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My Favorite Watercolors
Watercolor in Tubes: Schmincke Horadam
Burnt Amber – this is a warm brown color that contains burnt natural earth. I use it a lot to create contrast in the center/disk of the flowers, usually mixing it with yellow or with black – Buy It on Amazon
Scarlet Red – a bright red color, with very good lightfastness (it means, the color does not fade easily when in contact with light). I love to mix it especially with quinacridone magenta in order to obtain different hues of warm red color – Buy It on Amazon
Transparent Orange – very brilliant orange-red color. I use often the color as it is, as I like very much its color hue and the different values I am able to achieve mixing it with different amounts of water. It is a great color to use in combination with the Scarlet Red and Yellow Ochre/Lemon Yellow in this list – Buy It on Amazon
Yellow Ochre – Based on iron oxide, this color is quite opaque and has a great lightfastness. I use it often for the center of the open flowers. I love its combination with Scarlet Red/Quinacridone Magenta/Prussian Blue of this list – these colors, when laying together onto paper, are able to enhance one another and the result on a flower painting is beautiful – Buy It on Amazon
Lemon Yellow – bright yellow with a slight hue towards the green color. I chose this yellow because it is heavy metal-free. I love its brightness, especially when next to darker colors, such as blues and dark purples. I mix it often with greens to obtain different green color hues – Buy It on Amazon
Quinacridone Magenta – a violet with a red/blue tone. I love its brightness and how well it mixes with colors such as Scarlet Red, Cobalt Violet, Quinacridone Purple on my color palette – Buy It on Amazon
Brilliant Opera Rose – a bright pink that I love to use to bring some light to my paintings. My favorite mixtures of this color are with transparent orang, quinacridone magenta, and cobalt blue – Buy It on Amazon
Sap Green – transparent light and bright green that I love to use for leaves and stems. I love all the different color values I can obtain when added to different amounts of water. I mix it usually with the yellows and the blues in my color palette to obtain different color hues – Buy It on Amazon
Green Earth – not as colorful as the other greens on my color palette, I ove using Green Earth as a transparent green. Perfect when painting leaves, as I can create with this color the ones in the back of the painting, more transparent and less concentrated – Buy It on Amazon
Cobalt Green Dark – deep and opaque green, with a blue tone. I love the intensity of this color, and I use it especially when painting a flower piece with many leaves. This Cobalt Green Dark is my “must-use” color to create contrasting leaves in darker color – Buy It on Amazon
Prussian Blue – deep cyan-blue color with a green undertone, in my opinion a “must-have” in the color palette. I use it especially mixing it with greens, to create different color hues for pieces with leaves – Buy It on Amazon
Phthalo Blue – a deep blue, with a slight green undertone. I mix it in different percentages with the yellows on my palette to obtain different greens – Buy It on Amazon
Cobalt Violet Hue – a violet with a bluish undertone that sits very well with Quinacridone Magenta and Quinacridone Purple. I love to use it especially to create petals of flowers – Buy It on Amazon
Quinacridone Purple – this is a blue-red violet that I love to mix especially with Quinacridone Magenta. For this reason, I place them close to each other on my color palette, to ease the process of mixing the two colors – Buy It on Amazon
Watercolor in Tubes: Winsor and Newton Professional
Mars Black – deep black color with a brown undertone. I am satisfied with its depth when I use it to create the centers/disks of the flowers – Buy It on Amazon
Davy’s Gray – a soft grey color that I love using when I paint white flowers. I find it easier to use in this case compared to Mars Black, because I can reach different levels of concentration and never feel the flowers are too dark – Buy It on Amazon
Cobalt Blue – semi transparent bright blue color that I use on its own or mixed with purples. I love the purple color that comes from mixing Cobalt Blue with Quinacridone Magenta! – Buy It on Amazon
Watercolor in Tubes: Van Gogh
Azomethine Green Yellow – brilliant, transparent, deep green color with a yellow tone. I love its brightness and in particular I love how it blends with wet in wet with Cobalt Dark Green of my color palette. It adds a touch a brightness to your flower compositions, especially when used in a piece that contains a lot of leaves – Buy It on Amazon
Watercolor Inks: Ecoline Liquid Watercolor
Transparent and dye-based, these inks can be used like watercolours. They are sold in glass bottles and they have a pipette fitted to the lid with which you can take some liquid with – Buy It on Amazon
Gouache paints: Caran d’Ache
The simplest way to describe gouache is: gouache is an opaque watercolor! You can use it in the same way as when you use your watercolor paints, you will just notice the paper underneath a bit less. I use a lot the gouache when I want to add deep, contrasting brush strokes to my paintings. This set is everything you will ever need – Buy It on Amazon
My Favorite Brushes
Round Brushes:
Black Velvet Silver Brush 3000s, size 6 – This is a round brush with a blend of squirrel hair and black synthetic fibers. It is the softest brush I own and I use it mainly to create the lightest layers on my watercolor flowers. Thanks to the capacity to hold a high amount of water, with this brush I can play a lot creating beautiful layering effects. The tip is so thin that I can obtain the thinnest brush strokes. – Buy It on Amazon
Princeton Heritage 4050, size 6 – synthetic brush with great color holding capacity and natural snap. This is the first brush I ever bought when I started watercolor painting and I would recommend anyone to have it in their brush set. I use it especially for smaller details and to create loose style leaves in small size – Buy It on Amazon
Princeton Heritage 4050, size 12 – a brush similar to the one above, but slightly bigger in size. As I prefer, in general, to paint with larger size brushes, this is one of the brushes I use the most. Loose style petals and leaves are created effortlessly – Buy It on Amazon
Filbert Brushes:
Princeton Select, size 8 – affordable, short handle brush that I use very often when I create small sized paintings. I love using filbert brushes when creating petals, and this one is the one I used the most in my “20 Day Flower Creation Journey” videos on Youtube! – Buy It on Amazon
Psss!!! Not sure what is the “20 Day Flower Creation Journey”?! Check out the playlist on my YouTube Channel! The journey starts HERE!
Princeton Blooms, size 12 – Snappy and flexible brush, I bought it more recently than the other brushes and I am quite happy with it. If you are beginner, I would recommend you to buy this brush in a smaller size, such as 8 or 10, to begin your watercolor journey – Buy It on Amazon
Da Vinci FIT Synthetics, size 10, 12, 20 – Great watercolor brushes, flexible and able to hold quite a lot of water. These brushes where the very first filbert brushes I bought in a store nearby my apartment, and even today I still use them a lot! I recommend these especially if you are a beginner and you want to practice the filbert strokes – Buy It on Amazon
Princeton Velvetouch, size 6, 8 – I love their flexibility and the capacity to hold water and color. I bought initially just the size 6 but I quite liked it and then bought the size 8 too – Buy It on Amazon
Mop Brush:
Paul Rubens, size 4 – Great mop brush that holds exceptionally well a high amount of water. Super soft. I use it especially to create loose style leaves, as I love the shape I am able to achieve. Due to its capability to hold a lot of water, I find it very useful when I want to change the color value of greens for my floral compositions – Buy It on Amazon
Quill brush:
Princeton Tec Aqua Elite Series P4850 quill – I bought this brush because I wanted to have sort of “2 brushes in one”: the thick and large belly behaves like a round/mop brush holding a lot of water, but its tip is so fine that I can create very precise, small details not adding too much pressure on paper. It is a synthetic hair brush, but behaves quite like a Kolinsky brush, yet at a more affordable price – Buy It on Amazon
My Favorite Paper Blocks
Cold Pressed Paper, 100% Cotton
Overall, the paper I prefer to paint on the most is 100% cotton paper, cold pressed. I am obsessed with quality paper, because I think paper can really have a big impact on the quality of your paintings. I have tried many brands of 100% cotton paper, cold pressed, and I’d recommend Saunders Waterford paper for its good quality/price ratio and Arches for its superior quality (Arches paper can be a bit too rough for some and also quite expensive, while I think Saunders Waterford checks all the boxes for a more affordable price).
Saunders Waterford St Cuthberts Mill – Buy It on Amazon
Arches – Buy It on Amazon