Watercolours

Ever had difficulty with watercolour?

For most, its something we have all experienced whether amateur or professional. Watercolour is well known to be one of the most difficult and unforgiving medium to paint with. However, a lot of problems can be put down to poor quality materials and lack of technical knowledge; a lot of people try it and go off it for life. But all is not lost, as with the right materials and understanding come the most beautiful rewards. It’s the ornate nature of watercolour which gives it it’s subtle beauty.

To help you find the watercolours that suit your specific needs, we have a range of four lines:

Talens & Art Creation - A small range of low cost quality watercolour starter sets perfect for children or beginners.

Van Gogh Watercolour- Cost-effective high quality bright watercolours from a popular & well knows brand.

Rembrandt Watercolour- Artist Quality top notch watercolours for truly stunning results.

Watercolour is truly magical when used in washes. The nature of watering down the colour to whatever level of transparency you wish can lead to some genuinely original and fascinating results: great swathes of colour filling your composition, all intermixing in a very natural manner. Washes usually form the beginning layers of a painting, so it is important give it some thought and if possible experiment with the strength of colour.

A key tip is actually taking away the moisture from certain parts of the painting. Keeping something absorbent handy (a small sponge, or a bit of tissue paper) is almost essential to correct any mistakes and also to take colour away from the composition as you wish, to enhance the end result. You can always get some interesting effects by working back into the painting.

What is so special about Rembrandt Watercolour?

Apart from being ground finer on the triple roller mill, Rembrandt watercolour contains the purest pigments and Gum Arabic to give the best possible quality, combined with maximum transparency. The paint has the capacity to remain constantly brilliant over time as it has the highest degree of lightfastness possible.

Choose from transparent white, very pure transparent yellow and red colours, permanent madder lakes, as well as traditional madders and transparent water colours based on iron oxide pigments.

Rembrandt watercolour gives you the highest standard, without the high cost of well known competitors, particularly as you can make a huge saving by buying the larger 20ml size, which is now available in all the 80 colours.

Some colours will mix differently when comparing with other brands, as to make up the colour e.g. Vermilion, as different companies have different pigments in the paint.

What are the Van Gogh Watercolour paints like?

Van Gogh Watercolours are are in one word superb! Van Gogh is marketed as a student watercolour paint, but is so much more. One of the defining qualities of this brand of paint is that the colours (whilst somewhat limited to 40 colours) are extremely bright and vibrant, giving a unique glow to just about any painting. With an almost artist quality feel to them they are certainly worth considering for your pallet.

Truly with this brand you get the best of quality and price.

What do I need if I am only trying out watercolour?

The Art Creation and Talens brands are a great entry level paint, ideal if you are dabbling, on a low budget, buying for your children or if you are not sure if watercolour is for you. Like we said earlier, watercolour is not for everyone, and if you start with a higher quality, you may find that you are just wasting your money. Here you will find some good quality low cost starter sets for beginners (Like Reeves). In most of the sets there are step by step instructions to help you on your way.

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