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Watercolour expenditure the mostest ?
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Posted
Is watercolour the most expensive medium using artists quality in brushes , paints, papers etc ?Having a look at ,say, Jacksons catalogue a Kolinsky sable brush costs £224 but£157 after discount. Many artist authors insist that you use the best materials you can afford and generally advise getting a number 10 sable ( one artist uses a 14 ) as well as W &N colours and 200lb artists quality papers. You dont want to be handicapped by using cheap materials as the medium is difficult enough. what I have named plus the smaller sable rounds and flats ,filberts and rigger brushes ,etc carn come to a tidy sum you can imagine. does watercolour top the list for expense and without wandering into the horrendous prices you can pay for paints if you have an idea that tthey will enhance your work to a higher level beyond the W&N or D R materials.?
Posted
£224 for brush! *faints*
Whilst I agree a decent quality set of brushes are important (ones that keep shape without splitting, shedding etc) I do have to wonder what difference the really expensive ones would make to the marks I put onto paper. Personally I'd prefer to invest in the best paints I could. My current pan watercolours are W&N and on the whole they're pretty good. Tube-wise I found a real wow factor with Reeves over discount brands in clarity of colour (no splitting when mixed and such intensity), great for mixed media work. Paper is something I don't skimp on. I just get frustrated for all sorts of reasons when using cheaper paper so I don't.
Posted
£224 - I teach guitar in schools using a guitar which cost less than that.
Is there a rule of diminishing return? What's the price above which you don't get as much more bang for your buck? Does a £200 brush really paint that much better than a £100 brush?
Maybe this is where I've gone wrong; I've been sketching this morning with a 4B pencil that cost me 70p or something from a shop whose name I won't mention (clue - its initials are WHS). Maybe my sketches would be more lifelike if I'd paid a fiver for it.
Posted
I've used WHS pencils, and shall we just say I shan't be rushing back to them. Mars Lumograph or Derwent Graphic are what I suggest, plus my gorgeous Staedtler clutch pencil and ditto Faber Castell.
With watercolour, the original subject - I've never paid anything like £224 for a brush, and wouldn't. Good paint is available at far lower prices per tube than oil, but when you get into equivalent quantities you can see that actually watercolour isn't cheap at all. However, it's conveniently packaged; and pans work out a bit cheaper. Paper - many professional artists get by quite happily with Bockingford, even the lower (140lb) weight. You can of course spend a fortune on paper - always provided you have the fortune to start with. Paper does make a difference, it would be perverse to pretend otherwise - but you CAN get very serviceable paper for not much money. And you can buy Rosemary & Co brushes, which are much cheaper than their equivalents from other brands.
Or you could use a Hake, which requires getting used to, but remains excellent value.
I think a bit of caution is called for when being tempted by paint brands - I've seen much praise for Old Holland (a generally good brand but.... I'll come to that), and Daniel Smith watercolours. But the range of both is huge - and in my opinion, wildly excessive, bloated, unnecessary. Who needs as many colours as either of those manufacturers provide? Old Holland in particular started out as traditional artists' colourmen producing oil paint - their range grew until it reached mammoth proportions; they then did the same with watercolour, in which they were not specialist makers, and I think they shot right over the top. Daniel Smith produce very expensive paints, some of which sound as if they belong in a chemistry set - look at the range, and ponder how many of their paints you could afford in one shopping spree. It annoys me when brands get praised without regard to the expense - and all the magazines do it, I'm afraid.
Using cheap paints, full of binder and extenders, will hold back your painting progress irrespective of whether they're watercolour, acrylic or oil: but there's a yawning gap between the worst and cheapest and the better; and perhaps less of a gap between the good and the best (although it's dangerous to generalize). But in short - I stick to Winsor and Newton (though I stopped using them when they made such a mess of tubing their paint so I couldn't see what the colour was: I understand they're responding to criticism now), Daler Rowney, and Rembrandt. If I have any other colours tucked away, they were given to me. And I've moved on to Jackson's own - I bought a lone tube of pthalo blue from them as a test, and it's entirely fabulous: if the other colours in their range are as good, I might well switch to them entirely. This is an ongoing study, not destined for an early conclusion because I'm working in oil and acrylic at the moment.
Painting isn't cheap - that's true. But there's no need to buy luxury products - if you can afford them, eg the fabulously expensive brush, the Craig Young palette, the plethora of different colours (many of which you could mix, though not all) then fine, buy them all, good luck to you, and by the way could you lend me £100? - but you don't need them, really. Just choose your colours carefully; get yourself a handful of high quality but not murderously pricey brushes, and a bargain pack of Bockingford, and orf you go: you can still produce good work, and you won't be terrified of ruining your appallingly expensive paper or wasting your expensive as gold dust paint.
Posted
Good points, Jennyh13 - and I'd forgotten Ken Bromley: they make good paint too (with odd labelling at times, but the paint's the thing). Paper - you get offers now and then on the Jacksons, Granthams, and Ken Bromley sites; well worth looking out for them. I imagine Great Art/Gerstaecker are the same though have yet to use them. The SAA have their fans as well - I'm not one of them, but you can get real bargains in brushes there, including a brush set which looks very interesting - their own, huge pointed round, mixed fibres: if it works as well as it looks as if it will, it would be a real bargain, and probably more durable than a pure sable.
It would be interesting if anyone had tried the SAA brushes and could review them here.
Posted
£224 for a brush............ I suppose some people are daft enough to pay that. Rosemarys brushes are lovely.
I use both an I pad and a PC Syd, the ipad is great for fun and convenience and I agree with you it has a place in this computer ridden world. But I use my P C for stuff like uploading pics , and not losing whatever little gems I have just imparted on you lot.
Posted
Think you should have persisted with the pc, Syd (and yes, you did say before that you had all the gubbins, I'd forgotten). But anyway, I agree with you about sables - it kills them stone dead if you scrub them on hard pans of watercolour - amazes me that some of us will spend maybe hundreds of pounds on a brush, and then treat it like that.
As well as softening the paint, as you and Sylvia suggest (mind you, I rarely use pan colour) I keep a nylon brush in my watercolour box, which I use to make the pan colours workable - and only when they are do I employ my sables.
You're a very experienced watercolourist - what do you think of the latest synthetic brushes? Some say they can't tell the difference - I'm pretty sure I can! But even so, I'm using them more these days and find you can get good results - the real difference I think comes when you need a needle point on your brush: I've never yet found a synthetic that will give you that, at least not to the same degree.
Posted
I cant see any reason for wanting to purchase art materials for such ridiculous prices - must be a status thing - if you cant produce the art you want to
with the more reasonably priced products, no amount of money will make your art work any better or worse.
For instance, you only have to look at ancient cave paintings to see the most basic of pigments and tools available produced beautiful images.
Posted
Hello, I think that the choice of paints and paper is important. Artists colours compared to studio colours are better. Then you will find colours that you love in one brand or another one or in many brands. It is the same with papers and brushes.
Watercolour doesn't need to be expensive but it is important to invest in good (not luxury) materials that will suit to your technique. For example, if you work in wet-on-wet, you will probably prefer to use Montval paper from Canson than from Arches, and Montval is cheaper. But if you apply layer over layer, Arches will better suit you even if it is more expensive.
If you use earth colours to create textures, you will prefer to use a real earth than a substitute. If you prefer a smooth finish, then you will use a substitute to avoid sedimentation. This will affect your choice... and the price.
Posted
Catherine is so right ,often people blame the paper when often its is the style the artists uses ,what the weather is like ,has your paper been left in a damp place or by a radiator ect,. .I find 140 lbs cheap paper works better when wet in wet with a hake brush and a cheap student quality paint with its fillers .it flows quickly and using an hair brush you can control it to avoid cauliflowers , it blends in sky,s and it is so incredibly forgiving , but for me I like a 200 lbs quality paper ,,,,because of my style of painting . I never blame the paper .. test first to see if you find it suitable for you ..I remember this guy coming to a group <first thing was,,he off in to the kitchen and came out with a ringing wet piece of paper ..took out his sponge dried it little and off he tackled it with his hack brush ..stopped took it off his easel rushed in the kitchen came out with it washed clean again ,::sorry he said that was a bit of a cock up ..he began again and ended up with a painting most of the group wanted to buy...Me me toes curled up and I cringed ,,,,.but yes he was asked back ,and the secretary was not his sister
Edited
by alanowen
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