Tools of the Trade - Watercolours

Nesting Robin by Karen Mehta

I thought it would be a good contrast with my last 'tools of the trade' blog to look at my watercolours this time round - back to real world painting instead of the world of electronic media and art.  My favourite 'go to' watercolour set is a Winsor & Newton Cotman 24 half pan set.  I love its practical design and versatility, it works for me inside or out and about.

There are lots of different manufacturers of watercolour out there, but I have settled with this Winsor and Newton product.  This is a good set, but it is not in their top end artist quality watercolours  the Cotman range is a notch below that.  It is however more affordable, and more widely available too, which means it's easier to go out and pick up refills or extra pans.

You can get the Cotman range as solid pans or as tubes, but I like to keep mostly to pans as I prefer them outside - they are just easier to manage.  Tubes really come in to their own if you want to colour wash larger areas, or you are looking for very dense colour.  If I was water colour painting for many hours in a week I'm sure my views would develop faster and the greater range of colour in the artists selection would become very attractive, as well as some other benefits of tubes that are less obvious to me now.  But for the time being I'm really happy with what I've got.

So what are the deciding factors for me?
 - I wanted a good quality paint with a good selection of colour for a reasonable price
 - I wanted flexibility in where I painted so the design of the box and palette was also important
 - The box needed to be robust but light
 - When open and ready to use it had to feel balanced in one hand

You may find that if you go through a similar process you will end up with a different product and manufacturer - this is just what works for me…Happy painting!