Although Dai later came to specialize in brush-and-ink paintings of flowers and birds, he could never forget his fondness for watercolors. In fact, most of the rural scenes that he depicted were executed realistically using layering of watercolors. This gave his paintings great richness, lively subject matter, and made them close to life.
很明顯的，他對國畫和水彩特別偏愛，後來雖然專精水墨花鳥，但對水彩始終未能忘情，而他將鄉野情趣入畫也大量運用了寫生和水彩重疊技法，使得他的畫層次豐富，主題活潑，與生活相應。