Watercolor Painting & Sketching Group, Community, and Blog › Forums › Art Supplies You Use › Share Your Favorite Art Supplies!
Tagged: canada, cheapjoes, supplies, watercolor
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I’m a sucker for adding product to get free shipping 🙂 It just makes sense to me. LOL
That’s why I thought I’d share. It’s one of those things to check out when you are comparing prices. It might be cheaper in total dollars at another site, but if you are actually getting more product for the price, it might be worth a dollar or two more. Jerry’s has pretty good prices though, so it might actually be cheaper.
I am new to watercolors retired a few years back and picked up watercolors 11/2016. I buy most of my stuff from Michael’s then found out about Blick’s like a kid in a candy store. I used pan watercolors then tube but just used the cheap on sale then I found Daniel Smith love their watercolor paints( tube). Can anybody recommend any other good brands Daniel smith is awesome but since I am new I waste a lot of paint i.e.More paint means a better picture some time the paper ends up like plywood.I try and paint 3-5 hours a day ( again retired) .Love it listen to jazz ( Snarky Puppy) and paint away.
Other good brands are M Graham, and Qor. M Graham is surprisingly cheap and great quality. It uses honey, which means many of the paints stay sticky in the pan. Some people don’t mind this and some do. Qor is good, but very expensive (excellent customer service though). Lots of the people in this group swear by Da Vinci and Schmincke. I haven’t used those myself. I’ve used a few American Journey and Turner and liked them, but not enough to replace my existing paints.
Mijello Mission Gold is very vibrant and all the pigments handle the same. Usually some colors explode in water, and others hardly move. Some granulate and other don’t. With Mijello they’re all pretty much the same. That makes them easier to learn how to use but means you can’t get some of the effects that you can with other brands. They are rather expensive if you buy the colors separately, but there are some sets, like their Pure Pigment set that are very reasonably priced.
When you are buying, look for words like ‘Artist Quality’ or ‘Professional’. It’s not always a sure thing, but these tend to be the better paints. Many brands have a professional quality and a student quality. The student is always cheaper, but so are the paints.
If you click on ‘Resources’ up at the top, you’ll see ‘Art Supply Reviews’ in the drop-down list. Lots of fantastic information to be found in those.
I felt the same way about spending so much money when I was starting out. I couldn’t really loosen up and experiment because I didn’t want to waste that expensive paint. I bought both pans and tubes of St. Petersburg White Nights on ebay. They are very affordable, but so much more pigmented than any student grade I had used. I was able to paint without feeling like I was wasting hard-earned money with my beginner exercises and paintings that needed to go straight in the bin. It’s been years now, and I still use several colors from that brand.
I use Yellow Frog Tape has low adhesion paint doesn’t creep under it and cuts easily with an exacto
Tonya I also love their colors but stopped buying them because of the drying problems. I have a cobalt teal that never quite dries, though their Nickel Azo did… and one other didn’t dry, a Quin (I only bought a couple to try).
I agree with what Sandra Said — pay for Artist’s quality, though some call Holbein student grade and I like their paints. One thing, if you are putting down a lot of paint (other than not having good pigmented paints) is that you may prefer gouache. It will move like a watercolor rather than stay permanent (like acrylic) but is much denser and opaque. Also, check on the sites (in case it is not listed) to see if you are using more transparent colors than opaque paint colors. In every color of the rainbow — even white — there are usually transparent or semi-transparent pigments (for instance quinacridone) versus opaque pigments (cobalt).
The water beading on plastic is solved by rubbing the plastic with some cream cleaner or suchlike, just to take the gloss off it. Works a treat
Charlie – you’ve done a great job of getting this whole site up and running – I am a bit of a web designer with WordPress and other tools and I think the whole site including the forum works fantastically well. Credit to you!
Aww thanks, Tom! I really appreciate that!! My dreams are often bigger than my web skills, but I keep charging along! Only completely broke the site twice so that’s not too bad! lol So happy you’re enjoying it!
I wish we had discount art supplies in Canada! The best I can get is free shipping sometimes if I order over a certain amount. Shipping from the U.S. is too expensive. sigh. That means I don’t have a lot of choice in W/C papers or a variety in paint manufacturers. I’m envious.
Every time I see this picture (when I visit this thread to see if there’s something new to see) I drool. If I had unlimited funds the one thing I’d allow myself is to go shop for ALL the art supplies I’ve EVER drooled over. No diamonds, fast cars or champagne, just ART SUPPLIES.
That’s so funny Kate, it’s the one question my mom asked when I told her about honey based paints, lol. I think it might attract whinny the poo faster than bees. ;o)
I did exactly the same thing with the Madeen palette, I magnetized everything and it fits a whole lotta paint. Fantastic deal on a great little palette.
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