Choosing Good Quality Supplies for Watercolour Painting
Painting with watercolour can be so much fun and very satisfying, especially when you know a few simple tips to help you get started and help you create the effects you’d like to achieve. Here’s some information and tips to help you on the right track.
Of course if you’re joining us for classes or a workshop all lovely quality materials are provided!
Materials You’ll Need
Watercolour Paints : You can buy watercolours in tubes or pans ( the little dried squares ). We love Artway’s pans for wide colour choice and rich pigments, and Van Gough liquid colour in tubes for large washes.
Watercolour Brushes : A couple of sizes at least ( large for washes and small round for detail - they should be soft not bristly).
Watercolour Paper : To use paper specifically for watercolour is very important - it’s thicker and much more absorbent than regular paper. Cheap paper will distort and cause pools in unexpected places, and may not even dry flat. Use 200gsm minimum - we use 300gsm for warm-ups and 350gsm for projects in class. Cold-press (rough) or hot-press (smooth) are the two most common types.
Water : Two cups - one with a pipette which stays clean for wetting paper and mixing paint, one for rinsing your brushes.
Pipette : Stays in your clean pot to add clean water to your palette.
Palette : A watercolour palette with wells to mix your liquid paint.
Kitchen Roll : For blotting brushes, lifting out and cleaning up.
Drawing Board : To tape your paper down to in order to keep it flat - a table will do!
Low-Tack Tape : To tape your paper down ( Without it tearing ).
Fun Little Extrasptional Extras
Wax Candle : For reserving white areas by creating a ‘resist’
Salt : Coarse or fine salt to create special effects ( the grain size will produce differing patterns ).
Masking Fluid : This can be used to block out areas you want to stay white.
Straw : For ‘blowing’ paint across the paper