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Hi, I am Wenting. I recently quit my job of seven years to build my start-up, Typogram, a logo design and editing tool for startup founder. We just launched our pre-order✨! Get a one brand lifetime license at a huge discount and edit your design forever.

Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart — it can be stressful! As startup founders, it is essential to have an outlet to lay back, relax, and destress. That outlet for me has been a mix of bird-watching and instrument-playing; I added watercolor to the list during the past long weekend.

Watercolor is not only a wonderful way to relax but also a great teacher of startup lessons! I learned four crucial startup lessons through watercolor:

For other painting mediums like acrylic and oil, there is this traditional wisdom that cautions against using pure white and pure black paint for objects. Because there is no darker shade than black and no lighter shade than white, you won't be able to paint a lighter highlight or darker shadow for that object. 

Similarly, in watercolor, because the paint is translucent, the lightest color will always be the paper's own white color. A key lesson in watercolor is to plan ahead your highlight area and leave it unpainted and dry so it is the lightest paper color (credit to Hua, who is a great painter). Unlike acrylic, where you can layer white paint on top of earlier strokes, watercolor is less forgiving — you can't undo what you have put on the paper, nor can you layer paint. It requires more planning; a pencil sketch is almost required for newbies like myself and is preferred for seasoned artists. 

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