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Wash Painting Technique: The Essential Guide to Creating Washes in Acrylic and Oil


What is a Wash?

What is a wash, and what is it used for? Even more interestingly, how to create a wash?


Discover the answers to these questions in this article.


What is a Wash in Painting?

A wash is a technique for applying "washed-out" paint, meaning paint that has been heavily diluted to create a translucent effect, and is applied directly onto the canvas or surface.

The wash can be a solid color or a gradient of one or several colors.


Sleeping Nude (pen & ink and wash on paper) - Victor Hugo
Sleeping Nude (pen & ink and wash on paper) - Victor Hugo




Chang Feng
Chang Feng

What is a Wash Used For?

A wash is often used simply to cover the white of the canvas with color.


It’s also useful for quick sketches, studies, and preparatory drawings with a brush.


You can use the wash technique to create your sketch on the canvas, allowing you to place your subject, add shadows and highlights, and check your composition all in one go.


Because this layer of paint is very diluted, it dries faster, making it easy to apply the next layer quickly.


You can also paint over a wash that hasn’t fully dried.









How to Create a Wash in Painting

A wash is a color that has been diluted, thinned out, and applied in fine translucent layers. Each new layer subtly changes the tone and hue of the previous one through its transparency.


A wash is often done with a single color that is diluted to varying degrees to achieve different intensities—essentially "washing out" the color. White areas are created by leaving parts of the surface unpainted.

Lighter colors are achieved by covering the surface less fully.



How to Create a Wash with Acrylic Paint

To create an acrylic wash, use water and/or a fluid medium to dilute acrylic color.

Start by dipping your brush in water or fluid medium and picking up a small amount of paint. Mix water or medium and paint on your palette until you achieve the desired level of dilution and transparency. If you want a darker or more intense color, reduce the amount of water or medium.


Important! Be mindful of the amount of water you use for dilution. Too much water can affect the integrity of the paint. Excessive water will prevent the pigments from bonding well with the surface, as there won’t be enough polymer emulsion to make them adhere.

If you need more dilution, you can combine water with fluid medium to avoid compromising the paint's integrity.



Jean-Hubert Fragonard, L’Heureux Moment, ou La Résistance Inutile, vers 1770-1775, lavis de bistre sur préparation à la pierre noire, rehauts d’aquarelle, 22.9×34.8cm, Musée d’art de Philadelphie
Jean-Hubert Fragonard, L’Heureux Moment, ou La Résistance Inutile, vers 1770-1775, lavis de bistre sur préparation à la pierre noire, rehauts d’aquarelle, 22.9×34.8cm, Musée d’art de Philadelphie

How to Create an Wash with Oil Paint

To create an oil wash, use solvent or mineral spirits to dilute the color.

Dip your brush in the solvent, pick up a small amount of color, and mix them on your palette until you achieve the desired level of dilution and transparency.

Adjust the amounts of solvent and paint in your mixture to create different intensities of tone. For a darker or more intense color, reduce the amount of solvent or add a bit more paint. Test the effect on your surface to see the results.


Victor Hugo (1802-1885). « La Durande ». Plume et lavis d’encre brune et noire, gouache sur papier vélin. Paris, maison de Victor Hugo.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885). « La Durande ». Plume et lavis d’encre brune et noire, gouache sur papier vélin. Paris, maison de Victor Hugo.




Artist Notebook

This notebook will save you time and prevent you from wasting paint

  • note the exact colors you used for each of your art works,

  • keep all your color recipes together, so you never forget them,

  • keep all your inspirational photos and images with artist name and website information in one place for fast and easy reference.


So stop wasting time and paint trying to remember how to recreate a colour.

Get this practical artist's notebook, created by an artist for artists.


This notebook helps you free your mind of these details so you can concentrate on your creativity.


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You can use these link depending on your location:



Grid method for drawing free guide

How to enlarge all your drawings to scale without doing any calculations



How to guide to enlarge your drawings to reproduce a subject on a canvas with precision, without knowing how to draw and without having to take out your calculator.









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