I’m often asked what my favorite supplies are for watercolor. Given it’s the time of year for holiday gift giving, I put together a list of my favorite things! There are many options when it comes to watercolor and every artist will have different preferences. To me, it's less important what brand you use, as long as you keep creating art! You can make beautiful art (and have wonderful relaxation and joy in painting!) no matter what supplies you use.
Favorite Paints
I have experimented with a lot of watercolor paint over the years and use different paints depending on my mood, my setting (outside or inside), and the subject matter of my painting.
Favorite liquid watercolor: Dandelion Paint Company by Let's Make Art are liquid, dye-based paints, which is what I learned on. Liquid watercolor is perfect for beginners and is really good for mixing. Liquid dye-based paints are more saturated than other types of watercolor paint and can provide strong gorgeous colors on the page. The downside is that most of them are not lightfast and will fade in sunlight. As long as you don’t hang your art in direct sun, you should be fine though!
Favorite tube paint: I feel like you can never go wrong with Daniel Smith paints. Every once in a while, I’ll purchase a new color to play with it in my painting. I especially love granulating paints which offer interesting color separation and text/ure. Tube paints go really far, so you won’t need to replace colors very often.
Favorite splurge paints: I absolutely love the color palettes from Ocean Paper. I splurged on a bamboo box (shown in the image to the left) filled with about 40 different desaturated colors and love it. These are a bit more opaque than most watercolor, almost in between watercolor and gouache. I’ll often bring these to paint outside for nature journaling. These will also last a long time so are a nice investment in your art.
Favorite eco-friendly paint: I cannot say enough positive things about Beam Paints! This Canadian company uses indigenous approaches to creating the paint with all ethically sourced and natural ingredients. What is truly exciting to me is how there is no plastic used in their packaging. I am completely in love with the palette I purchased and use these often for meditative and fun painting (shown in the image to the right). These are also a bit more opaque than traditional watercolor, similar to the texture of the Ocean Paper paints.
Favorite Paper
Best Everyday choice: Canson XL cold-press watercolor paper handles both liquid and tube paint well. Kaleidoscope PA uses this in most of its classes.
Favorite Splurge choice: Arches coldpress paper is the luxury paper that many watercolor artists utilize when making art to sell. It has a lovely grain that handles tube paint very well. It is great for wet-on-wet as well as wet-on-dry, and allows for easy lifting of still wet paint.
Perfect gift choice: The Etchr Perfect Sketchbook is just divine. It is so luxurious and decadent that it is the PERFECT gift for someone who loves watercolor. The paper truly is perfect and the deckled edge is delightful. My biggest problem with this sketchbook is that it feels too perfect to use!
Favorite Brushes
I’m fairly certain that every watercolor artist will have their favorite brushes. The important thing about watercolor brushes is the ability to get a good point, which is critical for making finer lines. I have tried both synthetic and natural bristle brushes and actually tend to have a preference for synthetic ones.
As for what size to start with, I would recommend a Round 2, a Round 6, and a one-inch wash brush. I enjoy playing with different sized and shaped brushes to get different results. Just an FYI - the size of a brush is not always consistent across companies.
Budget brushes: Princeton Heritage Synthetic brushes are great and inexpensive. I use these often and they are what I learned on. The lemon photo (left) uses Heritage brushes with Daniel Smith tube paints.
Splurge brushes: Princeton Aqua Elite are among there as my favorite brushes. I love these. I feel like I can always get a good point with these. They also just feel nice!
Great gift idea: Etchr is one of my favorite art companies. I bought a few of their brushes and LOVED them. My favorite round brushes from them have worn down a little bit, but I used them constantly. This gift set would be perfect for an artist starting out, as there are lots of sizes and shapes.
Remember that it's more important that you make art than what supplies you are using! Use what you have. Beautiful art can be created with very inexpensive supplies. Make art and have fun!
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