Traditional Coloring methods?

[Gidde]

Hi Zora, I totally understand how daunting watercolor can be!! (I've been using it a while and it's still scary to me).

My advice is to get one or more sponge(s) to do large areas, especially for a map, since they give a variable coloring rather than a flat wash. For my latest watercolor map I used a natural irregular sea sponge for the ocean. You get nice color variation if you mix a color, dab some with the sponge, then add a little of a different color to just slightly change the hue, dab again. The ocean in that one was a mix of blue and green for the base coat, then I added a bit more green, then I added a teeny bit of red to make a more blue-violet. For detail, get a really tiny brush (I used a 0/0 brush on that one for everything but the ocean) and always blot before painting anything (paper towel wrapping a roll of toilet paper works awesomely as a blotter), so you don't get a big blob of water on your map. I also keep a bunch of scrap paper around me so that I can test the color before I put it on the map for the first time after mixing, adding water, etc.

Edit: I kept the paper as dry as possible throughout, as well. If it started to get too wet, I stopped for the day and started again the next day. Wet-on-dry keeps the edges nice and crisp, and they layer rather than mixing right then and there.