Watercolor Paints
Many watercolor brands are available in the market today, but for beginners, I highly recommend Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolor cakes or tubes. I have personally started my watercolor journey using these paints for the first couple of years. They have really good pigment quality which works for both beginner artists and professional painters. The colors have excellent lightfastness and maintain their brightness for years. One of their biggest features is affordability, making it convenient for budding artists to experiment with these.
Once you are comfortable using the colors, and have an understanding of water-to-color density, I recommend Winsor & Newton Cotman Professional watercolors. They are fine pigment colors with the highest possible permanence. You also get a single half-pan color if you run out of any color. They are expensive (starting at $110.00 for a tin travel set) but their quality is worth the price.
Some of the other professional colors I recommend are;
Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors: Their 5ml tube set of 6 colors starts at $37.00. They are known for custom 5ml tube sets branded by world-renowned artists. These colors are comparatively more expensive than the other competitive colors.
Holbein Artists’ Watercolor: Starting at $116.00 for 24, 5ml tubes, these are as comparable as Winsor & Newton Cotman professional series. Because they are made in Japan, some colors are not easily available outside Japan
Schmincke Horadam Aquarell: This is a German brand known for its high-quality watercolors. The price of 24 half-pan colors at @123.00 is slightly higher than Winsor & Newton Cotman’s 24 half-pan cakes. The color quality is very vibrant and has lots of transparency and lightfastness, but just like Holbein Artists Watercolors, some of their colors have limited availability outside Germany.
Brushes
Investing in quality brushes will be important to the final output of your painting. However, as a beginner, you can buy any set of brushes from a local art store or online store.
The different types of brushes you should own are;
Round for most of the painting, recommended size are 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12
Mop for washes, recommended sizes are 4, 6, 8
Liner or thin round brush for details, recommended sizes are 0/3, 0/2, 0/1
Flat for washes and flat strokes, like brick effect, recommend sizes are 8, 10, and above
Filbert for petals and details. I usually use size 8 or 10 in Filbert
My favorite professional quality brushes are Silver Brush Limited, Black Velvet series. They have a lot of color-holding capacity in its body.
Paper
I was glad that when I started my watercolor journey, I invested in a high-quality paper. It was an accidental find but the output was evident to understand the importance of good quality watercolor paper. In my early days when I was exploring the paints, I would end up using a lot of water, and to my surprise, my paper worked great. If you want the paper to not bleed, hold lots of water, and also have good output, I recommend starting with 300gsm/140lb cold-pressed watercolor paper from Canson XL. The paper comes in pad, perforated spiral bind, and blocks.
The pad comes attached to one side with loose sheets. They offer the convenience of a portable painting surface and are suitable for practice, studies, or finished artworks. They come in various sizes and can be cut to fit any need.
Spiral bind is mostly used for journals and to keep all paintings intact
Blocks are bound together on all sides, making it best for paintings that have heavy use of water, preventing it from buckling or warping, and avoiding the need to stretch the paper. The paper does not need to be taped. It is best used for Plein Air artists (artists painting live in nature)
The different kinds of watercolor paper available are Cold Press, Hot press and Rough and Handmade
Cold press is the most widely used paper. With its textured surface, it provides a good output. It’s very versatile and is best used for watercolor techniques like wet on wet, wet on dry, washes, and dry on dry.
Hot press paper has a smooth surface and is used for pens & ink or illustrations. It is not as absorbent as other types of watercolor paper.
Rough watercolor paper has an obvious rough texture which helps artists create patterns and textures, making it the best option for textured paintings. It’s not as versatile as cold press paper and needs more control for washes.
Handmade papers are manually crafted using traditional methods. Each piece varies in thickness and size. It’s mainly used by artists requiring distinctive paper characteristics.
Some of the best professional-grade watercolor papers, pads, or blocks are;
Arches Watercolor 100% cotton paper and Fabriano Artistico cold press 1oo% cotton paper block,
Additional Supplies
I always recommend the following additional supplies for watercolor artists:
A plastic palette or ceramic palette for mixing colors.
An airtight watercolor palette to transfer tubes
2 cups for water – so one can always be clean water.
tissue or rough cloth
Masking fluid – to mark the white areas
Washi or painter tape – to hold the paper in place or to create boundaries
White Gouache or Bleed Proof White for opaque white color