darker or lighter on paper. Rescue
- Colours muddy from over-brushing on a tacky layerAcrylic. The paint film looks torn, dull, and lumpy rather than smooth. Rescue
- Greens that look the same: one tube green for all foliageWatercolour. Foliage throughout the entire picture has an identical, artificial tone, resembling plastic turf. Rescue
- Muddy colour from overmixing too many pigmentsWatercolour. The wash appears brown, dull, and murky rather than clean and vibrant. Partly
- Muddy mixes from too many colours on the paletteOil. Colours across the canvas look lifeless, murky, and homogenised. Rescue
- Re-wetting layers lifting colour beneathGouache. Applying a fresh brushstroke re-activates dry paint below. Rescue
- Skin with airbrush look, no structureDigital. The face lacks bony landmarks, crisp planar shifts, and sharp cast shadows. Rescue
- Washes too pale after dryingWatercolour. The painting lacks deep shadows, and tones appear uniformly milky or light. Rescue
- Atmospheric depth missing: no value shift in distanceDigital. Distant hills, buildings, or horizons feature jet-black darks and crisp contrasts equal to foreground elements. Rescue
- Colour palette fights: unplanned mix of many chromasAny medium. The painting features high-intensity, pure pigment across every corner without a clear dominant hue. Rescue
- Colour picking everything from photos, producing a muddy compositeDigital. The colour transitions feel random, dull, and speckled. Rescue
- Colours oversaturated, with too much on one layerDigital. The hues sit near the top-right corner of the digital colour picker, creating intense, harsh saturation across the whole image. Rescue
- Distance not shifting cooler and lighterOil. The background landscape elements appear too close, harsh, and loud. Rescue
- Dull, chalky colours from adding white gouache or too much waterWatercolour. The translucent glow typical of watercolour is lost, replaced by a pasty, opaque film. Partly
- Flat skin with no temperature changeAcrylic. The face appears as a uniform, plastic surface with no living variation. Rescue
- Local colour only: ignoring reflected light and temperatureAny medium. The object is painted using only its local hue mixed with black for shadow and white for highlight. Rescue
- Opaque pigments chalking with whiteAcrylic. Colours mixed with titanium white appear chalky, dull, and cold. Rescue
- Skin looks chalky from heavy white pastelPastel. The face has lost its natural warmth and translucency, appearing greyish or powdery like plaster. Partly
- Skin looks dead: no colour variation in the shadowsOil. The shadow areas on the face resemble cold grey clay rather than living tissue. Rescue
- Skin tones that look pink or greyWatercolour. The face looks either harshly crimson and doll-like, or dirty and drained of life. Rescue
- Sky painted with one flat bluePastel. The sky has been filled in with a single uniform shade of blue from top to bottom. Rescue
- Granulating or staining pigment lifting unpredictablyWatercolour. Lifting colour leaves harsh stains, rough paper fibres, or uneven blotches rather than a clean, light plane. Partly
Other causes
- ObservationDrawing what you think exists instead of what you see.
- MeasuringProportion, angle and placement errors that checking would catch.
- MaterialsPaper, paint, tools and how they behave.
- Drying and timeWaiting, layer order and drying behaviour.
- CompositionHow shapes sit on the page.
- EdgesHard, soft and lost edges.
- FinishingFinal stages, protection and presentation.