Sunday, July 24, 2011

Do materials make a difference?


No question!!  YES!!!  with paint the pigments are better and paper holds both water and paint differently


Inexpensive student grade watercolors from Reeves on Canson XL Series 140 lb cold press watercolor paper



M Graham watercolors on Canson XL Series 140 lb cold press watercolor paper



M Graham watercolors on Arches 140 lb cold press watercolor paper

Conclusion - buy absolutely the best materials that you can afford.  Inexpensive papers are okay for learning and trying new techniques, but buy the good stuff to use when you really want to produce quality.

Stay away from the student grade paints for anything except playing and even some student grade paints are been than others, ie W&N Cotman paints are much better that the Reeves paint.

If you are lucky enough to have friends who will provide you will samples of different types of paints, like I did, you can try out several to determine what you like and what works best for you.

2 comments:

Sandra Strait said...

I'm not unhappy with the quality of my Koi paint, even though I know it isn't the absolute best. I am having trouble with its size though. The pans are so small that I can only get a small brush in to pick up paint. It takes so long to get enough color built up, that I lose the wet before I'm done when I'm trying to do large areas for sky, etc.

I'm also finding that the brushes matter. The right size to the paper, and how much water they'll hold etc. makes a big difference.

Stephanie said...

Heh, I still have kids' watercolors, and that's probably all I can afford at the moment. Not that I use them yet. Now THAT would be a good day, when I actually spread out and paint!