I just got some for my birthday (yay!) but this may sound a little weird but like...how do you use them??! haha, do I dip them in water or what?? Please help! lol
basically what you will want to do is get a jar of water, and a palette or something to put the paints on (i am assuming you are using tubed watercolors) take a tube of paint put a little bit on your pallette (a little goes along way with watercolors) you want to dip your brush in the water (its best to use a watercolor brush since they hold water nicely and are made for this medium) and then dip the brush onto the paint. you want to kind of make a puddle of colored water. and there you go! use as much water to paint ratio that you need for the effect that you are tyring to produce ie; washy, more detailed etc. hope this helps and have fun!!
a few things to consider... a palette is a good thing to have. you should be able to pick up a cheap one in any art or craft store. of course, cheaper ones don't have as many little sections to put the paint in, so get one with at least as many sections as you have colours. squeeze out a generous portion of each colour... it doesn't matter if the paint dries out between uses, the whole point of watercolours is you just add water! the pigment will be stronger when the paint is just out the tube... when it is dry takes a bit more working with wet brush to get strong colours, but not hard to do! invest in 3 good watercolour brushes... small, medium and large (standard sizes 3, 6 and 12)... round brushes are the most versatile. (look for sable bristles, or a mix of sable and synthetic.) as pawnshopgirl said, they hold water the best. paint on watercolour paper! other paper won't hold the water, or will dissintegrate the more you work it, and will get all wrinkly. you can get a feel for how to mix colours in a sketchbook, but it's just not the same as watercolour paper. thinner paper will have to be stretched... thicker paper can be used as is, since it won't buckle (much) when soaking up the water. i use 140 lb cold press... nice and thick, like heavy card. traditionally, watercolour artists don't use white! this is because the paint is designed to be translucent, so the white of the paper shows through... if you want a lighter colour, add more water. if you want pure white leave the paper clean... if you want to work all loose with colour washes, but leave white parts showing through, invest in some masking fluid (or liquid frisket)... paint it on, let it dry (goes rubbery), paint over it, then rub off when everything is dry. i think reeves are student quality paints... ie. not the best quality pigments, but they'll certainly work well, great for learning with, which is the whole point!... if you really fall in love, buy some artist quality paints. (i use windsor newton.) some good tips here hope that helps, and doesn't overwhelm you!! most importantly... have fun!
omgosh thank you so much! I am going to give it a shot right now actually...we will see what happens thanks a bunch
