Materials For Watercolor Painting

In General

Shopping for watercolor painting materials can be overwhelming, especially if you are starting from scratch.

It takes a minimal number of items to paint in watercolor - paint, paper and brushes along with a palette which will hold the paint and provide an area to mix paint and water together. A few additional supplies will make things easier but in all, one does not need to invest in a great deal of material, especially at first.

Most artists love browsing art supply stores and art catalogs for all the wonderful supplies and materials.  However, restraint is the key, especially if you are diving into watercolor for the first time.  A relative few colors, a small handful of brushes and a single brand of professional quality paper will serve you well for a very long time.  

No matter whether you are starting new or supplementing an existing set, there are two goals for the shopping : KEEP IT SIMPLE - BUY PROFESSIONAL.

You are better off starting with professional grade materials - especially paint, brushes and paper. Professional grade materials are pricey so keeping it simple will help minimize the cost.

For everything other than paint, brushes an paper - bargain shopping is okay.

This Materials For Watercolor Painting download offers specific suggestions on all the materials you’ll need. Find some general guidelines on the most critical materials - paper, paint and brushes - below.

Paint

Paint is one of the two materials that gradually diminish over time. The more you paint, the faster it disappears. It also happens to be the single most costly of all. There are many reasons to use professional grade - aka artists grade - paint; they are permanent, light-fast, have color strength and offer the fullest range of other characteristics like granulation and opacity. They are also more likely to help you produce better paintings.

Simplicity should be the guiding principle in the selection of colors, especially for beginners. Working with a limited number of colors from the start will help you develop a sensitive eye for color and lead to exceptional color mixing skills.  

Grades Of Watercolor Paint

Watercolor paint comes in two grades - Student and Professional.  The biggest difference between the two is that there is more pigment and less binder in professional grade paint. 

There is one other important difference - student grade paint colors are often manufactured with less expensive pigments. Because of this, student grade paints with familiar names often look and work very differently from their professional grade counterparts. Many student grade paints will be labeled with the word “Hue”. What this means is that a manufacturer has created a color with a similar look and similar working characteristics, but with less expensive chemical pigments.   

Paper

This is another material on which it is best not to try and save money.

There are many brands of watercolor paper on the market. Some are lower quality student grades and others are higher quality professional grades. 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Saunders-Waterford 140lb Cold Press

As it is with watercolor paint, the working properties of watercolor paper can vary widely from one manufacturer to another.  It is best to start and progress with a paper that helps, rather than hinders you. Saunders paper is moderately absorbent – an important factor in wash and fluid control – and will stand up to a good bit of work and re-work.  The best way to minimize the cost is to buy paper by the full sheet (22” x 30”) and cut or tear them to a workable size – 11” x 15” (quarter sheet) or smaller.  

If you are just beginning, a moderately absorbent paper with a cold press surface is best. It will help you manage the wet and fluid washes that are absolutely necessary in watercolor painting. 
Many beginning watercolor painters start out working on those rather popular watercolor paper pads found in most art supply shops. While relatively inexpensive, readily available and convenient, their surfaces have a heavy application of sizing that seriously affects the papers’ working properties. On these papers, the sizing keeps most of the water and color on the surface.  For someone new to watercolor, the results can be surprising, unpredictable, and frustrating. 

Brushes

A handful quality synthetic or synthetic/natural blend brushes are really all that are needed to do the trick.  There are many quality brushes made by many different manufacturers.  The most important characteristics in watercolor brushes are water absorption, springiness and, for rounds, coming to a fine point at the tip. Brushes called “white sable” (which is really synthetic white nylon) or “golden nylon” are good choices to start with, as they generally combine the best characteristics of natural hair brushes at moderate cost. 

Start with three rounds, two flats and a rigger.

Large Round - Larger than 18

Medium Round - #16 or #14

Small Round - #8 or #10

1 1⁄2” Flat

1⁄2” or 3⁄4” Flat

Rigger

Stick with brushes from these brands, at least at the start: Escoda, Isabey, Loew-Cornell, Princeton, Raphael, Richeson,  Robert Simmons, Winsor-Newton