Basic Watercolor Supplies

You can find an updated version of this post here – Watercolor Supplies for Beginners.

When you get started with watercolors, it can be quite overwhelming.

My advice? Begin small and cost-effective. You’re learning and maybe don’t know if you like painting with watercolors yet.

You don’t need artist grade supplies to get a feel for the medium. Buy them when people start asking you to paint for them.

That said, artist grade paints will have more pigment in their colors, making their colors richer. But no matter which brand you buy, each behaves differently, so you will always need to get to know your brand.

Here are a few basics to get you started painting because painting is the goal, not amazing supplies.

• Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolor Paints

My favorite student grade paints are Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolors. With them, I can play all I want to without feeling like I’m wasting money or paint. And I’m happy enough with the colors that I don’t mind giving away hand painted cards made using them. They are inexpensive and stretch a long way, even though this set is tiny.

But, honestly, when I started into painting, I just grabbed my son’s Crayola set of watercolors. That helped me to find out that I liked painting and wanted to invest in something more.

• Brushes.

I usually grab whichever brush is sized for the project I’m working on, but I like my Winsor & Newton brushes the most. I use my cheapest set for mediums that I’m not sure I can wash out, like some inks.

When traveling or when I don’t want to worry about a water jar, I use my waterbrushes.

• Water Palette, Water Jar, Paper Towel and Paper.

Any watercolor palette will do. You can even use a paper plate. I use them for mixing or diluting the paints.

You will need a jar of water to rinse your brush between colors, so you don’t mix colors where you don’t want to mix them … like in your pan set.

I usually wipe my brush on a paper towel after I rinse it to make sure it doesn’t have any left-over pigment in it. It also works well if your brush becomes more saturated with water than you want for your work.

Just like artist grade paints create richer paintings, artist grade paper allows for quality art. But when starting, you don’t need to spend the extra money to experiment. I use Canson watercolor paper #140 to practice. You will need to tape it down with masking tape until it dries if you don’t want it to warp. But that’s up to you … practice is practice, you know.

Those are my basics. After that, colors and budgets are the only limits. Watercolor and ink brands abound!