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Watercolor has fewer required supplies than most painting media, but the choices within each category are significant. Paper brand makes a bigger difference to how a painting feels than the paint brand. A single well-chosen brush outperforms a set of ten poor ones. This guide covers every category clearly — what it is, why it matters, and where to spend vs save.
Use the section links below to jump to what you need, or read straight through for the full picture. At the end of each section you'll find links to our detailed product guides.
1. Paints
Lower pigment concentration, some colors contain fillers. Colors are less vibrant and may shift as they dry. Suitable for learning, experimentation, and practice work.
- Winsor & Newton Cotman — the benchmark; consistent and reliable
- Sakura Koi — good for travel sets, warm color palette
- Arteza Expert — better pigmentation than their standard line
High pigment load, mostly single-pigment formulations, better lightfastness. Colors behave more predictably and mix more cleanly. For serious work and when you've exhausted student grade.
- Daniel Smith — largest range, including granulating colors
- Schmincke Horadam — German quality, high pigment density
- Holbein HWC — consistent, non-granulating, excellent for detail
- M. Graham — honey-based gum arabic, stays moist longer
More pigment per dollar, brighter mixes, flexible for filling custom palettes. Requires a palette setup. Tubes that dry out in the palette can be reactivated with water.
Ready to use, compact, no setup required. Travel-friendly. Slightly less vibrant initial mix than fresh tube paint. Refillable from tubes once empty.
2. Brushes
Three brush shapes cover the full range of watercolor techniques. Most painters work with just two: a medium round and a flat wash brush.
The essential watercolor brush. A round comes to a point for detail and bellies out to hold paint for broader strokes. One good size 6 or size 8 round handles the majority of watercolor painting. Size 2–4 for fine detail; size 10–12 for larger washes.
Budget: Princeton Velvet Touch, Dynasty Black Gold | Artist: Raphael 8404, Winsor & Newton Series 7
A wide flat brush lays down large even washes quickly. Useful for backgrounds, skies, and large color fields. A 1-inch flat covers a full sheet quickly. Not essential for beginners, but a useful second brush once you're past the basics.
Budget: Loew-Cornell flat wash | Artist: Da Vinci Casaneo flat
Long thin brushes with a very fine point, used for linework, calligraphy-style strokes, and fine botanical detail. The rigger brush is named for rigging lines in ship paintings. Not needed until you're working on detailed subjects.
Budget: Princeton Neptune rigger | Artist: Winsor & Newton Cotman rigger
Self-contained brushes with a water reservoir in the handle. No water jar needed. Ideal for travel and field sketching. The Pentel Aquash is the most used; Sakura Koi water brushes come in most travel sets. Not a substitute for a good round brush in the studio.
Best options: Pentel Aquash medium, Sakura Koi water brush
3. Paper
Paper is the supply that affects your results more than any other. The same paint on cheap paper and on quality watercolor paper behaves completely differently. This is the category where spending more matters earliest.
Medium texture with light tooth. The standard surface for most watercolor painting. Works for loose washes, layered work, and detailed painting. The right choice for most beginners and intermediates.
Smooth surface with very little texture. Paint sits on the surface rather than sinking in, which creates sharp, clean edges and fine detail. Less forgiving for loose work — brushstrokes show more clearly.
Heavy texture with significant tooth. Paint pools in the valleys of the paper, creating a naturally granulated look. Excellent for landscapes, expressive work, and dry-brush effects. Not suitable for fine linework.
90lb (185gsm) — too light for most watercolor techniques. Buckles significantly with any wet work.
140lb (300gsm) — the standard weight. Handles washes, layering, and most techniques without needing to be stretched. Use this as your baseline.
300lb (640gsm) — no buckling under any conditions. Used by professionals for large-format wet work. Expensive but eliminates all paper handling issues.
- Canson XL — affordable, widely available
- Fabriano 1264 — decent student paper
- Strathmore 400 Series — good value for practice
- Arches 140lb — the professional standard
- Fabriano Artistico — best value at artist grade
- Hahnemühle — excellent German-made paper
- Saunders Waterford — preferred by many UK artists
4. Palettes & Accessories
For tube paints, you need a palette with wells for holding paint and mixing areas. Plastic palettes are light and cheap — fine for beginners. Ceramic palettes (like the Robert E. Wood style or butcher's tray) are easier to mix on and stay cleaner, but weigh more.
A folding plastic palette with 20+ wells handles most setups. Upgrade to ceramic or porcelain when you find yourself frustrated with how paint beads on plastic.
Use two containers: one for rinsing (dirty), one for mixing (clean). Any two jars or cups work. Dedicated watercolor containers with brush rests and divided sections are convenient but not necessary. The Winsor & Newton water pot is a popular option.
The two-container rule makes a real difference to color cleanliness and is worth establishing from the start.
Masking tape or painter's tape is used to secure paper to a board and create clean borders. Use low-tack tape to avoid tearing paper when removing. Masking fluid reserves white areas or preserves previous layers — useful for more controlled work once you're past basics.
A board for stretching paper (or an MDF board and bulldog clips for lighter paper), a pencil for underdrawing (2B or HB — soft enough not to score the paper), a kneadable eraser, and a spray bottle to keep tube paint moist. None of these are urgent for beginners.
5. Complete Sets
Complete watercolor sets bundle paints (and sometimes brushes and accessories) into a single purchase. For most beginners, a good set is the fastest way to get started without spending time on individual supply decisions. Our guides below cover every format and budget level.
All levels, all formats — the definitive ranked guide.
All sets ranked — beginner to professional, every price range.
Sets specifically evaluated for ease of use, predictable behavior, and beginner-appropriate color ranges.
6. Travel Setups
Painting on location requires a different setup from studio work. The constraints are weight, volume, and water access — you need everything to fit in a bag or pocket, stay secure while moving, and work without a studio water setup.
A magnetic tin with half-pans and a lid that serves as a mixing surface. The Sakura Koi 24-pan set and Winsor & Newton Cotman field set are the most common. Both fit in a jacket pocket.
Eliminates the need for a separate water container. The Pentel Aquash medium is the benchmark. Refill from a water bottle. For finer control, carry a small jar of water and a traditional brush instead.
Use a book with a rigid cover that doubles as your painting board. The Hahnemühle Travel Journal and Stillman & Birn Zeta are popular choices. Avoid spiral-bound books that flop open.
7. Mini Sets
Mini watercolor sets carry 8–12 colors in a case small enough for a shirt pocket or pencil case. They sacrifice color range for portability. Most are built around a curated palette of mixing primaries — the idea being that a skilled painter can mix most colors from 8–12 well-chosen pigments.
Mini sets work well as a complement to a larger studio setup — you use the full set in the studio and carry the mini set everywhere else. They're also a popular gift for watercolor beginners because they're approachable and self-contained. The quality gap between budget and mid-range mini sets is larger than in full-size sets, because the small pan size amplifies differences in pigment load.
All Supply Guides
Every guide on this site, organized by category. Each one ranks specific products tested by Maria Garcia.
All levels, all formats — the definitive ranked guide.
All sets ranked — beginner to professional, every price range.
Portable sets designed for painting on location.
Compact pocket sets for minimal carry.
Sets evaluated specifically for ease of use and learning.
Field sketching essentials for nature journaling.
Watercolor instructor and supply reviewer. Maria has been teaching beginner and intermediate watercolor workshops for eight years and has personally tested over 200 sets, brushes, and paper options for this site.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most important watercolor painting supplies?
In order of importance: paper, paint, and brushes. Good paper makes the biggest difference to how watercolor behaves — use 140lb (300gsm) cold-press cotton paper from the start. After that, a quality student-grade paint set like Winsor & Newton Cotman and a single good synthetic round brush cover everything else. All other supplies are secondary until you develop a clearer sense of how you work.
What is the difference between student-grade and artist-grade watercolor supplies?
Student-grade paints contain less pigment and more filler (such as gum arabic extenders), which reduces vibrancy, lightfastness, and mixing precision. Artist-grade paints have higher pigment loads, single-pigment formulations in most colors, and better lightfastness ratings. For brushes, the same distinction applies: student brushes use synthetic or blended fibres, while artist brushes use kolinsky sable — which holds more water, springs back faster, and keeps its point longer. Upgrade to artist-grade after six to twelve months of regular painting.
Do I need tubes or pans for watercolor?
Both formats have genuine advantages. Pans are compact, ready to use immediately, and easy to carry — good for travel and people who paint in short sessions. Tubes give you more paint per dollar, brighter initial mixes, and the flexibility to fill your own custom palette. Beginners often start with pans for convenience; more experienced painters typically use tubes and refill a palette. The quality difference depends on the brand, not the format.
What watercolor paper should a beginner use?
140lb (300gsm) cold-press watercolor paper. The weight prevents buckling under wet washes. Cold press has a medium texture that works for both loose and detailed painting styles. Hot press (smooth) is better for fine detail work but unforgiving for beginners. Rough surface is used for expressive, textured effects. Fabriano Artistico 140lb is an excellent entry point; Arches 140lb is the professional standard. Avoid anything under 90lb and avoid mixed-media or sketch paper — they behave completely differently.