Why We Paint in Watercolor: The Psychology Behind the Medium
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you buy something we may possibly get a small commission at no extra cost to you.
When I started a little sunflower painting recently, I began with two simple words: What if?
What if I don't bother to do any drawing when I start?
What if I just put in the shapes with water?
What if I use my flat brush which has that square edge instead of my typical round?
This what if game is actually a really fun way to start a painting, and it reminded me of one of the very best reasons why we paint—and specifically, why we paint in watercolor.
Want to see?
Watch the full painting process and hear more about why we paint in watercolor:
Watercolour Painting is Problem-Solving from Start to Finish
The what if game does something important: it wakes up the problem-solving part of our brain. And that, I think, is one of the best things about painting.
Watercolor painting really is problem-solving from start to finish. We have something that we want to paint and we're solving the basic problem of how to capture that on a two-dimensional surface with whatever materials we've chosen.
This ability to answer questions and solve problems is just a human superpower. It's something we did so well when we were children. But the more adulting we do, the less we kind of trust our ability to do this.
So painting is such a fantastic way to remind ourselves at just how good we are at solving problems.
Why Watercolor is One of the Best Choices
I think watercolor is one of the best things you can choose to do this because watercolor, as you probably know, is often said to have a mind of its own.
And this is one of my favorite things about it because it means that watercolor is an active participant when we're doing a fun little painting. It's going to do all sorts of its own things.
Some of the choices I made that morning with my sunflowers—like starting with water and using a bigger, flatter brush—are all things that are going to encourage watercolor to do something that's perhaps a little bit unexpected. And that's going to make it even more fun for me to solve the problem of how do I turn these marks on the page into something that reminds us of sunflowers.
The Beauty of Unpredictability
When you're working with watercolor, depending on how quickly your paint is drying on your page and how thick the paint is that you're applying with the second color, you're going to have different results as far as the running together of the colors. I love it when the colors run together a little bit.
Of course, I'm also solving that basic problem of trying to have enough distinct shapes to show that this is actually a stem and not part of the petals and so on. But that's where the fun lies.
When you first ask yourself questions like "what if I start with no drawing" and "what if I put in the water first," inevitably there will be some answers that come—your brain will start trying to solve that problem. But one of the other things it does is start asking a whole lot of other questions too, like "oh what if you don't get the shapes right" or "what if you put the flowers in the wrong place."
Where You Get to Trust Yourself
I've come to think that even this is one of the reasons why we paint and why we paint in watercolor—because it's where you get to trust yourself to make the best of it.
Trust yourself to try something out. If something doesn't work out that well, you'll be able to come up with a solution. And if not, we also get to remind ourselves that it's just a piece of paper. It actually doesn't matter all that much. If it doesn't work out, we'll just find another piece of paper and start again.
And this, I think, is another one of the most valuable reminders that watercolor painting offers us: the reminder that most things are not quite as serious as we make them out to be. And most of the time, we are more competent than we give ourselves credit for.
When you're painting, it's a chance to demonstrate to yourself that you can make a decision with responding to whatever happens on the page and make the most of it. And that even if you don't, you'll have had a rather marvelous time and enjoyed the process all the same.
There's Never Really Anything Wrong
Sometimes you find that the thing that is in the wrong place—and I'm putting air quotes around the word "wrong" because there's never really anything wrong—it's more a case of being less preferred.
Sometimes if you've put a petal at an odd angle or made a shape that looks a little bit awkward, that's going to end up being the flower that looks more lively and stops the painting from looking stiff and overworked. So sometimes when we let go a little bit, when we loosen up a little bit, we actually make the paintings that are more enjoyable to do and more enjoyable to look at.
Loosening up my painting style has been one of the things that really changed watercolor painting for me and made it so much more enjoyable.
Want to Paint Sunflowers in Watercolor?
Sunflowers are such a happy thing to paint, and particularly in watercolor. If you're in a bad mood, you've got to try painting a sunflower—it's sure to perk you up a bit!
If you love the idea of painting sunflowers in watercolor, I do have a whole class on that. It actually comes from my membership, and you can get the whole class and the whole library from the membership by joining us in the Happy Painters Hub.
But I also have a special offer the sunflowers class as a standalone, one-off class for those who want to dive deep into these cheerful blooms.
🌻 Click here to find out more about the Sunflowers in Watercolour Class 🌻
The Joy of Experimentation in Watercolor
As I worked on my sunflowers, I kept asking myself new questions. What if I add something else to fill in the spaces? I'd been using a big brush—what if I change to my small brush and use that to capture different brush marks that are going to suggest a different type of flower?
I swapped to the rigger, which has very long bristles, and that makes it quite expressive. It's really rather fun to just let that brush dance about a bit and create the suggestion of a different type of flower that might be a filler included with these sunflowers.
Even deciding not to paint a vase was part of the what if game. What if I did a painting that let me leave out the bits I don't feel like painting? In this case, the vase.
Isn't it marvelous to be able to do these experiments and play with color all at the same time? Honestly, I don't understand why everybody doesn't want to do watercolor painting because it is so very much fun.
Collaboration, Not Control of Watercolour
I love this idea of painting being more of a collaboration between you and your watercolour supplies rather than some sort of wrestling match where you're trying to be in complete control and dictating everything that goes on.
I love the idea that between you and the colours and the brushes and the paper, you're going to create something delightful and it's going to be delightful to make and might be quite fun to look at, but that's really not the point.
The Magic of Layering Watercolour
One of the things I like is for all the parts of the painting to kind of talk to each other. And one of the ways to get that to happen is to be using the same colors throughout.
Watercolor is really good at layering because one of its key characteristics is that it is usually quite transparent. This varies across the colors, but my favorite ones and the ones I tend to choose the most are the transparent ones.
When I decided to add a little bit of orange into my yellow sunflowers, I had a chance to play with figuring out how dry my original painting was. If it's dry enough, I can put the next color on top as a kind of glazing layer and you'll still be able to see the other color come through underneath.
Of course, you can also do a different kind of layering. It's almost not like layering if you're working wet into wet because the colors will be able to kind of mix together and form their own new version of the color. You're going to get both colors combined again but in a completely different way.
That's another reason why watercolor is so amazing. You're combining the colors in different ways—either in dry layers or wet into wet—and you get completely different effects.
All of This Started with "What If"
None of the experimenting with the layering and the adding the colors would have been possible if I didn't start by asking myself all of those what-if questions in the first place.
Which brings me back to my point of what a wonderful game this what if game is, and just how good we used to be at it. It's something that I think we really can easily recapture no matter how much adulting we've ended up doing, and how much that adulting has dulled our ability to just play and have fun.
Because it's when we do that—when we play and have fun—that we actually tap into a whole lot of skills that we probably don't even realize that we actually have.
Reclaiming Your Creative Confidence with Watercolour
The more adulting we do, the less we trust our ability to solve problems creatively. We second-guess ourselves. We worry about getting things "right." We take things too seriously.
Watercolor painting offers us a gentle way back to that childlike confidence. Every brushstroke is an experiment. Every color mix is a small adventure. Every painting is proof that we can make decisions, respond to what happens, and create something from nothing.
And even when a painting doesn't turn out the way we hoped? We've still had a rather marvelous time. We've still exercised our problem-solving skills. We've still reminded ourselves that most things are not quite as serious as we make them out to be.
That's the real psychology behind why we paint in watercolor. It's not just about creating pretty pictures—though that's a lovely bonus. It's about reconnecting with our innate ability to play, experiment, trust ourselves, and solve problems with creativity and joy.
So the next time you sit down with your watercolors, try starting with those two little words: What if?
You might be surprised at just how good you are at finding the answers.
Are you on your own painting journey?
One of these might be useful…
Keep on reading…
