Mindfultober 2025 is here! For our very first prompt, Sky, we’re slowing down and letting watercolour do its magic by creating soft, beautiful gradients.

Sky can mean so many things – but for me, ‘Sky’ often makes me think of the incredible gradients that nature manages to create every day, effortlessly. This tutorial will guide you through creating a calm, relaxing gradient wash inspired by this, focusing on the process, not the outcome.

Whether you’re brand-new to watercolour or an experienced painter, this mindful approach will help you create something lovely while giving you a moment to breathe, slow down, and enjoy the act of painting.

Why Mindful Gradients?

Despite the fact that I’ve done it a lot, and taught classes on it, I still find that painting watercolour gradients using traditional techniques can sometimes feel a bit stressful – it’s easy to get caught up in making a “perfect” smooth blend.

In this tutorial, we’re ditching that idea. Instead of rushing to cover the paper with water and paint quickly, or worrying about making perfect transitions, you’ll be using small, repetitive brush strokes while letting the water and pigment work together naturally. The results may not be as smooth as traditionally painted gradients, but I guarantee they will leave you feeling more relaxed.

This makes the process:

• Relaxing – the repetitive motion is soothing and meditative, and
• Beginner-friendly – no pressure to get it “just right.”

What You’ll Need

• Watercolour paper (taped down to prevent buckling)
• Two watercolour paints in your chosen colours
• A small or medium size brush (not a big wash brush!) – this helps you slow down and enjoy the process.
• Two jars of water: one for rinsing paint, one for clean water.
• A mixing palette.

Step-by-Step Mindful Watercolour Gradient Tutorial:

Step 1: Tape down your paper

Start by taping your watercolour paper down.
This stops the paper from buckling too much as you work and – bonus points – helps you get a nice, crisp white border once you remove the tape.

Step 2: Choose and activate your colours

Decide on two colours that speak to you today.

• Place a few drops of clean water into each paint pan to activate the pigment.
• Let them sit for a minute or two while you do the next step.

Step 3: Mindfully wet your paper

Using your small brush, slowly wet the entire surface of your paper with gentle, repetitive strokes.

Instead of rushing, focus on the soothing motion of your brush moving across the page. You want the paper to be shiny and damp, but not a puddle.

Step 4: Prepare your colours

Once the paper is damp:

1. Mix each paint colour with a little clean water in your palette.
2. Create a third, mixed colour by combining the two main shades in equal parts.

You should now have three colours ready for painting with.

Step 5: Paint the top of your paper

Load up your brush with whichever colour you want to paint with first (one of your two original colours, not the mixed one) and make small, vertical strokes along the top of the paper.

Don’t worry about covering the paper perfectly – this is about enjoying the feeling of putting brush to paper and watching how the paint moves on the wet surface.

Step 6: Paint the middle section of the page

Rinse your brush, and load it with your mixed colour. Leaving a small gap, repeat the process along the middle of the paper.

At this stage, you’ll have two distinct colour areas with a small blank space in the middle.

Step 7: Paint the bottom of the page

Use your second original colour to paint the bottom of the page again leaving a small gap between this and the middle section

Optional: If you’d like deeper, richer edges, you can add a little extra concentrated pigment directly from the pan at this stage, adding it to the very top and very bottom of the page.

Step 8: Paint the top intermediate section

Create an intermediate colour by mixing some of the mixed colour into the first colour you painted with. Make sure to add the mixed colour into the pure colour and not the other way around!

Use this colour to fill in the top gap, using the same small vertical strokes.

Step 9: Paint the bottom intermediate section

Create a second intermediate colour by mixing some of the mixed colour into the bottom colour you painted.

Use this colour to fill in the lower gap, using the same small vertical strokes.

Step 10: Let it dry

While you can speed this up with a hairdryer or heat tool, you’ll get better results (in my opinion) if you just let it air dry naturally. And as your painting dries, the colours will soften and merge, smoothing out a lot of the more stark lines and colour transitions.

What you could do while you wait is paint another one…

See a Real Time Example

You can watch my real-time example of this approach here – it’s about 22 minutes long:

Taking It Further

Watercolour has huge potential as a medium for mindful art, and I have a whole class full of different mindful art activities if you’d like to take this further:

A Mindful Approach to Practicing Watercolor: Values, Palettes & Brush Control

Final Thoughts

I think creating mindful watercolour gradients like this is a great way to slow down, relax, and embrace the joy of painting without pressure. Remember this is about process not outcome. It’s about the soothing feeling of brush on paper, watching colours mingle, and giving yourself a few moments of calm.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with this. If you do try it out, let me know what you think of it in the comments below!

Happy painting – and happy Mindfultober!