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martinacecilia — Know how to buy colors at the store
Published: 2014-05-19 21:29:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 19914; Favourites: 848; Downloads: 152
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while there are several fact in this there are a lot of opinions as well (namely my distrust on several brands marketing strategies, and my opinion that’s better to start with cheap student quality stuff. LOTS of people disagree on that point) that you should take as what they are: personal opinions. this is the result of several years of research on creating a cheap but high quality palette that would help me.other things to know: pigments are generally more resistant in oil and acrylics than they are in watercolor. but there are a couple of pigments that work well in watercolor but really badly in oil.
resources
pigments through the ages
a comprehensive guide to watercolor pigments and a lot of tests on popular brands
about van gogh's bedroom
Blue and Yellow don't make green by Michael Wilcox
rebloggable post on tumblr
Related content
Comments: 42
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Thank you for taking the time to do this for the public! I recently started looking to get back into painting and this will help me so much! Now if the paint is acting funny I'll have a better understanding.
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I've never painted, but I found this excellent tutorial on tumblr, so now if I ever DO take up watercolor, I will not be intimidated. Thanks!
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oh my god, this is so unbelievably awesome, thank you for this!
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Thank you this was very informative and I know what to look for if I ever decide to get any paints from the store
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I don't paint too often, but this seems really useful! Thank you.
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Though I know most of this stuff, I really enjoyed reading through your presentation. It is informative, engaging and entertaining which leaves a lasting impression and is most likely to be remembered rather than some old boring text book stuff. Nicely done.
Can I share this with my watercolor students?
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eh, I learned that the hard way explaining perspective. that's a topic that can definitely kill you if you go the textbook way. Yes, of course, no problem , share it with everyone you want
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awesome. at first I thought, holy shit it's boring, but it was really helpful in the end. ^^ Thanks! 
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This is amazing, I never realized this and never learned it in my color media class. I hope my blue jay doesn't go all weird on me after a couple years or something :/
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This is an awesome and well drawn out explanation that makes a lot of sense! Thank you for sharing.
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So the lightfastness colors are they commonly found in red pigmented colors?... or is it the other way around?...
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oh, I didn't realize that all the examples I brought up were reds. No, it's usually due to the chemical nature of the pigment, I don't think there's one single color that have more incidence of non-lightfast pigments
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Oh okiee! 
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I've only played around in an extremely unprofessional manner with acrylics, but I found this a very useful source for the future!
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Thank you soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much for this wonderful summary! I had a terrible experience where I used extremely cheap paint for an underpainting. I figured if it was covered with nicer paint, no one would know, right? Wrong. In three months, all the deep browns in my painting turned bright neon orange, and the whole thing was ruined. It wasn't done at that point, but I didn't have the heart to continue 
That being said, there are some pretty decent student grade paints that are wonderful for learners. I started with Liquitex Basics and still use them here and there
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eeeh, paints have a shitload of chemical reactions together, it sucks. I use student grade whenever possible still now by the way, I do not have enough money for a all-artist quality palette!
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My brother and his friends all took a painting class at a community college, and the teacher required them to buy 9 or 10 tubes of artist grade paint. None of them liked painting, so they gave me all their wonderful paints
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As a student who has gotten very interested in painting, this is incredibly useful, thanks!
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Wow.. I can't draw, but this was still very educational! Thanks for sharing this advice with everyone!
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I'm not at all a painter--I've tried, it didn't go so well--but this is extremely informative and helpful. Good job!
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I don't paint all that much, but I've always been interested. I might pick it up in college, and knowing about paints would be very helpful. Thanks for this.
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I had no idea...O.o I'm going to have to test my colors now.
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MAN I WISH THEY TAUGHT THIS IN ART CLASSES! THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR WISDOM!
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This is so enlightening! There's always such a barrier to buying supplies for new mediums because of the fear of having no idea what you're doing. Super helpful!
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I usually buy the same pigments for all the mediums, I mean, it took me a long time to find a good palette and to understand which colors I use a lot and which I can avoid to buy
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I see. :3 I was mostly referring to beginner artists starting painting, rather than switching between something like oils or acrylics.
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This was incredibly helpful. Thank you. I'm starting oils this summer so it's nice to know once I get good at it that I will now know what to use and what not to buy ever again.
Again, thanks.
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Bello, molto interessante e dettagliato. L'ennesima conferma della mia persistente ignoranza XD
Credo che me lo terrò da conto, e di sicuro mi sarà utile ^^
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@_@ e ce n'era ancora tanta che volevo mettere. ma poi mi son detta basta smettila.
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