Photographing your paintings

Now I did the search bit on here but I didn't come up with anything to do with this query, or is it a query or a problem? :-S For a few year now I've been trying to take good quality photos of my paintings with only moderate success and just about passable. The question I would like to put towards all those excellent brain cells on here is what do you do? 8-) I've tried scanning a less than A4 watercolour (my main medium) and this seems ok....ish but but the passing scan of light very often washes out the colour and creates a tint to the paper, irrespective of altering the settings. The camera I use and not a professional one, sadly my puny waterboard meter reading wage doesn't stretch that far, is a FujiFilm HS20 EXR. This is a very good 'bridge' camera so not the professional £2500 type but the £250 sort, excellent for bird photos with the 30x zoom! Do any wise persons on here have any idea on manual camera settings under natural light, no matter what I try all the whites of the paper always seem yellowed and with the flash they are washed out. So come on, brains, ideas and expertise is the order of the day so if you can advise then I am all ears, all three of them Now I'm confused.com! :-)