Let's activate your watercolours!
One of the reasons I love watercolour paints is that you breathe life into your paints by just adding water. Wet your cake pan set with a wet brush, or spritz them with a spray bottle, or if you have some colours you’ve mixed that have dried, you can activate them by wetting them.
Mixing water with your watercolour paints seems like a simple thing but there are many ways to explore this. Have fun trying out different ratios of paint to water and see how it translates on the page.
Experiment and see what is your "goldilocks" paint to water ratio when you use your watercolours.
Here are some ways to play around once you've activated your watercolour paints:
1. Lots of water
Mix one colour with lots of water and see the results on the page. Using too much water may buckle your page, so make sure you use proper watercolour paper.
2. Very little water
Use a little water when mixing the paint and see how differently the paint behaves on the page. You may find you struggle to paint a large area but it's fun to play and see what happens.
3. Mix two colours together
See what happens when you try mixing two colours together and paint on the page. Expand the colours available to you in the set you have.
4. Swatch your colours
When you've activated all your colours, why not do a colour swatch of your paints? By painting each colour onto the page for future reference, you be able to see what colours you have once they've dried.
Enjoy playing around with your watercolour paints and seeing what ratio of water to pigment you most enjoy. Be curious to try new things to grow in your watercolour journey.
DOWNLOAD Getting Started With Watercolour Checklist from The Artful Library
READ this journal post for 30 fun warm-up exercises when you want to get creative