Watercolor Paints Basic Stage (pt.3)

Brushes

This will be a guide if you're not sure about what brush to get for watercolours 

So let's talk about brushes, both good and bad :)

If you want to own a good brush but you don't want to splurge out too much money, I would recommend for you the get a good round brush as they are versatile and also my go to brushes. The one that is shown in the picture is by Daler-Rowney E85 Round brush size 8. This is the brush that I often use, from the website, it says it is made up of synthetic hair. 

There are brushes out in the market selling brushes made from sable hair, they last really long, and hold more water, but they're also expensive $$

If you are on a budget, I recommend brushes that are sold in sets, especially from Daiso. These set of brushes only costs me $2 SGD/ $1.52 USD and they're pretty good! They hold their shape, hold up a decent amount of water(but less than the one above) and springs back to its original shape. These brushes are synthetic as well. 

Speaking of Daiso, I bought another set of different brushes from Daiso and....they were bad. First of all, they held a lot of water like a Chinese calligraphy brush. However, unlike a Chinese Calligraphy brush, it does not spring back to its original shape as seen on the picture on the right. So it becomes a hassle to work with. So, I eventually used this set of brushes as my 'sacrificial' brush. I usually use it for uses that will damage brushes. Eg,painting with glue.

Since I've mentioned Chinese Calligraphy brushes, here's a blurry picture of it X.X I used to do some Chinese Calligraphy at school so when I saw this brush at a random neighbourhood bookstore for an inexpensive price, I've decided to buy it. It is able to hold A LOT of water and I often use this with my Chinese ink and also washes.

Sometimes, I would also use a flat brush to paint large areas. This brush could hold a good amount of water thus, it's good for painting large areas. However, I wish that the bristles were longer so it could hold even more water. This brush is made by Ashley, series 8737 Scruffy brush. These flat brushes help to paint an even layer with large areas so it's pretty handy.

Here is a liner brush for details. Didn't really took good care of this one thus it's a little damaged. This brush is from Daler Rowney Aquafine series. As you can see, it has a very fine tip and it takes awhile for me to get used to using it. 

Another type of unique brushes I own are these water brushes. These specific brushes are pentel aquash water brush. These brushes mmakes it easy to bring out for outdoor sketching as you do not need to bring a jug of water as all you simply have to do is just fill the brush with water. The cap can also be attached to the back of the brush which is a major plus for me as I wouldn't misplace the cap and I don't think that I would like to travel with these brushes without its cap. I would also use these brushes when I'm too lazy (most of the time) to set up my jar of water.

Here is a tool that I own for water coloring. Some people call it a pipette but I call it a dropper as I usually associate a pipette with another lab equipment. I usually use this to pick up clean water and drop it over my dry paint especially when I need a large amount of paint. 

Brush Maintenance

DO NOT leave your brushes in a water container like this. The paint brush will absorb the water and the water will travl up and enter the ferrule and mess up the binders that are holding the bristles in place. Leaving the paintbrush on a flat surface is a better option

However, leaving brushes at a flat surface allows water to seep into the ferrule after the brush has been used, thus I've place blue-tack on a bookshelf beside my workspace to stick my paintbrushes downward to prevent the excess water to enter the ferrule as the paint brush dries.

Watercolor Paints Basic Stage (pt.2)

Paints
Pans vs Tubes
Pros of tubes:

• Can be used to paint large areas easily. 
• Can be used straight out of the tube w/o adding water for great/max vibrancy 
• Saves money in a long run
• Can be squeezed onto a pallet and dried. It can be re-wet again

Cons of tubes:

• If you're not drying them on a pallet and re-wetting them and instead always use a new batch, paint can easily be wasted as it's hard to estimate how much paint you need
• It takes a longer time to set up
• Caps of  the tube and get stuck due to dry paints
• Some paints can lose their vibrancy when dried and re-wet (not sure if this is true)

However, most of the cons can be prevented by drying your paints in a pallet.

Pros of pans:

• Does not occupy a lot of space
• Less wasted paint as you only use what you need
• Easy to take out for outdoor painting
• Easy to set up

Cons of pans: 

• Difficult the paint a large area. It is possible but it requires more time and effort to create a thick mixture
• Might damage your brushes if you scrub them, be gentle with your brushes!

My opinion: In order for me to live the best of both worlds, I have bought tubes and dries them on a pallet that could be closed (prevent dust from getting onto my paints) and use them as pan paints. And when I need to paint large areas, I could simply reach out for the tubes itself and prepare my paints. 

What I like about my pallet is that it is made out of plastic, thus it is light while still being pretty durable (certainly not polystyrene) and it wouldn't break if I were to drop it. And as you can see, it is also VERY slim and compact which makes it really easy to bring around as it does not occupy much space. The next thing I really like about it is the amount of space to mix paints. I really like to mix my paints and some of those pan sets out there in the market are really compact and easy to bring around, however, they do not have the mixing wells that I look into for a watercolor pallet. And it was pretty inexpensive. Although some brands have added some extra compartments for mixing and it looks really cool.

Economical vs Student Grade

I wish I had some artist quality paints to compare with but sadly I don't :(

Pros of Economic/Dollar store grade:

• It is inexpensive
• Easy to find

Cons:

• Caused me my childhood misery
• Paints are chalky
• Hard to get paint out from the pan 
• The ones I own are creamy and opaque 
• Difficult to work with (I had to let the water sit on the pan and even srub to get more pigments out) 

Pros of Student grade:

• Paints are vibrant 
• Contains more pigments when being compared to economical grade
• Not very expensive (affordable)
• Great for beginners

Cons:

• Not as cheap as economical grade
• Not as vibrant as artist quality. Artist quality has more pigments and less binder
• Usually have to go to art stores to get them

You can see a great difference between the two paints. The student grade gave me pigments straight away when I apply water and if I soaked it longer, it gave me a more pigmented color. However, with the economic grade, barely anything comes off when first applied and I finally got some pigments after letting the water sit (I had to srub some paint to get the pigment) 

Personally, I've been using Daler Rowney Aquafine series, which is a student grade quality. Do watch out for the names of the paint as they might e the same brand but there are different grades within the brand. Eg, Winsor Newton Cottman paints are student quality and they work pretty well too!

Lightfastness
Lightfastness is a pigment's ability to withstand fading when exposed to light. And this depends on the nature of what pigments are being used.

If pigments are not lightfast, it will break down as the painting ages. So the painting will fade over time. Thus, if you're planning to sell a painting, ensure that your pigments are lightfast as you don't want to sell a person a painting that will fade over time due to exposure to light. You would most probably want that painting to last.

Different paints have a different lightfast rating. In order to know the rating, you can search your paint up online and check its lightfastness.

Another way to make your painting last is to use acid-free paper (will be discussed later)





References: Chroma (2016) Lightfastness rating - what it means / Colour range / archival oils / AU / products / Chroma. Available at: http://www.chromaonline.com/products/au/archival_oils/colour_range/lightfastness_rating_what_it_means (Accessed: 13 October 2016).

Watercolor Paints Basic Stage (pt.1)

Properties

Watercolor paints are pigments held together by a water soluble binder, along with additives and solvents.
(McArdle, no date)

Examples of binders are gum Arabic and honey. I’ve heard people say honey keeps the paint wet longer.

Let’s talk about transparency, opacity. Transparent watercolors allow the light to shine through to the watercolor paper and in turn, lets the white of the paper reflect back. The colors look clean, crisp, and appear to glow. Opaque colors block the light from coming through to the watercolor paper. Instead, the light bounces off the pigment. This can make the colors appear to look dull, even though some of the opaque's are quite vibrant in color.

Staining/Non-staining. Pigments staining watercolors will stain the paper even before the water has evaporated. So when you wipe the paint off, there will be a stain. With non-staining watercolors, the pigments will be lifted when and will not leave a stain. Sadly I do not have a staining color with me to show a comparison.

When painting with watercolor remember that it dries approximately 3 times lighter than the color you see when it is wet. It also depends on the type of pigment. Thus, you’ll need to work with your paints often to figure out how it dries.

The white parts of the watercolor painting aren’t actually white paint, it is from the white of the paper. Thus, you should always plan out where your lights in your paintings are. Usually, it's best to work from light to dark colors with watercolors. 

I usually tell myself, if I want to control where the pigment will go, I will control where the water will go as the pigment will follow the water. Lowkey water bender

References:

Heim, D.M. (1997) Properties of watercolor painting. Available at: http://www.watercolorpaintingandprojects.com/basics/properties.html (Accessed: 13 October 2016).



McArdle, T. (no date) Pigments through the ages - watercolor. Available at: http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/watercolor.html (Accessed: 13 October 2016).