Coloring Tip: Are inexpensive watercolors preventing you from learning to paint well? Quality supplies make painting much easier. Professional illustrator Amy Shulke explains why low grade art supplies make learning harder.
It’s your first real watercolor project…
You’re finally learning how to combine watercolor paints with colored pencil for realistic or artistic coloring.
This is going to be so much fun!
So you pull out the cute little set of watercolors you ordered from a scrapbooking website. You’re ready to watercolor!
Except you don’t have the same exact colors the instructor is using— your pink is lighter and your red is kinda florescent…
And your paints look a bit milky compared to the paints the other students are using…
Oh, and the instructor just drops the color onto the paper and her paint spreads out into amazing gradients while your’s doesn’t move…
And when it all dries, your colored pencil doesn’t want to stick to the watercolored areas…
You saved a few dollars buying craft-level watercolors. Now you’re paying the price.
Watercolor is hard for beginners.
It’s even harder with bad paint.
I know, the plan was to eventually upgrade your paints once you had more skills…
But at this rate? You’ll be lucky to finish the project.
Let’s talk today about why crafty-cutesy watercolor sets are a gigantic waste of your time, patience, and money.
Read more about art supplies and testing here:
Watercolor sets are so darned cute!
Especially the miniature sets with sweet little names like Tickle Me Pink and Blue Razz-ma-tazz-berry.
Oh and then there’s the fancy set from Japan with real 14 carat gold on the box. So luxurious!
Hang on there a minute, cupcake.
You’ve signed up for an adult watercolor class and you’re walking in with kiddie paint.
This ain’t gonna go well.
Don’t feel bad, you’re not alone.
Watercolor was quite the trendy thing a couple years ago. Every craft company on the face of the earth was releasing as much watercolor as they could. Little sets, big sets, imported sets, watercolor pens, watercolor pencils, jelly paints, sparklies, metallics, pearlescents, florescents… I’m sure there were even fruit-scented paints.
A whole lotta of people bought a whole lotta watercolory stuff.
I don’t blame you. I fell for a few sets too. I couldn’t not-buy it.
So it’s finally time to learn how to use this stuff, right?
I know what you’re thinking: you see my Tiffany Rose class here. It calls for pink and yellow paint and you’ve got pink and yellow paint in one of your cutesy watercolor sets.
Why not just use that paint instead of getting what’s on my supply list?
And honestly, the reason why I’m writing this article today is because I know some of you were planning on using your cutesy set. I get it. You just can’t justify buying the recommended watercolors when you’ve already got perfectly good paint.
But that’s the problem.
It’s not perfectly good paint.
And it’s not going to work the way you want it to work.
They don’t sell real watercolor in craft stores
Quality watercolor is expensive. It’s made from rare minerals that have been heat treated, finely milled, and then precision mixed with durable binders which have been tested to insure that they don’t yellow or degrade over time.
Real, artist grade watercolors behave well. The colors are clean and vibrant, they have specific characteristics (transparent, sedimentary, staining, etc) and the paint lays beautifully on the paper. Good watercolor almost spreads across the paper on its own.
Excellence isn’t cheap. I’ve seen certain colors sell for $30 for a small tube.
So if a craft store were to carry quality watercolor, it’d be the stuff in a locked cabinet. It’s not in the fun aisles, sold with matching pencils or in starter kits.
Most of the big chain craft stores carry only one brand of artist grade watercolor and they don’t stock every color the company makes.
Which makes it very hard for artists to shop at craft stores.
Real watercolor artists use real watercolor— not because we’re snobs but because we don’t waste time fighting with inferior products.
The stuff in craft stores (both local stores and online) is generally for the mass market.
It’s made to be cute.
It’s made to be sold cheaply.
And they use inexpensive ingredients.
In many cases, it’s either not real watercolor or it’s so diluted and distorted that it doesn’t behave like real watercolor anymore.
It’s watercolor-ish, not watercolor.
A lot of watercolorish products are dye rather than pigments. Dye fades, dye can change color, dye grabs paper fibers and doesn’t want to budge. You end up scrubbing it with the brush to get it to move.
Many watercolorish products are full of extenders and fillers. So the light delicate pink in the pan looks milky on the paper or when you mix blue and yellow you get a dull mint green instead of something grassy and bold.
And they cut corners at the factory, so some watercolorish products dry gritty and can be rubbed off the paper. Even worse, some dry into a rubbery surface that resists further layers of paint or pencil.
During the big watercolor craze a few years ago, most of what I saw was watercolorish. I tried a lot of products and nothing matched the look and feel of real artist grade watercolor.
NOTHING.
It takes more than skill to watercolor well
You’ve watched amazing watercolor artists work on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram Stories, and TikTok.
You think “they’re soooo talented” but most of what you’re seeing is an excellent product behaving the way the artist asks it to.
It’s not skill and talent— the main difference between you and your watercolor hero is that they’re using a performance product and you’re using the Cupcake Collection.
Real watercolor makes a gigantic difference.
If you show up to the Indy 500 in a VW bug, you’re not going to qualify for the race, no matter how cute the car is, right?
I see this happen a lot in my Colored Pencil Plus online course. I try to make the class as accessible as possible so I have a range of watercolor recommendations, from artist grade to a few watercolorish products which don’t totally stink.
But there’s an ease factor which holds the watercolorish students back.
When a product is made from dye, it can dry blotchy.
When a product is weak in colorant, students end up using way too much paint.
Fillers and extenders tend to be stodgy, forcing you to manually spread the paint with your brush.
Fillers make it hard to mix colors because they add unexpected white or gray to the color.
Fillers can fill the tooth of the paper before you get a chance to add colored pencil.
Extenders leave a rubbery sheen which resists further layers of anything. Extenders even make 2nd coats of watercolor difficult.
All of this adds up to lost time and serious frustration.
And when you start over for the 6th time, you’re now wasting expensive watercolor paper.
Cheap watercolor costs you time, patience, and money.
Skill can make difficult products look easy
But Amy, I watched a review of a watercolorish product on YouTube. She said she loved the product and her project looked great!
First question: Was she being sponsored? Does she earn money by linking you to a store or from website clicks?
Second question: Was he painting something relatively easy for his skill level?
I’m a trained artist. I can make 2 broken crayons on a plank of wood look good. It doesn’t take much for an artist to cleverly make the best of a bad product.
Third question: Do YOU have the skills and expertise to make a bad product look good?
Good Watercolor makes it easy to create delicate effects
Here’s a before and after of my Tiffany Rose project.
Ignore my colored pencil work. Look closely at the watercolor-only version.
Do you see the petals where the color starts out strong nearest the center and then faces towards the outside edge?
Do you see the places where the paint looks peach, then pink, then gold, then red?
I didn’t do that.
The paint did.
High quality paint makes my watercolor skills look better than they actually are.
It’s easy to mix vibrant colors.
It’s easy to apply the paint with minimal brushing.
It’s easy to sit and watch the color creep across the page.
My greatest watercolor skill is the ability to sit back and let good watercolor do what it wants to do.
I’m not doing anything with the paintbrush that you can’t do too.
You just need high quality paints to make it happen.
Wait Amy, you’re telling me not to buy student level watercolors. This doesn’t make sense. I’m learning to watercolor for the very first time. I’m a student. Shouldn’t I buy student grade products while I’m a student?
Nope. You’ve misunderstood the term “student”.
In the art supply world, student means little Janey Jones who loves unicorns and is very exited to start fourth grade this fall.
Student ranges are budget lines for elementary and secondary schools. When you see “student” think “child”.
You’re an adult, let’s use adult paint.
It’s time to put away childish things…
I know, some of you have budget issues but quality art supplies pay for themselves. You use less and you fail less often.
And I understand— it really does seem like beginners should start with beginnery products. It seems logical to upgrade later when your skills can do justice to fine products.
But bad watercolor products are harder to use than the good stuff.
If you’re serious about learning to watercolor, you need serious watercolors.
Start slow and purchase artist grade products gradually over time.
You’re not just investing in watercolors, you’re investing in YOU.
Beautiful Watercolor, Gorgeous Colored Pencils
Ready to try challenge level coloring?
Tiffany Rose an Advanced level Marker Painting Workshop
Learn to create amazing floral realism with Amy’s mixed media techniques. We’re combining an easy watercolor technique with advanced colored pencil for a drop-
Real time coloring, recorded live
Live Workshops are unscripted demonstrations which provide students with a real look into the authentic coloring process. You’ll see mistakes being made and corrected. It’s just like visiting Amy in her home studio.
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Class was recorded in July 2021 and featured a live student audience. Amy answers questions from the students and offers many tips for better colored pencil art.
Select supplies used in Tiffany Rose:
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