Required Materials for "Sketching with Watercolor"
Signing up to take one of my "Sketching with Watercolor" courses? Here's a list of the materials you'll need.
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High-Quality Watercolor Pan Paints: Professional-grade paints are best if you can afford them. My palette of choice is this one from Sennelier, although I also really enjoy Schminke Horadam’s half-pan sets. But if these admittedly pricey paints are outside your budget, don’t worry! You can get by with this set of Winsor and Newton’s student-grade Cotman watercolors. (Note that part of what makes professional-grade watercolor paint so expensive is its high pigment load, and this pigment load also means expensive paint will last a lot longer than cheap paint—in addition to yielding much more pleasing results on the page.)
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8 6x8-Inch Sheets of Cold-Press 140-lb 100% Cotton Watercolor Paper: I paint almost exclusively on Arches watercolor paper and recommend this pad. (You can get two 6x8-inch sheets out of each page and use your scraps for swatches and thumbnails.) Some other good options include this pad from Arteza and this somewhat more affordable pack from the Bee Paper Company. Be sure to cut your paper down to 6x8-inch pieces before our first class meeting.
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A Set of Basic Watercolor Brushes: You don’t need fancy brushes for this class. I recommend this Princeton set, but if you already have another similar variety set of like value, that should work fine.
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A Tube of Titanium White Artists’ Gouache: I recommend this one from M. Graham for its creamy consistency and good coverage.
- A 2B Pencil, Sharpener & Eraser: It doesn't really matter what kind you use. I like the Faber-Castell 9000 because the graphite is specially-formulated to be break-resistant and I find that makes a big difference when I'm sharpening my pencil.
- A Water Jar & Paper Towels or a Cloth Rag: You’ll be using these to hold paint water, clean your brushes, and control the amount of water that makes it onto your page. Anything you have lying around your house will do.