Painting in Watercolor 2: The Set Up

The following recommendations come from professional watercolorists I follow online. These are painters like James Gurney, Mary Whyte, and many other great artists.

Your Palette

The main question in choosing a palette is whether you prefer to work in a studio or outside in plein air. When going out in nature to paint, you have to carry everything on your back. Luckily, you don’t need much. Most travel watercolor sets are small, and have space for mixing colors, once you open it up. If you have the luxury of working in a studio, the gold standard is a large metal pan, where you can lay out all your colors and mix your favorite varieties. The great thing about a watercolor palette is you never have to clean it out ( I even write on mine "Never Wash This!"). Those colors will reactivate and you can keep using them for years - and remember they're super expensive, for tiny little tubes. The only thing you need to worry about is dust getting in there, so just keep the palette covered when not in use. And, since neither type of palette is all that expensive, you can just buy both and enjoy the best of both worlds.

Water

Most watercolorists use two water jars, one for cleaning brushes, and one that's pure for adding to colors. Alternately, some will use one for mixing warm colors and one for cool colors. The reasoning behind all this is to keep the water from muddying up your colors. For travel kits, you really don’t need much water, so smaller containers work well. If you bring a large bottle of spring water, you can add little dollops to your cup when you need it, and drink the rest. 

One trick James Gurney uses is to glue magnets to the bottom of the jar so it sticks to his metal mixing pan - he also only brings one water cup with him. He sets this all on a homemade easel so that he can paint standing or sitting, and doesn't have to stoop to the ground for his water, or worry about knocking it over.

NOTE: Don’t just let your brushes sit in water for extensive periods of time. It ruins them – particularly it bends them.

A common problem with painting in winter time is that, when the temperature is below freezing, your water will freeze. James Gurney suggests several solutions to this, such as adding isopropyl alcohol to your water (50/50 solution), or to paint using vodka. Or, you can use a chemical hand warmer, placing it under your palette. Or, you can paint next to a camp fire, if available. In addition, Marc Hanson, from Michigan, often paints while in his car with the heater going.

Paper Towels & Rags

Paper towels are good for dabbing brushes, they help you control how much water is on the brush. You can use a cotton rag or old t-shirt instead – these are washable and reusable. These are also good when clean to act as erasers on certain kinds of watercolor paper. And, just like with any eraser, you can draw with the paper towel - creating clouds and other little effects.

The Best Paper

Watercolor paper can get very expensive, and I have had the luxury of trying some really fine quality paper. Unfortunately I forget what brand it was. But, I remember the most impressive thing was how easy it was to completely wipe away the paint with a paper towel, and start again, with no staining whatsoever. Few watercolor papers can do that, and it's something you should experiment with, before you set your heart on one particular brand. It's something I will eventually do a study on.

Having said that, here's some basic knowledge. Student grade paper is made from wood pulp. Professional paper is 100% cotton. Cotton paper can handle more water and stays wet longer, giving you more time to blend. With student grade, more water sits on top. Cotton paper is more absorbent. As the student grade dries, weird spidery lines are more likely to form in the middle of your blended area. 

All watercolor paper is sized, meaning coated with a gelatin, so that it accepts the watercolor on its surface. Most watercolor paper also has a front and back, and you should only paint on the front. Carefully check the back of your paper, and you should be able to see a different pattern, usually a bit of a grid, having to do with how it was made. Don't paint on that.

In addition, many suppliers make rough and smooth versions of their paper. James Gurney enjoys using the rougher variety for dry brush, because the rough texture makes it easy to get various "salt and pepper" textural effects. He demonstrates in this video (starting at 2:29):

Some of the most popular, and expensive papers are sold by Arches. I've used it. A great advantage about Arches watercolor pads is that all the edges of the pad are glued together. You actually need to use a razor to carefully cut out each sheet, once your painting is finished, to get to the next page in the pad. And why is this good? It saves you from needing to either tape down or stretch the paper. There are other brands that do the same thing. Learn to appreciate it, and keep an Exacto blade in your studio for when it's necessary.

Tape & Board

Taping down paper is a common way to prevent it from overly warping when wet. You see, we call it "watercolor" but water is really antithetical to both paper and brushes. It wants to destroy both. Water is a playful devil, and so learning to paint with water is like trying to control chaos. If you're going to tape down your paper, you should know, masking tape is too strong. It will want to tear your paper. Drafting tape, or “Washy Tape” is better than masking, as it is weaker, so it doesn’t tear when you pull it off.

Stretching Paper

This is an alternative to taping down your paper. The idea is you wet both sides of the paper thoroughly with a brush and lay it on a large piece of gatorboard, which is a special kind of foam-core board with plastic sides. It’s very light and rigid, meant for supporting watercolor and other wet projects. 

Beware! Gatorboard is not Foam Core! Don't confuse the two! Foam Core is not meant to get wet! 

You wait ten minutes for the paper to expand. Once you see that it has and it’s starting to buckle, you pull it tight and then staple the edges of the paper directly to the gatorboard – about every inch or so. Then you wait for it to dry and your paper will be flat, tight, and ready for painting.

Or, another option, according to artist Matthew White, you can stretch your paper, wetting it on both sides, and simply lay it flat and start working on it while it’s wet, without taping or stapling. He likes being able to work wet on wet, and letting the colors blend for so long without drying. He says the paper will warp as it dries, and curl a bit, but you can work through that.

Brushes

Watercolor requires softer brushes than are typical for oil paints – no hog hair bristles. Brushes typically come in round, flat, and filbert shapes, and it’s good to have a variety of shapes and sizes, but a really big sable brush can be great once you learn to control it. 

It can do almost anything from broad washes to the thinnest lines, and holds a great reservoir of water and color in the hair. It’s great for gestural lines. James Gurney recommends Richeson brand sable brushes. Another artist recommended Princeton Neptune brushes. I really can't say what's best. This is a situation where a great artist could wield an awful brush and still make brilliant work. Vanessa Lemen enjoys taking a scissor to brushes and customizing them in all kinds of creative ways.

 

For doing washes, a cat’s tongue wash brush works well. Mary Whyte recommends one from squirrel hair:

Remember, all these brushes are expensive, you need to treat them well. Watercolor isn't quite so bad for your brushes as acrylic paint, but it can still harm the bristles if you don't wash them with soap regularly. Also, never leave your brushes face down in water, it'll bend the hair, and don't just leave them sitting in water for extended periods of time as it'll weaken the glue that holds everything together.

Other Mark Making Tools

A pencil and erasers are standard equipment for most watercolorists. Because watercolor can be a perfectionist's medium, many painters find it less stressful to get the drawing perfect first, before committing to color. Note, once you paint over a pencil line, you often can't erase it, so if you don't want a lot of lines showing through, you need to figure out what and where to erase before painting.

You can paint with things other than brushes. You can use a piece of card, a plastic fork or knife. You can spatter on some white gouache or acrylic over it. A card edge can scrape great thin lines into a wet painted surface. It can make thin branches, grasses, and interesting rock shapes, even buildings.

Another option is to use water brush pens. You can fill them with water or water soluble inks of different colors. James Gurney recommends Niji Water-Brush pens. 

He also recommends a white gel pen for a few highlights. 

None of this is traditional, but remember, art isn't about blindly following rules, it's about creating what you want. These tools can give you greater control and accuracy.

Mixing in Watercolor Pencils

These are also helpful for adding details. James Gurney recommends Caran d’Ache Supracolor watercolor pencils. You can draw directly on damp paper, or color it dry and add water with a brush after. You can even dip your pencil into water and make little marks on the paper that way. I did that once with a white pencil to make some pretty waves. There's no way to know if the effect will work on your artwork until you try it, so feel free to experiment. One great thing about these pencils: if you sketch your composition with these from the start, when you go over with a brush you can dissolve all the lines like they were never there.

Other Supplies

So, depending on the techniques you want to try, some other useful things in your kit might be, a toothpick or needle for sgraffito work, rubbing alcohol to use almost like an eraser for certain effects, even table salt for special textures (see the following lessons for examples). And then masking fluid might come in handy - it's a special little cement you can paint on your picture, anywhere you wish to stay pure white. Then, when you finish your painting, and everything's dry, you just peel it off.