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).