What Mindsets Hurt Your Success With Watercolor?

There are a lot of myths that are obstacles to learning watercolor. Let's talk about some of them.

Top 3 Myths: Obstacles to Learning Watercolor

1. You don't need to use quality supplies, when you're just learning.
2. Good paint and paper are too expensive for new painters.
3. Watercolor is the hardest medium to learn.

The Truth Is...

1. Good supplies do matter.

They matter a lot, especially when it comes to paint and paper. I'm not saying that it's impossible to create good watercolor paintings with low quality supplies; It's just soooo much harder (and yes, sometimes even impossible) to do so.

Bad paper and/or bad paint is the #1 REASON students struggle learning watercolor. They make it harder to get the flow, the edges, and the beautiful color blends that watercolor creates naturally. Learners become frustrated with themselves when the problem isn't them.

Mastering watercolor takes a lot of time and practice. You'll learn faster and with less frustration if you use good paint and paper.

2. It's true that good paint and paper cost more than the poor stuff, but look at it from this point of view...

Paper

At today's prices it's possible to paint 5x7 paintings on good quality paper for about 28 cents each. (Based on one full sheet of Arches 140 lb cold pressed paper, cut to 16 pieces and painting on both sides of the paper= 32 paintings.)

Good paper allows the paint to flow and blend in ways that cheaper paper cannot. Even for practice, wouldn't you learn faster and more successfully with materials that allow you to get the results you need rather than fight with inferior tools.

The advantage you get with using good paper is worth the cost!

Paint

Artist quality paints have more pigment and better ingredients than cheap paint. Good paints have more color, are more transparent, and more permanent. A tube of good quality paint can last longer than the same size tube of poor quality paint.

You'd be further ahead to purchase 3 tubes of artist quality paint in the primary colors than a set of 12 tubes of cheap paint for the same amount of money. (and with the 3 tubes you could probably create all 12 of those cheaper colors)

Good watercolor paper and paint are important tools for success with watercolor. It's possible to use both without breaking your budget.

3. I feel that learning watercolor is no harder than learning another painting medium.

This myth causes fear and fear stops progress.

Becoming a skilled painter in any medium requires a lot of time, practice and dedication. Watercolor techniques are quite different than oil and acrylic techniques but not necessarily harder.

Watercolor is unique in that when you learn to manage it, the paint can do a lot of the work for you. In that respect, after learning to manage the paint, watercolor may actually be the easiest medium to work with.

Look for more watercolor tips and my fall Watercolor Simplified class schedule to come out soon.