Choose soft colors, such as earth tones and pastels, for your palette. Keep a large pile of white and brown on the palette, to blend with the colors you plan to put on the canvas. Blend brown paint with any dark colors, and white paint with any light colors you paint on the canvas, in order to create a soft color palette for your piece.
Thin the paint you plan to apply to the canvas by dipping your paintbrush in water before dipping the brush in paint. Swirl the paint and water around on the palette so that the paint is less goopy.
Apply the paint to the canvas in thin, slighly watery layers that run together on the canvas. Use a dry brush to soften the lines between colors.
Build paint on the canvas slowly, in thin layers, repeating steps 2 and 3 until the canvas is completely covered and the painting is finished.