Watercolor Materials

These are the materials that you will need if you are just starting how to paint using watercolor.

The Brush

Brushes are, of course, one of the most important pieces in your watercolor materials.

Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:

• Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
• Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature house painting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
• Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
• Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
• Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
• Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
• Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.

Those of red sable hair are generally considered to be amongst the best type of brushes you can buy. The round, sharply pointed type is probably the most popular,and the flat one's can also be used.

When painting watercolor you'll need about three round red sable brushes - small, medium and large.

For any given piece of work, it is best to use the largest size brush practical.

Small brushes require too frequent dipping and can lead one into finicky ways.

For bold sketching (such as outdoor work) and for laying large washes (as on skies and backgrounds), a big brush is needed that one sometimes feels forced to use a cheaper substitute for sable, such as imitation sable, camel hair or squirrel.

For certain types of work, particularly for scrubbing out high lights, stiff bristle brushes are sometimes used.

If you can afford only one brush, buy a #8 round red sable watercolor brush. Otherwise buy the best synthetic or synthetic-blend brush you can find. Adding a round #4 and a 1" flat would come in handy for detail work and large washes.

The Paint

There are three forms of watercolor :the liquid,solid(pan) and the creamy which are in tubes.

• Liquid watercolor(packed in small plastic or glass bottle). Colors are vivid which more suitable for illustration or graphic art.

• Tubes(sizes from 5-20ml/0.17-0.66 fl.oz).Tubes are easier to be diluted, therefore more suitable for doing relatively bigger painting.

• Pans(come in full or half pan size).Pans are light and easy to use when painting out of the doors,economical with minimal wastage of paint. Anyway take more effort to

  

  lift enough color into the brush, therefore more suitable for smaller scale painting less than A4 size Approximately.

Palette color for beginners:

	Cadmium Yellow Light		Pthalocyanine Blue
	Cadmium Yellow Medium		Pthalocycnine Green
	Cadmium Red Medium		Hooker's Green
	Alizarin Crimson		Burnt Sienna
	Ultramarine Blue		Burnt Umber

The Palette

Palette, tray and pan are the few forms of palettes used in watercolor painting.
Folding palette is most suitable to be carried around for outdoor purpose.

Metal, plastic, and ceramic are the commonly used materials.
Enamel metal is best to used among all materials.Choose biggest size folding palette if possible.

Some palettes are built in when you buy pan watercolor sets.

If you prefer using watercolor tubes,then the flat white dinner plate or the welled plastic palettes,the covered plastic palettes are best to use.

The Paper

There are 3 types of watercolor paper according to production.They are handmade, mould-made and machine-made paper.

• Handmade paper - the most natural texture that preferred by many artists.

• Machine-made paper - a more mechanical look paper, more suitable for graphic art or illustration.

Texture

Watercolor paper is available in 3 basic surfaces:

• Hot-pressed paper - relatively smooth surface, more suitable for fine detailed painting.

• Cold-pressed paper/Not paper-medium rough or textured surface which is su itable for general needs.
  

• Rough-heavily textured surface with pronounced “tooth” for impressionistic painting that gives ragged strokes to the strokes because the paint sticks only to the top of the paper’s tooth.

Content
Paper is made of cotton (sometimes called rag) or cottonwood pulp combination.
100% cotton made paper is the best to be used due to its resistance and versatility to wash and
corrections.

PH
A neutral pH is a necessity for watercolor paper; or else it will have yellow stain that grows over time

Weight
The weight of paper is calculated in pounds per ream or gram per square meter
The heaviest paper is usually the thickest
Watercolor paper weight range from 90 to 300 pounds (185-640g)
Lighter papers less than 300gsm/140lb tend to buckle and wrinkle when washes are applied. To avoid
this, stretch paper before start working on it.

Absorbency and size
Watercolor paper are given a coating of glue or size during paper pulp period or after pressing, so that
its surface will retain moisture and keep the color from penetrating deep into the paper. It helps
produces a more luminous wash and keep the color intensity.

Other Materials

* Pencil 2B or 4B pencil.

* Kneaded Eraser Is more suitable as it is not too hard to scratch away the sizing on the watercolor paper surface, which plays a very vital role in color vibrancy and paper absorbency of water.

* Washer Ideally with at least 2 compartments, one for washing brushes and another to keep clean water for mixing color.

* Pen Knife For sharpen pencil, cut paper or scratch color from paper to get thin white line.

* 2 large water containers.

*Towel rag for cleaning purpose.

* 4 clips or a tape.

* Sponge for absorbing additional water from papers or brushes. May used for creating textural effects as well.

* Natural sponge is better.

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