This page contains many links to supplies and other equipment. The links are shown in blue and might be hard to see on some phones.
Brushes
This is a good reasonably priced brush Silver Brush Black Velvet . Size 6 round would be a nice size. We usually paint with size 4 or 6 in the classroom. I also like to use these Princeton Neptune brushes for the classroom.
The best brushes are kolinsky sable. If money is no object, these are the top of the line watercolor brushes:
- Escoda
- Winsor & Newton Series 7
- Rosemary & Co has some outstanding brushes but are hard to find here in the US
To scrub out, I use a small cheap, stiff fabric painting brush found at some craft stores
Paper
200# Waterford is the paper I use.
140# Arches cold press is a lighter weight paper most instructors recommend.
140# Fabriano cold press is also a great paper which is a bit smoother and many instructors use it.
300# is the heaviest paper. Arches, Fabriano, Saunders have that weight.
All of these brands also have bright white if you want the whites to pop more in your paintings.
If you are debating about brands of paper, there is a good comparison/review site at http://arthero.app.
Paints
The paints that are high quality and more economical (larger tubes) can be found at Journey Art Suff. The DaVinci paints on that site are very good as well.
Dick Blick carries my favorite paint brand which is Daniel Smith. Here is a set of 6 colors that are a good starting point.
You could purchase this set of dot cards and try out a lot of the colors before you buy a whole tube.
“Color Choices” by Stephen Quiller is the book I used to learn about colors and mixing colors. Here is a teaser video showing him explaining triads. Here is a photo of his color wheel.
If you are debating about which brands of paint to buy, there is a good comparison/review site at http://arthero.app.
Other Supplies
Here is the Quiller Traveler Palette I use in class. I have the porcelain one in my studio.
The bottles I used to restore dried paint tubes are here on Amazon.