Most people would love to paint their own unique watercolour paintings but are put off doing so by the bewildering jungle of advice and equipment from established artists who seem happy to tell you just enough to keep you interested and,of course to keep paying them for lessons.

I have been a professional artist for nearly 30 years mainly using watercolours.

"if only" "i wish" "one day"

I wish I had a pound for every time I have heard the above quotes regarding painting but the simple fact is you have to PRACTICE! just like with anything else. You can not pick up your brushes once a month and expect to create a masterpiece,practice teaches you how the paint reacts on the paper and with other colours.Practice teaches you how the paint will dry,how the paper will "cockle" and lots of other things that it is hard to put your finger on.

But,even if you paint virtually every day like I do, you will still make a mess of some of your paintings because that is the unique thing with watercolour,the very freedom in which you have to work can be its own enemy!

What I am saying is...if you make a mess,dont worry,bin it and start again,what ever you do, dont worry about it,it is only a piece of paper and a bit of pigment, BIN it and start over again.

Right,thats enough waffle for now,lets start with paper.

Paper

I love Bockingford paper,for 30 years I have used it.Inexpensive,tough and beautiful,

just like my wife.

Personally I would not use any other.

A3 size 300gsm Bockingford paper available in pads,blocks or individual sheets,if you use A3 sheets you can buy good quality standard A3 frames or even 20inch x 16 inch (with a mount) so keeping cost down.

Paint

If you have a box full of say 25 different colours you will feel that you need to use them and end up with a muddy mess,so,for now we need just 7 colours...

Paynes Grey (which can be used as really light grey up to the blackest black)

Alizarin Crimson (for reds)

Ultramarine (Blues)

Lemon yellow

Raw sienna (light brown)

Raw umber(dark brown)

Light red

I started off using student colours in 8 ml tubes which are less than half the price of artist quality paints and,when I have been in funds I have bought the artist quality tubes but,to be honest I cant tell the difference so,buy the cheaper student colours!

Please do not buy the cheap sets of paints you can find,stick with a well known brand such as Daler Rowney and buy the seperate 8ml tubes.(the bigger tubes can dry up).

You will notice that there is no green,black, white, purple ,orange etc.etc. in the list above,that is because you can make all these colours far more effectively using just this restricted pallette.

By the way, white will be reproduced by leaving the white of the paper shining through as you can see in the painting of Styal chaple below,this effect was acheived by using the watercolourists favourite friend masking fluid,more of this later.

Brushes.

Again we will stick to a minimum with brushes.

A number 3 rigger

A number 4 round

and a 1 inch hake