Is it the paint or is it the painter.

It’s a pity that they were given the wrong advice regarding materials. You DO need decent stuff, but decent doesn’t have to be expensive! I’m not sure what medium they were using, I would take a guess at watercolour. There’s several if not more excellent quality watercolours that are more than adequate and don’t cost the earth… I’ve just completed a small series using W&N Cotman which are basically students quality. Same goes for oils, Talens van Gogh and Jackson’s or KB own make. Brushes are critical, but stick with branded makes, Pro Arte are very reasonably priced for all medium, but avoid any Chinese stuff, be it paints, brushes or canvas at all costs!

I guess the advice offered was not wrong, but certainly off-putting to somebody starting out and wondering if they'd keep it up.  So wrong advice fits here.  For many, many years I used very cheap materials.  I still have several paintings made with a tin of Reeves watercolours (cost about £6 at the time...about £9 now), the paintings were made on cartridge paper.  Once again, I'm not offering this up as the way to go, but it kept me drawing and painting.  Brushes needn't cost the earth, I've used Pro Arte as Alan mentioned. I've used Cotman and White Knights watercolours, not top grade, but fine for me.  I think many artists I admire on POL use Cotman.  Just look at Alan's recent series. In a perfect world buy the top grade stuff, in the real world get what you can afford to start with.

Makes me angry when people are put off by what in this case seems to be rather patronizing advice: 'only use the BEST, my dear, or you can't HOPE to get on!'. The Langton, and Bockingford, are two of many perfectly good watercolour papers, and they don't cost the earth.  Cotman paints are more than adequate for most of us, and you can always sneak more expensive paints into the box when you can afford them: there's nothing quite like a real Cadmium Red, for instance: but used sparingly it can last for a long time.  White Knights are, I'm told, good (and they should be - Russia was isolated from the west for many years, and developed its own high-quality ranges of art materials).   Daler-Rowney Georgian watercolours are good - I say 'good' in these cases, but you still have to watch out for certain madders, like Alizarin Crimson and Rose Madder - they fade: but then, they fade in artists' quality paint too. In oil - boards are generally good value; and actually generally better than stretched canvas.  You don't need a huge array of mediums; and there are economical brands like  Rembrandt and van Gogh - my concern with oils in all grades is a) the use of oils other than Linseed to bind them, and b) the inclusion of Zinc Oxide; but keeping an eye on the pigment number on the tube will avoid the problem there, which isn't entirely down to cost anyway.  I've recently spent around £115 on a selection of oil paints - expensive?  I don't think so.... and I'm not wealthy.  It's a one-off expenditure this year - I've wasted more than that on buying food items I didn't really need. Brushes - Rosemary & Co; Jackson's own;  Pro Arte; SAA - I knew of a watercolour artist who spent £40 on a brush - that's a lot, but that was twenty years ago, and she's still using it today: you wouldn't be able to say that of many more expensive items of clothing.  Chinese stuff - hmm.  There are good things to be had from China and Japan, and South Korea - brushes, inks, watercolours.  But you're not going to find them in the bargain-basement area of the art catalogue.  There are truly hideous, mass-produced products from those countries, which, like Alan, I avoid religiously.  On the other hand - I have four Japanese made hakes; a considerable collection of Chines Eterna hog brushes; a smaller number of Japanese Guitar brand hogs; a number of watercolour mops of unknown or misremembered provenance; a Chinese ink stone and ink stick - they're all very high quality products, the snag being that they're at the very least 30 years old, and some are 20 years older than that.  So I don't know if you can still find that sort of quality in 'oriental' art materials; I know you can find dross. If you buy your materials from a reputable company - or can actually see what you're buying in a shop - you should get good value for money, and the money needn't be ruinous.  You won't get good work with rubbish materials - but the idea that you have to pay top-whack every time is nonsense.  

When you start from the beginning you are clueless. You buy dubious brands, you waste money on the unnecessary - I know I have. As you lose inhibitions re the task itself, you begin to understand….an “ expert” telling you what to buy can be wasted on you, this person who took the class sounds a bit “ fixed” in their opinions. I remember going to a watercolour class years ago and even then I knew the “ tutor” was not for me, tiny brushes and all producing the same result. And even if you paint well, that doesn’t necessarily make you a good teacher.

I was told to buy the best you can afford.  What I can afford has varied over the years, but these last couple of years, I’ve thought, what is better to spend my money on than good art materials, that I will enjoy using.  My coloured pencil collection has certainly improved.  Next will be supports for this medium.

Linda - yes, and I should add that I DO buy the best I can afford; but the idea that you can't produce good work with materials that are in the second or third rank is wrong.  And yet - there's always an 'And yet' - when I started painting in acrylics all those years ago, I used Cryla heavy-bodied - which is still the brand I use today, plus a few others.  I have used some god-awful acrylics in my time - thin, plasticky, and horrible: if I'd started out with those, I doubt I'd have persisted.  So I don't think your advice was wrong.  It's a matter of balance, and emphasis. The first oil paints I used were Rowney Georgian - you couldn't actually GET much else, at the time (ca. 1965).  I've had a soft spot for Rowney products ever since, and still use their Artists' Oils - plenty of professionals who claim they always use the very best can at times lie like a rug..... I've seen Georgian and Winton tubes strewn about their studios!  (Just as L S Lowry claimed he only ever used Flake White - just a pity someone filmed him in his studio surrounded by boxes of Titanium and Zinc...)   I remember those fat, silvery oil paint tubes, with their chequered pattern on paper sleeves - Indian Red, Prussian Blue, Naples Yellow, .. so exciting,  back then!  Real paint, as opposed to the powdered junk we had to be content with at school.  I never thought I'd be any good - I only got a CSE Grade 3 in art, which you basically got just for turning up on the day of the exam, but I knew I loved paint; and yes, in time you realize that you're hampering yourself by using the cheapest of the cheap, and inch up the scale a bit to get better materials.   But, he said at length, coming to the point - you still don't have to break the bank when starting out: especially in watercolour and acrylic.  But you will WANT to use better materials in time; and you'll make the sacrifices you have to make in order to get your hands on them.  Always remembering - you can do a lot of good work in pencil, charcoal, conté crayon, Indian ink, on a pad of good cartridge paper, for next to nothing. And coloured pencils - well, they've come a very long way in quality over my lifetime; they've also got more expensive.  If you're going to major on coloured pencil as a discipline though - then you do want the best you can get: a cheap set of kids' crayons will drive you right up the wall and back down again.  

Like your use of lockup Dixie I’ve been locked up as well….whoever dreamed lock down…bumps need feeling.  . I’ve encouraged most of my children and grand children to draw and paint if I saw they had an aptitude to do so.  I have bought them decent materials from an early age , by decent I mean Cotman, Rowney, Winsor  and Newton, pencils that are not HB , charcoal ,putty rubbers , reasonable brushes.   Because I do remember what I was given after the war…yes I’m that old ,and it was scrubby stuff with made in Hong Kong written on it  I remember thin lifeless colours ,paper that bobbled and brushes that splayed.  I don’t buy either them or me top whack I certainly can’t afford it .  So sad that your two ladies were given that advice . Hopefully they are now enjoying painting and creating with “normal” materials.  

I think being told to buy the best, which you always interpret as the most expensive, is a bit short sighted. I know if I’d been told that, the price would certainly have put me off. Like everything, prices have gone up, and painting isn’t cheap, whether as a hobby or selling. I use Cryla  heavy body acrylics, however, recently I’ve bought Jackson’s own brand of artists acrylics, which I like and they’re lovely to use.  Buy what you can afford!

It's a tough one to call I teach a small art group most of the members have been coming for over 10 years,  on reopening after lockdown we had a rush of new members I had a job to stop them rushing out to buy equipment. I advise buy the best you can afford but always wait and look for offers, I rarely pay full price for my paper, paint or brushes but always buy the best.