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Getting More From a Large Watercolor Set
A fifty-colour watercolor set looks like a shortcut to good painting and frequently is not. More colours means more decisions, more opportunities to mix mud, and a tendency to reach for a named pan instead of mixing the colour the painting actually wants.
Used deliberately, a large set is genuinely useful. Here is how to get there.
Swatch it before you paint with it
The single most valuable hour you can spend with a new set. Watercolor dries substantially lighter than it appears wet, and colours in the pan look nothing like colours on paper.
- Take a sheet of the paper you actually use.
- Paint a graded strip of each colour, strong at one end to nearly clear at the other.
- Label every one.
- Let it dry fully before you judge anything.
Keep the chart beside you while painting. It is faster than testing on scrap every time and it stops you being surprised.
Build a working palette
Most finished paintings use six to ten colours, not fifty. A conventional starting group:
- A warm and a cool version of each primary — six colours.
- One or two earths, typically a burnt sienna and a raw umber.
- One convenience colour you find yourself reaching for repeatedly.
Mixing greens, purples and greys from that group produces a more coherent painting than pulling a different pre-mixed pan for each. Colour harmony largely comes from a limited palette.
The rest of the set is then there for the occasional passage where nothing mixed will do.
Why mud happens
Three causes, in order of frequency:
- Too many pigments in one mix. Two is usually enough, three is the practical limit.
- Dirty water. Every rinse carries the last colour into the next. Two jars — one for rinsing, one for clean mixing water — solves most of it.
- Overworking a wash. Watercolor is at its best laid down and left. Going back into a drying wash lifts the paper surface and dulls the colour.
Layering and drying
Watercolor builds by transparent layers. Each glaze must be fully dry before the next, or the two blend and you lose the luminosity that layering exists to produce.
Wet-into-wet is a different technique with its own uses, and the difference between the two is entirely about timing. Decide which you are doing before the brush touches the paper.
Paper matters more than paint
This is the honest advice. A modest set on good paper produces better work than an expensive set on poor paper.
- Weight: 140lb (300gsm) or heavier will not buckle badly. Lighter paper needs stretching.
- Surface: cold press is the general-purpose choice; hot press is smooth and suits detail; rough suits loose textural work.
- Cotton versus wood pulp: cotton takes lifting and reworking far better. It is the upgrade that changes the most.
Brushes
Three brushes cover almost everything: a large round for washes, a medium round for general work, and a small round or rigger for detail. A good round with a fine point does more than a rack of specialist shapes.
Rinse thoroughly, reshape the point, and dry flat or hanging rather than standing on the bristles.
Reactivating and travelling
Dried pan watercolor reactivates with water indefinitely, which is why sets last for years. Give each pan a few seconds with a wet brush before expecting colour to lift.
Let a set dry fully open before closing the lid. Closed wet, the colours contaminate each other and the box grows mould.
Mixing with other media
Watercolor sits happily under and over other materials. Line work with a fine acrylic marker over a dry wash is a common combination — see paint markers and pens — and it is a good way of adding definition without disturbing the paint.
Acrylic over watercolor works; watercolor over acrylic generally does not, because the acrylic film repels it.
Sets are under watercolor sets, with acrylics under acrylic paint sets. We are on 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn, open early Monday to Saturday — ask us, see the FAQ, or browse the range.
From our shelves
Products in this store that relate to what is covered above:
Prices are in US dollars. Delivery timings are on our shipping policy page and the return and refund policy sets out the window if something is not right.
Key points
- A large set is a convenience, not a shortcut. Most work still comes from a handful of colours.
- Mix from a small group first — a warm and cool of each primary plus an earth — before reaching for a named colour.
- Test every pan on a swatch card: wet and dry values differ substantially in watercolor.
- Let each wash dry before the next unless you specifically want blending.
- Paper matters more than paint. Cheap paper buckles and will not take lifting.
- Clean water and two jars — one for rinsing, one for mixing — prevents most muddy colour.
