Examples of "Muddy" and Improved Color

Here are examples of muddy colors. The first is the shadow on a white petal (watercolor). Some of it is clean and reads pink or blue. However the many colors, including the grey of little identity makes the overall impression of the painting "muddy" or "grainy" or "dirty"

Repainted with definite thin glazes, the colors appear cleaner and still "read" shadow (or a grey).

Next, is a white shirt in shadow. Again, there are too many components of the grey and unclear warm/cool juxtapositions and it reads "muddy".

This painting was not repainted but was "repaired". This was accomplished by gently removing the color using a Winsor & Newton Series 7 number 2 brush, clean water and clean paper towels to lift the gently scrubbed color. Once the color was gone, it was repainted again with thin glazes of transparent rose madder OR cobalt blue with attention to where the cool was and where the warm was in the shadow.

Now even the white unshadowed part of the shirt looks cleaner!