I have the honor of offering feedback to students in Watercolor Community who submit their watercolor paintings to me to review. There is so much great work being done, and it is encouraging to see such dedication to the craft. 

But as I gain experience as a teacher, I am noticing patterns. I am seeing the same sorts of mistakes and missteps.  

So today, I'm going to talk about the top three mistakes that I see in watercolor paintings. If even one of these is something that you see that you think you can change, it's going to make a big difference in the result of your paintings.

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3 Common Mistakes I See in Students’ Paintings

1. Poor Brushwork

You might not think brush work is that important, but it absolutely is. It should be one of those skills that you're practicing in isolation (here's a practice exercise just for that purpose) because your brush work proficiency affects your whole painting. Not only does brush work keep our paintings looking fresh, but it goes a long way toward expressing your unique style.

Here are some of the most common mistakes that I see in student brush work:

• Using the same brush throughout the painting.

I see this often with beginner watercolorists. Often, they have a favorite brush that is pretty small, and they want to use this brush throughout the entire painting. The result is that there are small, repetitive marks in the foreground, the middle ground and the background. This makes the painting look cluttered and labored over. Instead, I recommend you use a large mop brush, a medium round brush, and then a smaller brush for your paintings.  

• Making the same brush mark over and over. 

Sometimes artists who are learning to paint watercolor don't realize all the different types of marks you can make with a brush. Experiment with your brushes. Push the brush around. Use the side of the brush, the top of the brush. Hold it toward the bottom, in the middle, and toward the top. There are so many different marks that you can make even with one brush. Once you see what all you can do, incorporate a diversity of brush strokes into your paintings. 

• Painting brush marks with no energy.

Another thing that you'll see in brush work is just no energy. Just little dabs of paint on the paper. Our brush marks can express a lot. You can see the energy that you're trying to portray. You can create atmosphere in your painting, and there's something very loose and free that can happen in your brush marks. But if you're holding a brush right up to the point, making that same small, repetitive mark, you're not going to feel any of that energy, and your painting is going to look very labored over and tight. 

So, to improve your brush marks, use a variety of brushes, practice making your marks with different parts of the brush, and infuse energy in your brush marks. If you can master this skill, you'll see it transform your paintings.

2. An Overworked Painting

When we don't achieve the right value with the right strength of paint, the tendency is to go over an area several times. But watercolor just doesn't look good when it's applied in this way. It turns out looking overworked and messy. We want to keep things as fresh and as spontaneous as we can.

Another hallmark of overworking your painting is having texture all over your painting with the same edge in the foreground, the middle ground and in the background of your scene. Not only does this feel overworked, but you lose the feeling of the depth in your scene. Edges are essential when creating depth, and you want to use it in a way that supports the composition of your painting. 

Typically, the further back that you go in the background, the less contrast and the softer edges you want to include. Texture and the contrast brings an area forward. When you don't have that juxtaposition, your whole painting will lack depth and look overworked. So include a variety of edges and save your soft edges for the background of the scene.

Another thing you'll notice in an overworked painting is a lack of focal point. You want your watercolor paintings to have a hierarchy within them that make it clear which part of the piece is most important.

When you give every area of your painting the same amount of importance - when you emphasize everything - you actually end up emphasizing nothing. 

So, when you take on a scene, think about what is the simple statement of the scene, what is the main point of the scene, and really hone in on that. Save the most saturation, the highest contrast, and the most narrow focus for that area of the painting. Everything else in your scene should relate back to and support that focal area.

The front of the stage shouldn't get all the attention. It should have enough interest to lead you into the middle area. And that's the main area of the stage where your main actors are. And the background of the painting should be just that. It should be the background. So we don't want to have too much emphasis on the background or it's going to compete with what is going on in the middle ground.

This will give your paintings a much clearer area of focus, which is so important.

3. Impatience 

It's natural to feel impatient sometimes - both for a painting to turn out and for our skill level to finally catch up to our taste for good art. 

Let's talk about both instances.

• Impatience When Creating a Specific Painting. 

It can be tempting to start a painting and really want it to look like something compelling right away. I especially have felt this when I've been out plein air painting and people are watching me. I want to jump ahead and skip important steps in my painting process. While this is understandable, it is not advisable. You've got to cultivate some patience when you're working through the three step process of painting a watercolor landscape. 

First, you want to work on the lights, then the mid-tones and, finally, the darks. If you get a little too impatient and you jump into your mid-tones in the first wash, you're going to have a disjointed, unorganized painting. The value structure will be off, and your painting will not work. So you have to remember what the plan is. Don't jump ahead. Stick to your game plan. 

• Impatience with the Watercolor Learning Process. 

Learning to paint watercolor is not something you can rush, and that can be difficult. We want to know how to do something right away, and if we struggle, then we feel like maybe it isn't for us. It's easy to get ahead of ourselves and get frustrated. But we have to remember that every painting that we do is an investment. It's an investment in you as a painter. And so all of the paintings you complete are little steps forward to where you know that you want to be.

I don't know any painter that feels like they have absolutely arrived and they don't have to put in the work anymore. All the artists that you admire, all the artists that are winning awards, they are all continuing to grow and evolve and put in the work and you have to do the same thing even more so when you're first getting started. So, if you can have a little more patience in each individual painting and in your overall learning, then you will stay on track and be happier with the results.

Isolating Skills for Overall Improvement

The mistakes I most commonly see in my students' work take time to refine, but one way you can speed up the learning process is to isolate skills and repeatedly practice implementing them. Focusing more on brush work exercises, creating depth, or practicing the three-step painting process on smaller pieces of watercolor paper will help you to really focus in on the elements you want to improve. When you spend your time honing in on particular skills, you see faster improvement in these areas and this progress will translate to your larger, more complete watercolor paintings.