Stray watercolor droplets in the sky

Sometime when you are painting the odd tiny drop of watercolor paint will land on a light area of your painting like the sky. How can you fix this?

One way is to very quickly touch it with the tip of a tissue. Don’t press on it or you will push some of the paint into the underlying watercolor wash of the sky.

If you only notice it after the droplet has thoroughly dried then don’t worry as it is still very easy to fix and I often use this technique instead of what I suggested in the previous paragraph as I don’t like to be distracted from the particular wash I am working on to go and fix something. So now that the tiny droplet is dry what should I do?

Well one simple trick is to turn the droplet into something else, such as a bird shape. It is amazing how often these droplets appear in just the right spot for a bird or group of birds.

If you don’t what it there at all then what you need to do is to get a small, size siz or smaller, round watercolor brush with a very good point and dip it into water. They dry out most of the water in your brush with a towel or tissue. Then with the tip of your brush start rubbing the top of the droplet on you painting very lightly. Keep rubbing until it disappears. Sometimes you may need to touch (not press) the droplet lightly with a tissue and then repeat the process.

The trick is not to have too much water in your brush or you will dissolve the underlying layer of paint. You see the droplet is just sitting on top of the underlying sky wash – like a mini glaze – so if you only have enough water in you brush to dissolve the droplet and not more, then you will not affect the underlying watercolor wash layer.

Continue to: Watercolor problems: objects in wrong place