How to choose watercolor
Oct. 23rd, 2018 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellerRecently, I wrote a lengthy post about watercolor quality criteria and received very positive feedback, so I decided to make another post, this time about how to choose watercolor. When I got started, I certainly remember being a bit intimidated by the huge amount of different paints and pigments available! I solved that by binge shopping buying a nice, large selection that grew over the years because if you buy a watercolor every time another person would buy a pack of cigarettes, and you keep up that habit, you'll end up with a large colorful pile, and it's less likely to give you lung cancer, too based on probably not the best criteria around like interesting molecule structure but would not necessarily recommend this approach to others. Usually, beginning artists are on a budget, and looking for the smallest possible number of colors that will still enable them to paint whatever they want to paint.
Obviously, when making your choice, you'll want to pay attention to the quality criteria (lightfastness and so on), but still that doesn't tell you which ones of the hundreds (!) of available high-quality paints to buy. Of course, you can assume any high-quality paint to be good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it matches your purposes. So this is aiming to help you if you're confused by all the options. I will also discuss my personal travel set and why I chose these particular colors.
Choosing a brand
My stance on this is that any serious (!) professional grade watercolor paint will do. (The watercolor quality criteria post has some remarks on how to recognize serious suppliers. I, personally, consider the availability of pigment information and some kind of lightfastness rating non-negotiable.) I've seen tutorials that recommend certain brands, but you can usually assume the authors have been paid or at least received free paints for reviews.I've done sponsered workshops myself, I know manufacturers are actively involved in making their products visible.
I should probably mention that it's no problem at all to mix watercolors from different brands, so there's no need to limit yourself to one manufacturer. I certainly don't. Not all manufacturers offer all pigments, and sometimes, the same pigment from different manufacturers looks slightly different, so I combine several brands. Nothing wrong with that.
(Also, when later discussing particular colors, I will only refer to them by their pigment signifier.)
How many paints to buy
Generally, this depends on your budget. If you just won the lottery, there's nothing wrong with walking into the next art supply store and buy the thousands of paints you've always wanted.And they're more useful than a fancy car, too! That's just not very likely.
Some tutorials tell you it's perfectly okay to just buy the three primary colors and mix all the rest. I tend to disagree there, because pigments are not just "pure colors" but physical objects, and when mixing, you get all kinds of interesting interference effects and colors will start to look muddier than single-pigment colors. However, if you can only afford three colors, the primaries are probably one of the best choices. (Unless you know already you want to make only monochrome green paintings, in which case you buy a green. Obviously.) The pigments I found most suitable as primaries are PY154, PV19 and PB15:3, however you have to be careful with PV19 because that's an extremely variable pigment, more like a pigment family... So, I'm talking about a magenta-ish version of PV19. ;) Of course, color perception is subjective. So if your primaries look different, by all means...
The reasonable amount of paints to buy is, imho, something between 10 and 25. Anything above is luxurynothing wrong with that, though and anything below will only work long-term if you're going to limit yourself to one type of subject. I happen to hoard paints own more than 25 colors, but my travel set contains 20 colors and is perfectly enough to paint a variety of subjects.
Secondary colors are evil!11
One of the common tutorial advices is to avoid buying secondary colors (orange, green, purple) and just mix them instead. I happen to disagree there. Mixtures tend to be muddy, especially when mixing more than two pigments, so if you're into vibrant colors, buying a single-pigment paint of that hue is the way to go. Mixing all your greensis a nice party trick but will not impress the buyers of your pictures who don't give a f*ck about pigments anyway so there's really no need to make your life harder than necessary.
Buy only single pigment paints!11
Ironically, this advice is usually found on the same page as the one above, although they directly contradict each other... Anyway. Yeah, there is something to it - paints that are mixed from more than one pigment are harder to use in further mixtures (they will inevitably turn muddier than otherwise), so if you're on a limited budget and can choose only very few colors, it makes sense to go for the single-pigment ones. However, there are exceptions.
Firstly, you have to be aware that some colors - for whatever reason - do not exist as a single-pigment paint, light yellowish green or salmon pink being notable examples. If you're sure you'll need these hues often, there's absolutely nothing wrong with buying the colors in question, and you're not a bad artist for doing so. (Many, many portrait artists use pre-mixed flesh tones...)
Secondly, not all the multi-pigment colors are mixtures. A lot of watercolor "pigments" are dyes in their pure form, not particles, so when making them into pigments, some kind of substrate (usually some clay mineral or other inorganic particle) is coated with the actual color. It makes a difference whether you mix two kinds of pigments or you create one single pigment type by coating your substrate with two different types of organic molecules. In the latter case, there's nothing wrong with the color and it will even behave normally in mixtures. (How to recognize that kind of thing?Be a materials chemist. Not at all. When in doubt, you'll have to just try the paint out or rely on someone else's expertise.)
So which colors do I now really buy?
The ones you like - provided they're good quality and match whatever you're trying to paint. I would recommend getting at least one color from every color family (one yellow, one red, one blue, one green, one brown...) but which shades exactly to buy is nothing another person can decide for you. Actually, I'm very sceptical of "palette recommendations" in books for that very reason. While it's interesting to see other artists' palettes, they're not necessarily your palette and should not be advertised as such. There is no objective "best choice", and after all you want to enjoy painting, so by all means, just buy your personal favorites.
My watercolor travel set
My travel set is this very small, very compact box into which I've crammed 20 colors (from different brands) in half pans. I should note that in most cases I filled these half pans from tubes because I use a lot of paint really, and it's cheaper to re-fill the pans than buying new ones. (Also, at least one of the manufacturers in there doesn't even offer pre-filled pans.) Anyway, I'll just give a list of the pigments I use most often, and why they're in there.
The most obvious thing you'll notice is that a whole five of these 20 colors are greens. This should tip you off I'm a botanical illustratoror a nutcase, with the or not being either/or with a preference for clear, bright colors. (It's also quite obvious that the owner of this box either doesn't like blue or is borderline colorblind with regard to blues so it doesn't matter much which ones they use.)
PW6 - The classic Titanium White; I use opaque white watercolor a lot. (Any dogma saying you shouldn't is effectively disproven by Albrecht Dürer whose painting technique most art instructors are not in any position to criticise... LOL)
PY154 - This is exactly what I perceive as pure primary yellow. It's good that this paint exists; I'd be quite lost without it. (It's also one of the paints I have to refill most often.)
PY110, PY154 - My favorite yellow. Not a necessary color, strictly speaking, but a nice one. Also probably not a mixture; at least it doesn't unmix in wet washes.
PO62 - A fairly neutral orange in my opinion, and one of the very few pigments in that range that are neither fugitive nor horribly toxic.
PR254 - The reddest red for me. ("For me", because color perception is highly subjective.)
PR177 - A kind of compromise; it's a more lightfast alternative to Alizarin Crimson. However, this pigment varies a lot in its lightfastness, so I relied on handprint.com to find an acceptable version.
PV19 - Doesn't look like it on the photo (bad sensor!) but this is actually magenta-ish pink... And my "compromise magenta", because the dyes that I'd really consider "perfect magenta" are all fugitive, and this is just what came closest among the acceptable pigments.
PO73 - Actually one of my favorite paints and I even have the tendency to occasionally spread this over the whole picture with a sponge, as a kind of analog warm filter... LOL
PY129 - Yellowish green, kind of useful for botanicals.
PBk31 - I absolutely love perylene green! It's a great color for shading on leaves.
PG7 - One of the cheapest, ubiquitous pigments. Also, imho, one of the best. :) I use this a lot although in its pure form it's a bit garish. In mixtures, it's a very versatile green.
PB60 - My favorite dark blue; I chose this because I don't like the granulating property of Ultramarine, which would have been the closest alternative.
PV23 - Another of these pigments where you really have to check which supplier you buy this from - some versions are impermanent. I bought a brand that provides a lightfast version. Also, I need purple, it's my basic shadow underpainting color, and this is the only staining (!) dark purple pigment on the market. There's simply no alternative.
PBk7 - I like this black because it behaves better in mixtures than other black pigments I've tested.
PBr7 - Okay, PBr7 is a very general description of "dirt". This particular dirt is one I like.
PR101, PBk9 - My favorite light brown, it's versatile enough to work both for skin and for animal fur.
PG17 - A muted green that's also very useful for botanicals.
PG36 - The more yellowish version of phthalo green and also one of the colors I use most. I use this (in varying mixtures with yellow) in basically all light green washes I ever do. Being a botanical artist, I do those a lot.
PW4, PB15:3 - This is what I personally perceive as perfect primary cyan. I should note that this is definitely not a mixture of blue with white (which would be pastel-ish and more opaque) but probably zinc oxide (the PW4) coated with cyan. It's quite transparent and behaves like a single-pigment paint in all aspects.
PB82 - A quite rare, unusual pigment, and probably not found in many basic sets. I included it because I like how it works in blueish shadows.
These choices are, of course, not set in stone. Lately I've been playing with the thought of replacing one of my less used greens (like maybe the PY129) with another dark red. There's a nice wine red that I found myself using quite a lot lately (you can even see a dot of the stuff in the middle of the palette of my box!) and that might deserve a more permanent place. XD
Obviously, when making your choice, you'll want to pay attention to the quality criteria (lightfastness and so on), but still that doesn't tell you which ones of the hundreds (!) of available high-quality paints to buy. Of course, you can assume any high-quality paint to be good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it matches your purposes. So this is aiming to help you if you're confused by all the options. I will also discuss my personal travel set and why I chose these particular colors.
Choosing a brand
My stance on this is that any serious (!) professional grade watercolor paint will do. (The watercolor quality criteria post has some remarks on how to recognize serious suppliers. I, personally, consider the availability of pigment information and some kind of lightfastness rating non-negotiable.) I've seen tutorials that recommend certain brands, but you can usually assume the authors have been paid or at least received free paints for reviews.
I should probably mention that it's no problem at all to mix watercolors from different brands, so there's no need to limit yourself to one manufacturer. I certainly don't. Not all manufacturers offer all pigments, and sometimes, the same pigment from different manufacturers looks slightly different, so I combine several brands. Nothing wrong with that.
(Also, when later discussing particular colors, I will only refer to them by their pigment signifier.)
How many paints to buy
Generally, this depends on your budget. If you just won the lottery, there's nothing wrong with walking into the next art supply store and buy the thousands of paints you've always wanted.
Some tutorials tell you it's perfectly okay to just buy the three primary colors and mix all the rest. I tend to disagree there, because pigments are not just "pure colors" but physical objects, and when mixing, you get all kinds of interesting interference effects and colors will start to look muddier than single-pigment colors. However, if you can only afford three colors, the primaries are probably one of the best choices. (Unless you know already you want to make only monochrome green paintings, in which case you buy a green. Obviously.) The pigments I found most suitable as primaries are PY154, PV19 and PB15:3, however you have to be careful with PV19 because that's an extremely variable pigment, more like a pigment family... So, I'm talking about a magenta-ish version of PV19. ;) Of course, color perception is subjective. So if your primaries look different, by all means...
The reasonable amount of paints to buy is, imho, something between 10 and 25. Anything above is luxury
Secondary colors are evil!11
One of the common tutorial advices is to avoid buying secondary colors (orange, green, purple) and just mix them instead. I happen to disagree there. Mixtures tend to be muddy, especially when mixing more than two pigments, so if you're into vibrant colors, buying a single-pigment paint of that hue is the way to go. Mixing all your greens
Buy only single pigment paints!11
Ironically, this advice is usually found on the same page as the one above, although they directly contradict each other... Anyway. Yeah, there is something to it - paints that are mixed from more than one pigment are harder to use in further mixtures (they will inevitably turn muddier than otherwise), so if you're on a limited budget and can choose only very few colors, it makes sense to go for the single-pigment ones. However, there are exceptions.
Firstly, you have to be aware that some colors - for whatever reason - do not exist as a single-pigment paint, light yellowish green or salmon pink being notable examples. If you're sure you'll need these hues often, there's absolutely nothing wrong with buying the colors in question, and you're not a bad artist for doing so. (Many, many portrait artists use pre-mixed flesh tones...)
Secondly, not all the multi-pigment colors are mixtures. A lot of watercolor "pigments" are dyes in their pure form, not particles, so when making them into pigments, some kind of substrate (usually some clay mineral or other inorganic particle) is coated with the actual color. It makes a difference whether you mix two kinds of pigments or you create one single pigment type by coating your substrate with two different types of organic molecules. In the latter case, there's nothing wrong with the color and it will even behave normally in mixtures. (How to recognize that kind of thing?
So which colors do I now really buy?
The ones you like - provided they're good quality and match whatever you're trying to paint. I would recommend getting at least one color from every color family (one yellow, one red, one blue, one green, one brown...) but which shades exactly to buy is nothing another person can decide for you. Actually, I'm very sceptical of "palette recommendations" in books for that very reason. While it's interesting to see other artists' palettes, they're not necessarily your palette and should not be advertised as such. There is no objective "best choice", and after all you want to enjoy painting, so by all means, just buy your personal favorites.
My watercolor travel set
My travel set is this very small, very compact box into which I've crammed 20 colors (from different brands) in half pans. I should note that in most cases I filled these half pans from tubes because I use a lot of paint really, and it's cheaper to re-fill the pans than buying new ones. (Also, at least one of the manufacturers in there doesn't even offer pre-filled pans.) Anyway, I'll just give a list of the pigments I use most often, and why they're in there.
The most obvious thing you'll notice is that a whole five of these 20 colors are greens. This should tip you off I'm a botanical illustrator
PW6 - The classic Titanium White; I use opaque white watercolor a lot. (Any dogma saying you shouldn't is effectively disproven by Albrecht Dürer whose painting technique most art instructors are not in any position to criticise... LOL)
PY154 - This is exactly what I perceive as pure primary yellow. It's good that this paint exists; I'd be quite lost without it. (It's also one of the paints I have to refill most often.)
PY110, PY154 - My favorite yellow. Not a necessary color, strictly speaking, but a nice one. Also probably not a mixture; at least it doesn't unmix in wet washes.
PO62 - A fairly neutral orange in my opinion, and one of the very few pigments in that range that are neither fugitive nor horribly toxic.
PR254 - The reddest red for me. ("For me", because color perception is highly subjective.)
PR177 - A kind of compromise; it's a more lightfast alternative to Alizarin Crimson. However, this pigment varies a lot in its lightfastness, so I relied on handprint.com to find an acceptable version.
PV19 - Doesn't look like it on the photo (bad sensor!) but this is actually magenta-ish pink... And my "compromise magenta", because the dyes that I'd really consider "perfect magenta" are all fugitive, and this is just what came closest among the acceptable pigments.
PO73 - Actually one of my favorite paints and I even have the tendency to occasionally spread this over the whole picture with a sponge, as a kind of analog warm filter... LOL
PY129 - Yellowish green, kind of useful for botanicals.
PBk31 - I absolutely love perylene green! It's a great color for shading on leaves.
PG7 - One of the cheapest, ubiquitous pigments. Also, imho, one of the best. :) I use this a lot although in its pure form it's a bit garish. In mixtures, it's a very versatile green.
PB60 - My favorite dark blue; I chose this because I don't like the granulating property of Ultramarine, which would have been the closest alternative.
PV23 - Another of these pigments where you really have to check which supplier you buy this from - some versions are impermanent. I bought a brand that provides a lightfast version. Also, I need purple, it's my basic shadow underpainting color, and this is the only staining (!) dark purple pigment on the market. There's simply no alternative.
PBk7 - I like this black because it behaves better in mixtures than other black pigments I've tested.
PBr7 - Okay, PBr7 is a very general description of "dirt". This particular dirt is one I like.
PR101, PBk9 - My favorite light brown, it's versatile enough to work both for skin and for animal fur.
PG17 - A muted green that's also very useful for botanicals.
PG36 - The more yellowish version of phthalo green and also one of the colors I use most. I use this (in varying mixtures with yellow) in basically all light green washes I ever do. Being a botanical artist, I do those a lot.
PW4, PB15:3 - This is what I personally perceive as perfect primary cyan. I should note that this is definitely not a mixture of blue with white (which would be pastel-ish and more opaque) but probably zinc oxide (the PW4) coated with cyan. It's quite transparent and behaves like a single-pigment paint in all aspects.
PB82 - A quite rare, unusual pigment, and probably not found in many basic sets. I included it because I like how it works in blueish shadows.
These choices are, of course, not set in stone. Lately I've been playing with the thought of replacing one of my less used greens (like maybe the PY129) with another dark red. There's a nice wine red that I found myself using quite a lot lately (you can even see a dot of the stuff in the middle of the palette of my box!) and that might deserve a more permanent place. XD
no subject
Date: 2018-10-23 03:27 pm (UTC)You can tell I don't do botanicals because I only have PG7 in my travel palette and additionally Daniel Smith's convenience mixture Cascade Green (PBr7 + PB15) in my main palette. (I already need to redo my palette anyway, augh!)
I use Deleter White ink instead of Titanium or Zinc White mainly because I also use it for details on top of black ink work, but that's a personal quirk. I've also had fun splattering white gouache for star effects. XD
no subject
Date: 2018-10-23 03:33 pm (UTC)I also occasionally use white ink instead of watercolor white but that's simply not something I want to deal with while sitting on a train. Accident Waiting To Happen...
no subject
Date: 2018-10-23 03:36 pm (UTC)And yeah, painting on a train would make a huge difference! I usually, uh, paint at home on our ping pong table. (It was a housewarming gift and occupies our living room.) If I'm painting on the go, I usually use a waterbrush instead, and a sponge to clean off the colors.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-23 03:42 pm (UTC)I paint a lot on the train (because of commuting AND having a travel-intense job) or outdoors (because of, well, botanicals) so I avoid any liquid colors. And waterbrushes are a great invention. (I don't use a sponge, though. There's always paper tissues. LOL)
no subject
Date: 2018-10-23 09:01 pm (UTC)This is really interesting - I just bought myself some (more) watercolours because I can't seem to restrain myself from buying stuff, 90% of which I never use. However I am determined to get to grips with watercolours and use them more, so I've got a travel set of 24 Windsor & Newton professional half pans, plus a small selection of Daniel Smith tubes because they had some colours I thought looked gorgeous and weren't available elsewhere. So now I just have to blooming well do some painting...
no subject
Date: 2018-10-23 09:09 pm (UTC)And hoarding watercolor is a perfectly natural tendency, don't worry. Actually, with 24 plus some tubes, you're still in "harmless" territory. At least it's not 240. ;)
no subject
Date: 2018-10-23 09:15 pm (UTC)But 240 tubes/pans? Yep, I'm not in that territory!
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Date: 2018-10-23 09:28 pm (UTC)I'm afraid my paint collection is beyond anything that could still be called reasonable - I collect pigments with interesting chemical structures. (At least I use it? XD)
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Date: 2018-10-23 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-23 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-23 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-23 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-24 04:35 am (UTC)ETA: oh and I have 14 colours but not a single green among them! I did look at a couple of choices but never could settle on one I liked or thought I would use. I think I‘m looking for something likr PG17 and PG36, something really versatile.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-24 09:15 am (UTC)If you have to choose between PG17 and PG36, I think I'd take PG36 because it's a more intense green. It's possible to mute an intense green (by mixing it with something else) but impossible to make a more subdued color brighter. Of course, if you really never use green, it doesn't matter much.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-24 06:23 pm (UTC)I started with a Winsor & Newton Cotman set that I'm slowly learning which colors I like/or don't like and want to replace so there's only a couple that are not the basic student set so far. And I'm not really selling pieces so I'm less concerned about making sure they're lightfast at this point as it's 90% in my sketchbook anyway. I went with PR122 for a magenta mostly to get brighter purples, but my reds I'm pretty unsure about which I like/need to keep, yet. Not sure what my palette says about me aside from "this person probably is a newb and doesn't specialize in anything" hah. I basically have one cool and one warm of each mixing color option and a couple neutrals and convenience colors that work in an array of situations from skin and fur to wood and dirt.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-24 06:56 pm (UTC)