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Description
Sorry for the huge file, I just wanted everyone to be able to see the names fairly well. If anyone wants, I can do a guide on brushes and papers too.

I've been getting alot of requests lately for a guide on "How I do watercolors" so I thought i'd start by showing roughly what types of paints I use. Let me start by saying that pan watercolors (Crayola, Roseart, etc) are meant for children's watercolors. You can use them, but your color mixing will suffer because, generally, your color pool is poor. My best advice is to get tubes of watercolors. They may be expensive, but they last FOREVER. Those tiny tiny tubes (12ml or so) can give you enough watercolors to last forever. My first set of nice watercolors were a gift from another student (he decided that graphic design didn't need them. That's a rant for another time! ) and i'm STILL using mostly the same tubes he gave me.

Brands:
I currently use three different brands of watercolors. Different brands have different quality, and certain brands have specific colors. Winsor and Newton is a good artist's quality brand, but the tubes can be expensive. If you don't want sticker shock, then i'd look at a box set of Koi watercolors for now. They're cheap, and decent colors. That and after you've found your comfort zone, then you can go back and find the colors you're missing in another brand. :3
A set of 18 Koi watercolors runs around $30ish.

The problem with tubes:
The only problem that i've encountered is the binder separating from the pigment. Basically what this means is when you squeeze it out of the tube, it comes out clear. If this happens, stop, reseal the tube, and squish the tube in your hands. This should remix the binder back in the color. If not, squish some more.

Setting up a Palette:
There are lots of different options for palettes with watercolors. The nicest part about watercolors is that when they're dry, the color's still useable. You just have to rewet it. Some people get the small, circle palettes, while others spend $20-30 on the really nice ones that have a large area to mix in. What do I use? I went to Wal-Mart in the craft section and bought a bead box. One of the ones with separated sections (about 20 or so). It's only afew dollars and it'll work for what you need. I put 2 colors on the opposite sides of each compartment. Try to keep the colors similar instead of like lemon yellow and pthalo blue. You won't ever get yellow!

General Advice on Mixing Colors:
The reason I suggest you get so many different colors is that watercolors behave totally different from Acrylics and Oils. Unlike them, it is difficult to mix to get a color. Having a wider variety of colors helps you when you need to create a "cool red" for example.
When you mix too much with watercolors, they turn "muddy" and the overall image will suffer. Practice mixing colors on a low quality paper. In my watercolor classes at college, we'd always start out with practicing our color mixing and we'd create afew pages of mixes to refer back to. It's also handy to have a separate page of the colors, straight from the tube, heavy to watered down.
Try to limit your color mixes to 2-3 colors. Once you get past 3 colors, it starts getting muddy. Again, practice so that you can figure out the individual color's natures.

In the next one, I'll show you washes, and other techniques to play with along with sediments (basically ground down rocks and other materials) in your colors and how they can affect your washes.

Description
Sorry for the huge file, I just wanted everyone to be able to see the names fairly well. If anyone wants, I can do a guide on brushes and papers too.

I've been getting alot of requests lately for a guide on "How I do watercolors" so I thought i'd start by showing roughly what types of paints I use. Let me start by saying that pan watercolors (Crayola, Roseart, etc) are meant for children's watercolors. You can use them, but your color mixing will suffer because, generally, your color pool is poor. My best advice is to get tubes of watercolors. They may be expensive, but they last FOREVER. Those tiny tiny tubes (12ml or so) can give you enough watercolors to last forever. My first set of nice watercolors were a gift from another student (he decided that graphic design didn't need them. That's a rant for another time! ) and i'm STILL using mostly the same tubes he gave me.

Brands:
I currently use three different brands of watercolors. Different brands have different quality, and certain brands have specific colors. Winsor and Newton is a good artist's quality brand, but the tubes can be expensive. If you don't want sticker shock, then i'd look at a box set of Koi watercolors for now. They're cheap, and decent colors. That and after you've found your comfort zone, then you can go back and find the colors you're missing in another brand. :3
A set of 18 Koi watercolors runs around $30ish.

The problem with tubes:
The only problem that i've encountered is the binder separating from the pigment. Basically what this means is when you squeeze it out of the tube, it comes out clear. If this happens, stop, reseal the tube, and squish the tube in your hands. This should remix the binder back in the color. If not, squish some more.

Setting up a Palette:
There are lots of different options for palettes with watercolors. The nicest part about watercolors is that when they're dry, the color's still useable. You just have to rewet it. Some people get the small, circle palettes, while others spend $20-30 on the really nice ones that have a large area to mix in. What do I use? I went to Wal-Mart in the craft section and bought a bead box. One of the ones with separated sections (about 20 or so). It's only afew dollars and it'll work for what you need. I put 2 colors on the opposite sides of each compartment. Try to keep the colors similar instead of like lemon yellow and pthalo blue. You won't ever get yellow!

General Advice on Mixing Colors:
The reason I suggest you get so many different colors is that watercolors behave totally different from Acrylics and Oils. Unlike them, it is difficult to mix to get a color. Having a wider variety of colors helps you when you need to create a "cool red" for example.
When you mix too much with watercolors, they turn "muddy" and the overall image will suffer. Practice mixing colors on a low quality paper. In my watercolor classes at college, we'd always start out with practicing our color mixing and we'd create afew pages of mixes to refer back to. It's also handy to have a separate page of the colors, straight from the tube, heavy to watered down.
Try to limit your color mixes to 2-3 colors. Once you get past 3 colors, it starts getting muddy. Again, practice so that you can figure out the individual color's natures.

In the next one, I'll show you washes, and other techniques to play with along with sediments (basically ground down rocks and other materials) in your colors and how they can affect your washes.