August 16, 2026
How to find your own watercolor style
To find your own watercolor style, I use a 3-step technique on my own paintings instead of copying tutorials. First, ask yourself what you like in a painting, even one that didn't go as planned. Second, identify exactly which element creates that effect. Third, take that element as a hypothesis and test it in a new painting to see whether you can reproduce the effect.
Where does this technique come from?
I am a self-taught artist with an engineering background, so I was not meant at all to become a watercolor artist. I create my paintings without any tutorial and without any talent, and this technique is what allowed me to do it.
I used it again recently. It started with a photo taken by one of my students. At first I thought it would be fine, because I'm used to creating watercolor landscapes. My intention was to convey the summer mood. I wanted people to feel the warmth behind this picture. So I started with very warm colors. To create the shadow at the top, I went for cooler colors like ultramarine blue and cobalt turquoise. During this first wash, I also created the trees wet on wet to define them a little more.
When the first wash dried, I realized it wasn't at all what I expected. It didn't convey any heat. I wanted the light in one area, and I lost it. The final painting didn't send the message I had in mind.
What should you do when a painting doesn't match what you had in mind?
When I find myself with that kind of gap between what I have in mind and the painting I get, I tend to give up. I tell myself that I don't know how to paint, that it's ugly, that it isn't what I expected.
But watercolor has its own life, so we have to let it do its own stuff. If I had rejected what watercolor gave me here, I would have learned nothing.
A few days later, I had a painting session with my students. I told them: this painting isn't what I had in mind, but instead of considering it a failure because it didn't go as planned, we can ask ourselves what we like in it and what is working.
Step 1: What do you like in this painting?
This is the first step. Instead of blaming yourself for not succeeding, you ask: "Okay, this is something I don't like in this painting, but what do I like?"
You will identify an emotion, a mood, an atmosphere, or one part of the painting. In my case, the answer was the foggy atmosphere. It almost looked like an imaginary landscape.
Step 2: What exactly creates this effect?
The second step is the exact question I asked my students: now that we consider the foggy mood a good thing, what exactly conveys it?
They came up with several answers:
- There is some kind of fog in the painting.
- There are lights going through the trees.
- The shadow I first wanted to paint isn't really a shadow anymore, because the transition between the cool colors and the warm colors is much smoother than on the photo.
At this step, you will come up with something like: the colors play a huge role, or maybe the painting techniques, or the drawing, or, in our example, the trees in the first wash.
By identifying exactly what conveys the mood, you are no longer in a failure mindset. You are in a learning mindset.
Step 3: How do you test your hypothesis?
The last step is to take one element as a hypothesis and test it by trying to reproduce the effect.
In this painting, I created small trees with soft edges wet on wet in the first wash. Maybe those trees were part of the foggy atmosphere. So in the workshop, I replicated my first wash without creating the trees in it. This isolates the hypothesis:
- If the foggy atmosphere is still there, the trees in the first wash didn't play an important role.
- If the foggy atmosphere doesn't work, the trees in the first wash play a huge role.
Then I added the trees afterwards and looked at the result.
We tested a second hypothesis: maybe the colors played a huge role in the foggy atmosphere. So we tried another color combination. The students suggested pinkish colors. I painted the first wash, then the trees with the shadows. I find we have less of the foggy effect in this painting, so the colors probably play a big role in it.
You filter through one hypothesis, then a second one, and in the end you come up with something like: "If I want to create a foggy effect, maybe I should use these colors instead of those."
Why is this better than copying tutorials or relying on luck?
Often we rely too much on what I call watercolor's luck: the way watercolor can create beautiful marvels in no time. If you don't know how to reproduce those marvels, they remain watercolor's luck. It's very difficult to find your own style based solely on luck.
What you need is to find the exact elements that trigger the emotion, the "wow, this is exactly what I wanted to create." Then you can replicate or recycle what you find into your future paintings.
When you copy another master's watercolor painting, you don't know exactly what really worked and what you could have replaced with your own techniques. By analyzing your own paintings, you bring awareness to your own way of painting, and you find new ways of painting that are truly yours. This is exactly what allowed me to find my own watercolor style without copying any watercolor tutorial.
FAQ
What if my test doesn't reproduce the effect?
It doesn't necessarily mean the element doesn't play a role, because sometimes the execution is not exactly the same as the first try. But often I found that those elements weren't as relevant as I thought.
Do I need a successful painting to use this technique?
No. I started from a painting I was disappointed with. The technique works precisely because you look for what you like in a painting that didn't go as planned.
How many times should I repeat the 3 steps?
You iterate. By repeating this 3-step process with one hypothesis after another, you set yourself up to find your own watercolor style.
If you want to finally create on your own, with a proven system instead of copying tutorials, this is exactly what you'll find here 👇
Discover The Loose Watercolor System