Expressive Watercolours

Event Information

Price: £225

Course Weeks: 12

Room: Cruse Studio

Campaign: Autumn Term 2024

Customer Information: Watercolour Materials:
Variety of paintbrushes –
These need to be the soft type, sable or synthetic. Sable is the best but can be expensive, some good
quality synthetic brushes are now available which should be cheaper. You will need a variety of different
sized brushes, at least two of medium size e.g size 6 to 8. You can get a variety of different shaped
brushes but I suggest round brushes to start with. A good paintbrush will ‘hold’ plenty of watercolour, i.e
the bulk of the paintbrush will be nice and fat, but will have a nice point which will give you control. When
you bend the brush hairs at a right angle and then release the brush should spring back if not then reject
the brush. Some of the cheaper brushes also tend to shed hairs so check this if you can before you buy.
Watercolour paints –
2 types- pan & tube. I use both, pan colours are hard blocks of paint which become soluble when water is
added, I find these useful for transportation when out sketching but I use mainly tube paint when painting at
home. Tube paints can be watered down for large areas of wash or used straight from the tube for more
intense colour. Tube paints usually come in two qualities, student and artist. I suggest student quality, artist
quality will give you better richer colours but can be expensive which may be inhibiting when practising. The
student quality should still give you good colour and quality. Try to avoid really cheap paint which can
sometimes be quite chalky and not nice to use. There are different manufacturers, a good art shop will be
able to advise.
If you buy a set of pan colour these should come with all the basic colours you will need. If using tube
paints then I suggest the following colours as a basic set:
2 blues-
Ultramarine (a deep blue)
Cobalt or Cerulean(lighter blue)
2 reds –
Alizarin crimson (a cool red)
Vermilion or Cadmium(a warm red)
3 yellows-
Lemon yellow (a cool yellow)
Cadmium yellow (a warm yellow)
Yellow Ochre (a browny yellow)
There is a whole range of other colours (paynes grey, burnt sienna, Vandyke brown, Sap green & Viridian
can be useful) but you should be able to make most of the basic colours you will need from this basic set of
colours.
2 jars or pots – 1 for cleaning brushes, the other for clean water for mixing colours.
Paper – There is a wide variety of paper available which come with different surfaces and in different weights or
thicknesses. These can be bought in large, imperial sized sheets, which can be cut to size, or in pads or blocks. There are 3 basic surfaces (machine made):
HP – hot-pressed, smooth texture,
NOT- has some texture and is the most popular for watercolour painting (Bockingford is one of the most
popular makes)
Rough- as it sounds.
Palette- Ideally this should have separate, shallow pans for mixing paint without colours mixing with each other.
However, could also use an old plate or similar.
You will also need rough paper for testing colours, kitchen towel or similar for soaking up excess paint & to dry brushes on. Other materials can be used in conjunction with watercolour e.g pastels, coloured pencils, also bubble wrap, salt, masking fluid can be used to create texture etc