While you begin your creative journey it’s important not to get caught up in buying expensive materials but more so the mental blocker of painting and experimenting with what materials you do have. Whether that’s with a $5 watercolor set from Michaels or $50 set from Daniel Smith the most important thing to getting started is actually getting started, and putting that brush on the paper and EXPERIMENTING!
My students know that the majority of my class is spent experimenting with what they learned in the first 30 minutes. I am not going to talk about painting, I am going to paint.
We learn most by doing, and so congrats on getting started.
Below are materials I suggest to my students to begin building their tool kit for less than $50 (paint, brushes, and paper).
As always, class does not end after two hours, it is continued in everyday life, it is a lifestyle. Elizabeth Gilbert summarizes in BIG MAGIC well, “A creative life is an amplified life. It's a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner—continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you—is a fine art, in and of itself.”
Good luck!
Love, Sophia
Paper
When I first started painting I used Strathmore cold old press, but now I use [Arches][2]. Both are great options. You want paper that is absorbant but also has water pockets to hold the watercolor paint. If you want to tape your watercolor paper down you can use any type of masking tape. I use scotch masking tape.
Watercolors, Gouche and Gold Arcylic
Winsor and Newton Pocket box is a great starter set I recommend to all my students and it comes with the cutest mini brush! Great for detail work.
I also use Pelikan paint box and Daniel Smith watercolor tubes.
For my backgrounds I often use a gouche a mixture of almost a acrylic texture that's water soluable.
To add a little magic and dimension to my pieces I used Basics gold arcylics
If you are wanting to build your own palette my friends at Art Toolkit have these incredible travel size pans you can refill. They also have pre-made pans with assorted pallets for you to choose from. If you are a first time buyer from Art Toolkit you can use code SOPHIAFAN10 for a 10% off discount.
Brushes
Brushes are the magic wands of the watercolor world! If you find one you love, take good care of it. While I have collected an array of watercolor brushes over the years I love my round tip Daniel Smith watercolor brushes. When I started I used Ohuhu brush pens where you add water to it, but now I use any old round brush. I am currenly testing out Transon round brushes.