The unpredictable pigment, wet colors,   bleeding, and spectrum or saturation can be beautiful and intimidating at the time. As a newbie, you don’t need to allow this to scare you away. To help your journey and have a brush in your hand, here are things you should know when getting started with water color paint. 

Get Good Brushes

As a starter, you don’t need too much brush for water colour paints, but rather you need a few good ones. Starting with a single brush is okay, but you’ll go farther if you have a set of small, medium, and large round brushes. You can also add a medium flat brush and a mop brush.    

Always Remember To Use A Palette

If you are planning your own set of colors, then you should consider having a palette because this will be your playground for mixing colors. You can start by buying a watercolor palette with wells for mixing colors, or you can opt for a flat, non-porous surface. Something like an old plate. It would be best to get something bigger than what you may think you’ll need because you wouldn’t want your nicely mixed colors to start flowing into one another. 

Don’t Over Stress Yourself When it Comes To Shopping For Paints

When you want to buy water colour paints set, you don’t need to break the bank. All you have to do is get a few high-quality basic paints. The paint to choose, be it dried cakes or tubes, is dependent on you but in all, ensure you have red, yellow, blue, and black paints. 

Getting a travel watercolor kit is an excellent way to make your first shopping trip easy. This is because this kit usually comes with primary colors. 

Use Top Notch Watercolor Paper

You must think all papers are the same, right? Well, this isn’t the case when it comes to watercolor painting. You should buy water colour paints paper for your painting. If you try painting on regular old printer paper or craft paper, you will likely not have a good outcome. With these papers, your color will find it challenging to stick to the paper, and you may also find the paper wrapping as you paint. In the case of watercolor paper, it absorbs the moisture of watercolor, leaving behind a bright pigment.

Ensure You Have Clean Water and Scrap Paper as Part of Your Tools

Clean water and scrap paper are very important in watercolor painting. With a nice container of clean water, you’ll be able to thin out your water colour paints and ease your pain when switching from one color to the other. Ensure you change the water frequently to avoid muddying up with colors. 

Scrap papers are needed to test water colour paints before using real paper. Having a small piece of watercolor paper is your best, but you could use any paper in a pinch, just that they may not dry as they should on your finished surface. 

Begin With A Sketch

The first thing you should do before painting is to have a sketch. It would be best if you worked out your compositions as a sketch. With this, your composition becomes more solidified. Your sketch can be on a separate piece of paper, or you can have a direct pencil sketch on your paper.

Set Your Painting Space 

You should have a neatly set up painting space. Your brushes, work surface, watercolor paint set, paper towel for brush drying paint, palette, water for mixing, and scrap paper should be properly set up. All these should be within your arms’ length. Although you should ensure one does not get in the way of another so that you don’t knock them off during painting. 

Get Used to the Bleed

A common feature of watercolor paint is that they bleed when wet paints are applied close. You may be worried about this, but you don’t need to fear because this can be an opportunity to create beautiful visual effects like gradients. If you are afraid of your watercolor paint bleeding out, you should allow each color to dry completely before applying another. Click here for actionable acrylic paint tips you should know.

Getting Masking Fluid Is Important 

Another notorious feature of watercolor paint is that they are hard to control. They are fond of making their way to parts of the paint where you don’t want them to be. To save yourself from this stress, you need masking fluid. This will block out any area you don’t want the paints to get to. Once the applied masking fluid has dried up, apply the paint and let it dry, after which you clean up the masking fluid to reveal a clean paper.  

Enjoy the Process

It would be best to have the mindset that you want a fun-filled watercolor painting experience and not one filled with fear. If you approach painting this way, you are on your way to having a fun-filled and adventurous watercolor painting journey. You should experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them. You can only become good at the watercolor painting by practicing regularly. 

Mix Paint Than You Think Is Needed

It will be a headache for you if, after painting, you discover that a part of the painting is missing. Aside from this, it is also challenging to remix color and still have the same result as the initial one. So, it’s always best to have enough painting available for use.  

Don’t let Mistakes Have a Stronghold On You

If you paint a wrong color, or paint bled out in a way you are not cool with, or you mistakenly painted a blotch on the page. You don’t need to worry about this. Usually, these errors can either be fixed or blended into your work.

Starting your watercolor painting journey can be a little difficult, but employing the tips mentioned above will make your journey much more straightforward.