Originally presented at LouisiANIME, Becca Hillburn and Heidi Black go over the basics of watercolor materials and techniques. Included several live demonstrations, as well as an opportunity for the audience to play around with the materials supplied.

1. Watercolors

2. materials
Brushes!
Paper!
Gator board!
Tape!
Paint!
Patience!
Water!
Paper towels!
Pencil!
Gouache!
Palette!

3. papers
Fluid watercolor paper: cheap, bound on two sides, very convenient
Arches watercolor blocks: bound on all sides, rough texture, expensive.
Made of cotton
Arches watercolor paper: needs to be stretched, not bound on all sides
Canson montval: 7” kara painted on these
Blick studio: children's illustrations
Watercolors can also be painted on bristol, wet media boards,
illustration board, or other thick papers
140 lb is standard for watercolor paper. 300Lb is heavyweight

4. Paints (tubes & pans)
Tubes can be squeezed into pans and dried out (both of us do this)
Brands we like: holbein, yarka, soho, winsor-newton, shin-han, Sennelier,
blick, da vinci, marie's,
Okay-ish brands: grumbacher, “student” brands (cotman), sakura koi
Avoid: reeves!!!!!!!!! anything in a multi-material set, anything marked “non-
toxic,” anything marketed towards kids, anything with the word “value”

5. Paints (liquid watercolors)
What in the world are these?
Artificial pigments, super bright, low light-fastness
More permanent than watercolors act more like stains or inks–

6. Watercolor pencils
Not as bad as you think
Good brands: derwent inktense, caran d'ache
Okay brands: derwent
Lets avoid these, shall we: prismacolor, staedler, crayola

7. brushes
Different shapes for different uses: flat, filbert, round, mop, liner, fan,
other specialty shapes
Come in a variety of fibers: sable hair, squirrel, kolinsky sable, goat,
boar, horse, synthetic
Good brands: utrecht, blick, creative mark rhapsody, winsor-newton, da
vinci, escoda, princeton
Avoid: value brands, student brands, hobby brushes
Also available: water brushes

8. techniques
Graphite transfer
Stretching paper
Washes
Brush techniques (wet/wet, wet/dry, dry/wet dry/dry)
Dropping
Multi-material techniques (wax resist, masking, salt, alcohol)
Overworking (no! Bad!)
Corrections (scrubbing, gouache)

9. Demo time!