Basic Watercolor Supplies for Loose Florals and More
Are you interested in learning watercolor—specifically loose watercolor florals—but don’t know what supplies to start with? I’m about to break it down for you!
My signature watercolor style is loose florals. Thanks to some great artists that I have found on Instagram and Youtube over the years, I have figured out the best supplies for this style of watercolor and want to share some of the supply basics with you.
First off, even if you are a beginner or just getting started, I can’t tell you how much a difference it makes to use high quality materials. I’m talking professional grade here. If you can’t afford a whole range of colors to get started, you can function with just a few and mix them up to create most other colors. You can get some great, high quality supplies spending under $50, or if you have a higher budget, you can get everything you need to last you quite some time for less than $150.
The reason I highly suggest professional grade is that the difference between student grade and professional grade are so different that you can pretty much paint the same thing with both ranges of quality, and your painting will look totally different. I mean the professional grade will look so much better!
Even when you’re starting out, it’s pretty frustrating using a medium that doesn’t feel like it’s cooperating. That’s why it helps so much to get started in watercolor painting when you actually can see good progress, and enjoy the beauty of what watercolor has to offer, it’s not as frustrating, and I think you’re more likely to pick up your brushes every day to paint.
How I squeeze out my watercolor paints. I always leave to dry at *least* overnight, but when I use this much pigment, I usually allow to dry around 2 days before I start using them.
Recommended Supplies
Paints
The paints I use are the professional grade Winsor and Newton watercolor tubes. Squeeze them out on a travel palette and let them dry—if you use them wet, you will use a lot more than you need.
If you could only buy a few colors, the ones I would recommend are Opera Rose, Lemon Yellow Deep, Cobalt Blue. Another useful color is black. I never use white, because you can lighten watercolor by just adding water! Some additional colors I’d recommend (depending on your budget and in this order) are Scarlet Lake, Sap Green or Olive Green, and Burnt Umber. I have all those colors and more, and use them all quite regularly, but to start, these colors are likely more than enough!
Brushes
I use Princeton Heritage 4050 Synthetic Sable brushes. My absolute favorite, and the one I find is most versatile, is the size 8 round. If you *had* to only get one, that’s the one I would recommend. If you could get some more, I recommend a 2, 4, or 6. It depends on what you want to paint, and at what size. As you develop your painting muscle and style, you’ll figure out which brushes work best for you.
Paper
For paper, I use Stonehenge Aqua Cold Press and Arches Cold Press. Whatever you decide on, get a 100% cotton paper. Avoid the student grade papers—the water doesn’t interact very well with that paper and you will not get very nice watercolor on that paper. I find that both Stonehenge and Arches cold press papers are similarly priced on Amazon Prime, where I usually purchase my paper. At my local art supply store, I think the Arches paper pads are usually a bit more expensive.
And I recommend the paper pads. When you use loose sheets of watercolor paper that are not attached on all sides to a flat surface and/or stretched, your paper will warp as it interacts with the water. Using the paper pad mostly eliminates that problem, and the warping that you do get is usually from large washes of pain.
I like to set my Princeton Heritage 4050 brush on these handmade paper chopstick holders, made by a student of mine.
Water cups
I just use old mason jars that I have around the house. Any cups with do, really, but make sure you have 2! There are two ways you can rinse your brushes. Either use one jar for cool colors and one for warm colors (which is what I do), or use one cup for washing off pigment from your brush and use the other cup of clean water to dip before picking up a new color. This is to prevent the muddiness of mixing warm and cool colors, even from your rinsing water. You’ll find that your colors will be more vibrant this way, instead of using one cup.
Paper towel
Just your regular old paper towel. I place a sheet under my water cups and use it to wipe off excess water from my brush.
And that’s all! That’s pretty much all I use. I do use a palette knife that I purchased at a local craft store to cut away the top sheet of paper from my paper pad when I finish a piece, and sometimes an HB pencil and eraser if I drew lines for anything. But watercolor is another craft that is quite a small investment, and easy to “break in” to. But please! Invest in high quality materials straight away, or risk putting away your supplies for good. Trust me, it’ll be worth it!
