Watercolour Paints - Beginners Guide

Paints come in either pans (small tablets of colour) or tubes. Either are suitable, pans are more portable, tubes make it easier to mix a lot of paint for larger paintings. Avoid children's sets - the round tablets in these contain mostly chalky filler and very little colour so they give a pale washed out colour which fades a lot as they dry.

Watercolour paints come in two qualities - student and artists. Student colours are more reasonably priced and quite sufficient for beginners. Artist colours contain more, higher quality pigment and do produce a better result, but they are priced at 2 to 5 times as much as the student quality equivalent.

---

Students

• All colours the same price
  
• Some colours labeled ‘hue’ contain a cheaper equivalent to the true colour
• May contain fillers to pad out the colour
• Often mixtures rather than pure pigment
• May not show the properties like granulation or transparency normally associated with a colour

Artists

• Price varies according to cost of the pigments used to make the colour
• Generally higher quality
• More intense colour so goes further
• More vibrant colours obtained when mixing
• Permanence rating shown
  

What colours do I need?

The easiest way to get some paints to to purchase a small set of pans or tubes. You do not need one with lots and lots of colours - six to ten will suffice as you will be able to mix any other colours from these. The colours in the box will usually cover all your needs to begin.

If you decide to purchase your own selection here is a suggested palette:

Burnt Sienna

Extremely Permanent
Transparent

Raw Sienna

Extremely Permanent
Transparent
Granulating

Ultramarine Blue

Permanent
Transparent
Granulating 

Lemon Yellow

Permanent
Semi-Transparent

Cadmium Red

Permanent
Opaque
Granulating/Staining

Cadmium Yellow

Permanent
Opaque
Staining

Cobalt Blue

Extremely Permanent
Semi-Transparent
Granulating 

Permanent Alizarin Crimson

Permanent
Transparent
Staining 

Beneath the swatches shown above I have added some extra information about the characteristics of the colours. Note these apply to artist colours – student colours may use different pigments with different characteristics. The key characteristics are summarized below:

• Transparency  - transparent, semi transparent, opaque – transparent colours allow the light to shine through them the most and are less likely to produce dull mixtures
• Granulation – a granulating pigment will form clumps of colour in the pores of the paper rather than a flat even wash. This can be used to great effect with some forethought and practice
• Staining – some pigments will bind strongly to the paper – this is known as staining.  This is means that the paint can not be lifted of by rewetting it. Depending on what you wish to do this may be or may not be advantageous.
• Permanence  - it is important to avoid pigments that fade if you want your painting to hang on the wall and not disappear as the colours react to the bleaching of UV light.  The colourfastness of a colour will be indicated on the tube or packaging of artists colours. Most modern colours are reasonably lightfast, older traditional organic pigments and also fluorescent colours are often highly fugitive and fade in weeks or months.

Next - more on Brushes