Glazing is the process of layering colors on top of each other AFTER they are dry.
Watercolors are naturally transparent so think of glazing as layering colored glass sheets on top of one another.
You can layer two different colors on top of each other to create a whole new color.
Some watercolors are naturally more transparent than others. Usually, yellows are SUPER transparent while some dark blues and barely transparent.
I’ll say it again, and again - experiment with your watercolors! You won’t know what the colors do until you try it out.

How to do a glazing technique (and how it can go wrong):
- Mix a 80/20 color to water ratio in your palette.
- Apply color to you paper in blobs, stripes, or one big square - up to you! I did squiggly stripes for my example.
- The most important part: WAIT FOR IT TO DRY. If you’re as impatient as I am, this can be the hardest part of watercoloring. As a pro tip, you can use a hairdryer to super-speed up the process.
- Mix the second color in your palette. I’m using yellow to show you it’s transparency!
- Apply the yellow color over the first color. I’m running yellow stripes perpendicular to the first color so I can see the differences.

My first stripe of color wasn’t quite dry enough before I layered on the yellow stripes. When you don’t wait long enough, the first color can bleed into the second (like the wet on wet, dry paper technique).

The second two stripes were better as they dried completely!

Play around with different color combos - just make sure it’s dry before you keep layering!

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