Art 108: Making Watercolor Darker or Bolder

Your questions, answered

I had a very good question from Julia about a color that I’ve used a lot over the years, Daniel Smith Neutral Tint, which you can mix with any color to make it darker. This is a great excuse to talk about other ways to make a color darker or bolder.

Mix a complement: First, this post on color mixing talks about mixing a color with its complement (the color opposite it on the color wheel) to de-saturate it. You can often make a darker, or more shadowy, version of a color by mixing a complement.

Use richer, thicker paint: Are you looking for darker color, or bolder color? These are not exactly technical terms. But ask yourself whether you want the shadowy version of a color, or just richer, deeper, and more vibrant color. I’ll show you below how simply using less water and making a richer mixture of paint will give you a darker value of the same hue. (also, as always: the quality of the paper matters here. Definitely use paper that says it’s for watercolor, and better paper gets you ri…