Top 10 Watercolour Painting Supplies That Make A Big Difference

So, you’re wondering, “What supplies do I need for watercolour painting?”

Or maybe you’re regretting past purchases that drained your wallet and performed so badly that you wish you had invested in better watercolour painting supplies.

Either way, it’s time to broaden your horizons by understanding which watercolour art supplies work best for you and your budget.

That’s why, in this article, you’ll learn about:

• What qualities to look for in the best watercolour paper, brushes, paints, and associated supplies
• Which products are good-quality and affordable, and which products are high-quality and more expensive
• Which art supplies are better suited for beginners and for more advanced artists

The best part is that no matter what your personal budget is, there are always great products for every economic bracket.

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Recommended Watercolour Paints

When it comes to the best watercolour paints, there seems to be a bazillion choices ranging from pans to tubes and pencils.

With all this information, how do you decide which watercolour painting supplies are the best fit for you and your budget?

Well, I’ve divided the sections into budget-friendly watercolour supplies followed by more expensive products.

Budget Friendly Paint: Winsor & Newton Cotman

The Winsor & Newton Cotman Water Colour Sketchers Pocket Box is an amazing choice for artists who:

• Are just getting started with watercolour painting
• Are frustrated with their first set of low-quality student grade paints
• Are looking for an economical product that offers great quality paints

If you identify with any of the aforementioned points, then this paint set if for you! Here are some of the highlights of this product:

• Very affordable for artists on a budget
• Small compact case is great for painting outdoors and in cafes, museums, etc.
• A limited colour palette with 12 colours encourages you to learn how to mix colours
• Pigments are vibrant and have a smooth application

High-Quality Paint: Sennelier l’Aquarelle Watercolors

The reason why I love painting with the Sennelier l’Aquarelle Watercolors is because they are artist grade paints that are sold at a reasonable price compared to other well-known professional sets.

Another feature I love about this set is that they’re made with a honey binder, which makes the application of the pigments feel so buttery smooth!

So when you paint with these tube watercolors, watercolour painting feels much easier because these paints blend well, look transparent, and are vibrant.

Other beneficial features include:

• Soft and creamy pigments that have a smooth application on paper
• Rich, vibrant pigments that have great lightfastness
• This 12 paint set comes with 10ml tubes, so you have plenty of opportunity for colour mixing

Recommended Watercolour Brushes

When it comes to watercolour brushes, it’s best to not use the cheapest and flimsiest brushes on the market.

If you do, the bristles will fall apart much faster than if you had bought a higher quality brush.

So do yourself a favour by purchasing a few watercolour brushes that can hold water and which have good brush tips. This way, you can learn how to apply different painting techniques more easily.

Budget-Friendly Brushes: Black Tulip Brush Set by ZenArts

The economical watercolour paintbrushes that I recommend are the Black Tulip Watercolor Brushes by ZenArts.

First of all, they are synthetic brushes that are made from faux squirrel hair. They’re designed to mimic the quality of animal hair.

Here are the highlights of these synthetic brushes:

• Very affordable and easy to use for beginners
• Bristles retain their shape and hold lots of pigment and water
• The brushes are well-made, which means you won’t have to worry about the bristles falling out or the brush falling apart

High-Quality Brushes: Silver Black Velvet Brushes

Out of all of these watercolour painting supplies, the Silver Black Velvet brushes are among my favourite.

What I adore about these brushes is their synthetic and squirrel hair blend. This unique blend means the company can sell a high-quality product at a cheaper price than if the brush was made purely from natural animal hair.

Most importantly, these brushes are super thirsty, which means they hold tons of water and pigment. So you don’t have to reload your brush nearly as often as when you use synthetic brushes.

In a nutshell, here are the advantages of investing in these brushes:

• Soft and versatile brush tips can create super fine to really thick brushstrokes, so they create lots of brushstroke variation
• These thirsty brushes hold a lot of water and pigment
• Short, smooth handles are easy to hold and grip in your hands

Recommended Watercolour Paper

Painting on low-quality watercolour paper made of wood pulp or cellulose can be difficult. As a result, painting on this paper can be frustrating if you don’t know what you’re doing.

So keep this factor in mind when you are deciding on which type of watercolour paper to purchase.

Note: If you’re looking for an in-depth and comprehensive overview of different kinds of paper, check out this helpful article about watercolour paper by Art is Fun.

Budget-Friendly Paper: Canson XL

If you’re a beginner, there’s nothing wrong with working on cheaper cellulose or wood pulp paper if that’s all you can afford right now.

Although this paper is not as textured and absorbent as higher-quality brands, it works very well for the price you’re paying.

Colours dry with nice vibrancy, and the paper is thick enough to handle a few layers of washes.

High-Quality Watercolour Paper: Arches

In my opinion, Arches watercolour paper is among the most professional watercolour supplies on the market.

After all, Arches is universally known as the crème de la crème when it comes to exceptional watercolour paper.

Yes, it’s pricy. But you’re paying for quality.

I speak from experience when I tell you that painting on high-quality watercolour paper will help you learn how to paint easily with watercolours much more easily and with less stress and frustration.

Here are a few more perks of investing in this high-quality paper:

• It is 140 lbs / 300 gsm, which means it is thick and sturdy
• The paper is 100% cotton, which means it will end up absorbing the water and pigments very well
• It is easy to paint on, and it won’t tear, buckle, or warp easily
• The paper comes in sheets, pads, and blocks

Recommended Watercolour Pencils

Perhaps you want to try your hand at watercolour pencils?

I recommend it because drawing with these water-soluble pencils feels similar to drawing, but they’re more versatile because you can use them wet or dry!

In this way, they’re a unique and fun way to create watercolour paintings that differs from traditional pans and tubes.

Related: Check out this helpful blog post to learn how to use watercolour pencils to make artwork.

Budget-Friendly Watercolour Pencils: Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer

Since the early days of my art journey started with me using coloured pencils, transitioning to watercolour pencils felt natural for me.

They offer greater control than pan, tube, and liquid watercolours because you can be more precise with the application of pigment.

In this way, these watercolour pencils are wonderful for detailed work such as when painting flowers, trees, fruits, and doors.

So if you haven’t yet, give these water soluble pencils a try! The highlights of using watercolour pencils include:

• They’re light and portable, so you can paint outside or on the go
• The pencils are water soluble but they can also be used as dry media
• The pigments don’t need as much water as pan or tube paints to become activated
• The hexagonal shape of the pencils fit comfortably in your hand

Recommended Gouache

Since gouache is opaque watercolour, I’m including it on this list because many watercolourists also enjoy painting with gouache.

In fact, it’s not uncommon to find artists who combine the transparency of watercolours with the opaqueness of gouache to create awesome artwork.

Want to learn more about gouache? Then have a look at this guide to gouache painting for beginners.

And you’re interested in learning more about the similarities and differences between gouache vs watercolour, check out this link.

Budget-Friendly Gouache: Arteza

Full transparency:

I’m somewhat new to gouache painting, so my experience with gouache supplies is more limited compared to my knowledge of watercolour painting supplies.

That being said, after doing some research, I decide to invest in the Arteza Gouache Set of 60 paints as my first set ever,

These gouache paints are really great! They behave like watercolours, and yet they have a unique personality all of their own.

In particular, I really enjoyed these characteristics of gouache:

• The pigments are very vibrant and they dry beautifully
• The gouache lays down evenly, flatly, and very opaquely
• They work well on watercolour paper and mixed media paper

Extra Watercolour Painting Supplies

All of the aforementioned supplies are my personal favourites as they’re the best watercolour supplies that I have invested in to date.

The following list includes additional supplies that, although not necessarily needed, can add extra dimension to your watercolour paintings and aid in the painting process.

Porcelain Mixing Palette

I’m not very picky when it comes to mixing palettes, although there is one criterion that I believe it must not have.

Your mixing palette should not be plastic!

The reason for this is because the paint will pool into beads of water if it sits in a plastic palette. As a result, mixing colours properly isn’t as easy to achieve.

In a porcelain palette, the water won’t pool into beads. As such, mixing colours and diluting pigments is much easier to do.

So if you’re interested in buying a porcelain mixing palette, I suggest investing in a palette such as the MEEDEN 12 Well Round Porcelain Artist Paint Palette because:

• It has 12 nicely-sized mixing wells that offer lots of space for mixing pigments
• It is medium-weight and sturdy, so it won’t be easily knocked over
• It will not easily break or be destroyed

Masking Fluid

For my personal style, I don’t really use masking fluid all that often. However, it really comes in handy in certain instances, such as when:

• Preserving specific parts of the paper that you want to remain white
• Creating electric lightning bolts flashing through a stormy sky
• Sealing off very fine and precise lines that you want to keep white

To use this masking fluid, all you do is apply it to the paper (but make sure you don’t use too much), wait for it to dry, and then carefully peel off the dried masking fluid. And voilà, you’re done!

To apply masking fluid easily and without hassle, I recommend you try the Winsor & Newton Watercolor Art Masking Fluid.

Graphite Sketching Pencils

Way back at the beginning of my art journey, I was interested in using graphite pencils to draw cartoons including Disney characters.

If you’d like to see an example of a graphite drawing I made using these pencils, check out this article which discusses how art styles evolve over time.

To achieve rich dark shadows and light whimsical highlights, I used the Staedtler Mars Lumograph graphite pencils. Many of the benefits of this product include:

• A wide spectrum of shades ranging from light shades to deep blacks
• Pencils blend smoothly and lay down nicely
• Strong leads do not chip or break easily when sharpened

Waterproof Black Ink

When you learn how to paint with watercolour and ink, I always recommend investing in the Speedball Black Ink. What I enjoy about this product is that it works really well and sells for an incredibly affordable price.

So if you are planning to use ink in your watercolour paintings, I suggest you invest in this product because:

• The ink is carbon black and waterproof
• Seriously, this ink dries really fast and lives up to its name
• It has great lightfastness, so the ink won’t fade over time

Opaque White Ink

Sometimes masking fluid is useful to achieve desired effects in a watercolour painting. And other times it makes more sense to use white ink as a means of adding highlights to a painting.

In these instances when you are looking to add highlights to your painting, I recommend that you use white ink.

To achieve crisp and bright highlights, investing in Winsor & Newton White Ink is what I would recommend.

Even though the bottle is small, the ink is going to last you a long time. Highlights of this ink include:

• It’s easy to create crisp white highlights
• It applies evenly and smoothly
• The white ink offers good coverage because it dries opaquely

Conclusion

There you have it!

Whether you’re a watercolour beginner who’s looking to upgrade their watercolour painting supplies, or an experienced artist who’s searching to expand their art supplies collection, this article has tons of suggestions for everyone.

And remember, the supplies on this list:

• Range from super affordable to more expensive
• Range from beginner-friendly to more experienced
• Range from decent quality to high-quality

But whatever you choose, all of the products on this list are available to order online. I only promote products I trust and brands I believe in, so rest assured that I hold these supplies in high-esteem.

Do you use any of these watercolour supplies? If so, which one(s) is your favourite? Share your review in the comments below!

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