Watercolor Supplies 101

Are you interested in trying watercolors but feel overwhelmed by the supplies?

Have you tried to buy watercolor paints and in your search you discovered they come various forms and at a wide range of price points?  Did you walk away overwhelmed and more confused than ever (and still without any watercolors)?

Are you wondering why you need a certain type of paintbrush for watercolors instead of just using what you already have for your other types of paints?

Do you wonder if you should buy ‘cold pressed’ paper or ‘hot pressed’ paper?  What about 100 percent cotton paper, not to mention the ‘weight’ of each kind of paper?

If you answered yes to one or all of these questions, you are not alone!  Furthermore, you’ve come to the right place.  I’ve been there before, and have helped countless others get clear clarification on which watercolors supplies one needs and why.

Without further ado, let’s dive into watercolor supplies 101!

Paints

Let me start with three reasons I love watercolor paints:

1. watercolor paints can be reconstituted (unlike acrylics), so there is hardly ever any waste.
2. You can rinse your paint water right down the sink when using watercolors (unlike acrylics).
3. There is something magical about the paint reacting to the water on the paper that is dynamic and beautiful.

Okay, let’s talk about watercolor paints!

Watercolor paints come in tubes, pans or half pans (half the size of a pan), and sometimes ‘cakes‘.  The pic below shows some of my paints in these forms:

I want to demystify this right way.  Pans and ‘half pans’ are just tube paints squeezed into a little plastic ‘pans’ and allowed to dry.  You could buy tubes and make your own pans if you so choose.  I’ve done that a lot!  It really doesn’t matter which one of these you choose, just personal preference.

Pros for Pans: Pans generally come in a nice little tin with a built in mixing palette, and a lid.  Having the lid really helps keep dust and pet hair out of your paints, and makes them perfect for travel.  These types of watercolor paints come in ready made palettes which is really nice, especially as a beginner.

Pros for Tubes: Watercolor paint in tubes allows you to create your own palette.  I use little ceramic palettes for this (see below).  You also get more paint per color with the tubes.  If you are a prolific painter or want to paint very large paintings, then tubes are for you!

Cakes are generally cheaper and not good quality.  I’ve found that many have a chalky feel.  This doesn’t mean don’t use them!  They have their place.  I cannot pass up a huge set of beautifully colored watercolor cakes for $7.99 (like the one on the left in the pic above).  These are just fine If I’m just playing in my sketchbook or journal.  If you just have to get one of these sets like I did, don’t use them for finished pieces that will go on a wall as they will fade immediately.

My recommendation is to get a good tin of half-pans.  Get used to these paints and what colors you like and then you can buy tubes to refill your pans as you run out of your favorite colors.

Brands

The top brands in watercolor paints are, Daniel Smith, Winsor and Newton, Qor (made by Golden), and Schmincke (super duper expensive!).  There are others, but these are the ones you will hear named most often by watercolor artists, especially the first two.

You might be wondering what the difference is between less expensive paints and brand name professional grade watercolor paints.

The difference is pigment to binder ratio and lightfastness.

Lightfastness is how well the paint to holds up when exposed to sunlight.   High quality watercolor paints have excellent lightfastness, and way more pigment than binders.  Furthermore, the binders used in professional grade paints are higher quality, some even use honey.

Bottom line: If you are creating art to hang on a wall, use good quality paints like the brands mentioned above.  If you are playing in an art journal and/or will be scanning your artwork to use digitally, you can get away with less expensive paints.

Recommendations

This is a great ‘student grade ( a little lesser quality than professional grade, but still great quality and used by many artists!) watercolor set by Winsor and Newton for an excellent price.  It has all the colors you would need for most anything you’d want to paint and of course you can mix these to make any new color you want.  I use Winsor and Newton Cotman watercolors on the regular.

For any kind of tube watercolors, you’ll need a palette to put them in with wells to add water and mix them up.  I keep several of these little ceramic flower palettes at the ready:

It is important to keep a set of watercolor brushes set aside for watercolor only.  Watercolor brushes are generally softer, and are designed to hold water and paint, while acrylic brushes are stiffer, thus suited for thicker paints.

A good watercolor brush is ’snappy’ (keeps its shape) and will last you years. Stay far away from the cheap zone with brushes as the cheap brushes leave hairs in your work and fall apart easily.

Small size (2) for details and fine lines.

Paper

Here’s what to look for:

Recommendation

To recap, here are the best basic supplies to get your watercolor practice going in the right direction:

1. A set of Winsor & Newton Cotman half pans and a ceramic palette.
2. Princeton Heritage watercolor brushes in sizes 2, 4, and 8.
3. Arches cold pressed 140lb 100% cotton watercolor paper.

Once you get the right supplies, the next step is to set them up properly.  I’ve got you!  Check out this post: How To Set Up Watercolor Supplies

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