I'm kinda curious because I haven't done much of the other types of paints, but this is a space for questions and answers about watercolors, acrlics, oils, and any other paint-type traditional media you've tried or are considering (if asking questions). :)

I kind of want to try to start watercolors soon...because they dry faster and probably do not require varnishing. >.<'''

Any suggestions on what to do? I come kind of from a oils background so was wondering what key differences there are.

Watercolors.. well you know the times when oils would stop being asses and just get a life of their own? Thats watercolors XD They're insane, put some water and watercolors on a canvas and they just party.

And when you want watercolors to behave and stop being idiots, go back to oil <<;;; thats how i think they are.

Aah. What brushes, what paints, what paper? I don't even know the fundamentals of how to get started. o.o

Do you usually sketch before you paint or do you spread the paint and go?

Cause for oils, I do a little of both. Sometimes I start with a sketch but a lot of the times I start just by spreading paint on to start the background, and then I fine-tune it, I make the blob have shape by adding light and dark, and then I add another layer...

But I'm not sure how to start on watercolor because it has layers but it's so different. Not fully-covering layers. I'm a bit worried about that part. =/

Anyone have any suggestions on what type of paper and what type of paints ot use? Can I use oil painting brushes for this?

Oops doublepost.

watercolor requires a brush that can absorb a lot of water at one time. there are different sizes, but they all have soft bristles. it can be a natural brush [if you can afford it] or one made with artificial hairs. you cannot use an oil brush for watercolor because of the bristles and because those are usualy, well, oily - no matter how well you clean them. oil and water don't mix.

i like natural brushes. as for paints, they don't run very expensive if you consider how long a tube will last you. if you're just experimenting for now DO NOT WASTE $ ON HIGH QUALITY PAINTS. get something like a pan set instead of tubes too. they're usually cheaper and not as messy as getting tubes.

grumbacher makes a really good pair of pan watercolor sets. one is opaque [solid] and one in transparent colors. they run from $15-40 for 12 to 24 colors.

Ugh, there's a reason why Grumbacher is so cheap. I dunno, at that point just a Prang set. I tend to like the Talens line, they have one for every price range. Pretty much any brand has good points, except for Grumbacher. They were bought out and their quality really went down the tubes.

I love watercolor though, so portable. I tend to use watercolor and water solube ink and/or watercolor pencil instead of gouache, but gouache is likely better.

For watercolor washes, it all becomes part of the fun. I love being able to 'mix' colors on the page. Just play around and see the combinations you like.

Originally Posted by Guivre

Ugh, there's a reason why Grumbacher is so cheap. I dunno, at that point just a Prang set. I tend to like the Talens line, they have one for every price range. Pretty much any brand has good points, except for Grumbacher. They were bought out and their quality really went down the tubes.

I love watercolor though, so portable. I tend to use watercolor and water solube ink and/or watercolor pencil instead of gouache, but gouache is likely better.

For watercolor washes, it all becomes part of the fun. I love being able to 'mix' colors on the page. Just play around and see the combinations you like.

But if say I'm just starting, is it okay to use Grumbacher first? Since they seem to be cheaper? Or is the entire way you paint with them almost different than if you use higher quality paints?

Like for oils, the way you mix is almost completely different if you use a paint with fewer pigments vs. a paint with more pigments, so it really screws you over on how exactly to mix, but not so much how you move the brush.

Is that the same with watercolors? Is the difference in pigmentation or something else?

How do you mix watercolors? Is it also on a non-absorbent surface or do you mix it on scratch paper?

If I use pencils do I wet the page first or wet it after? Is there a specific way I ought to color things so they don't blend, or something? I'm a little worried cause most of what I remember about water colors is one section leaks into the next and ruins stuff. >.o'

I can blowdry watercolors though right? If I set the blowdryer on low? Or does that do anything funky?

What can I do to create different textures? I know with oils you can use sponge, and with watercolors I think I used salt once to create stars, but is there anything else?

I think I'll try to go with the natural brushes for now, because I've used natural brushes for oils also and the difference between natural and synthetic, feel-wise is huge.

Ty very muchly for your patience and time in responding to my very newbie questions. ^^'

I LOOOVE watercolor. I havn't gone into much with any other kinds...

WOAH SO MANY QUESTIONS Dx... /brain overload/

XDD I can't say I'm an expert but I do use watercolors quite a lot.

I use a 12-pan set of watercolors I bought several years ago and they're nowhere near running out. (windsor and newton) One good thing I find about watercolor is that they are re-usable. Even if you use tubes and let it dry you can still wet the paint and use it later. (so if you mixed the perfect color then you won't lose it ;). A little bit also goes a long way o_o;


... definately use a nonabsorbant surface if you're mixing D:... just because as watercolor it um.. is... watery...




When you color if you don't want two sections to blend, just make sure the previous section is dry first. And try to do your light colors before your darks so you don't have black streaking into yellow or something.

I blowdry watercolors. I really can't sit around and wait for something to dry a lot of times, another thing is I can make sure that the paper dries flat if I dry it myself...

Salt makes little stars, you have to use it when the paint is relatively wet.. you can also do sponging or whatever else you can come up with D:.






Main thing to keep in mind if you're coming fom oils: With watercolors you need to build up your layers! It's not opaque. You paint from light->dark with light washes and then deepening the shadows and adding more colors. It's not possible to go back in and paint yellow over black.

Here's a watercolor tutorial from one of my favorite watercolor artists: http://www.shadowscapes.com/StepBySt...irits/wc.shtml

You can pretty much do anything to watercolors. LOL. They are very... tolerant? Finite? They're very soluable (obviously) so you can use different things to get different effects.

Salt is a ton of fun, so is sponging (which can be done while the paint is wet or afterwards with a wet sponge!)

You can combine water color pencils as well, cakes and tubes... I like to use crayons/soft colored pencils over lighter colors to preserve them so I can be a little messy with my darker colors. Sometimes I'll even use some cheapo markers to brighten up some colors. You can use better markers... I just don't own any. xD

I've even used some eyeshadow cakes as well, taking a brush and sprinkling some loose powder on top of wet color to make textures.

Oooh. o.o! That's awesome, oils if they dry they're dry. =/ No reusing there. I'll definately check out the tutorial in a wee bits after I finish this. I didn't realize crayons and makeup stuff would work well. I gotta go drag some of my female friends with me sometime to get some for me or something. o.o'

X3 interesting, light to dark, I thought it was something like that..either that or dark to light but I couldn't remember which way. ^^' Oils it almost doesn't matter which way. ^^'

Ty very muchly, will prolly test it out this weekend if I get time to go buy some paints. XD

That's the thing about watercolor--even though it hardens when dry, it always remains water soluable. You can even create palattes on paper and reuse them after they dry! (although the color is usually very faded)

It's probably the most forgiving paint EVER.

Crayons you can use to preserve very light areas with a white crayon because the water will just roll off of the wax. So make sure you mask any areas you want to stay white! You can use masking fluid as well.

And different kinds of makeup will have different effects. Some can be used when wet so they'll become darker and richer when you add them. Others will absorb liquid like salt does, but not as drastically. You can blow it off afterwards for some interesting effects.

Cool. ^___^ Sounds like a lot of fun and experimenting ahead!

this is going to sound really stupid compared to all the rest of the stuff mentioned.. but paper.. buy it in a block >.<;; (the kinds that you have to cut the page away on all sides after your done with it to remove it) otherwise you might have to tape it to your work area.. and even then if you dont tape it well enough it gets crinkles. and honestly.. i despise the crinkles most of all.

though.. on a side note... bristol doesnt absorb it very well.. it took bloody ages to dry ^^;; (again probably an obvious, but just throwing out thinks i learned the hard way)

I use card stock or even scrapbooking paper (you get some interesting colors and textures!) and not watercolor paper unless I need a big area. But I like to watercolor small pieces. I find doing something bigger than say, 10x14 too much.

Some warping can be fixed after the piece is dry--just stick it under a stack of books overnight. xD

Yeah..I noticed that just now. The weird lil doodle thing I colored yesterday looks funny cause it dried funny. I thought I just used too much water.

A block eh? o.O I don't think our art store sells it in a block though. Where do you get it from?

Also...when you guys watercolor, how do you get rid of the pencil under? Or do you guys not use pencil at all? Or do you just color darker than the pencil? Cause my pencilmarks are showing and it's fugly this way. =/

o3o A lot of times I keep the pencil >3> I just do it -very- cleanly... hrmm you can also keep the pencil very light O:.

Hrrms. Puu. Okies I'll try to keep it lighter next time mebies. T_T''

XDD I guess it also depends how lineless you want it :3... I like to keep lines in certain places so sometimes I actually go back over parts in pencil after I'm done painting DX.

Okies. :) Thanks for the info Tirael!