i was kinda hitting with traditional art in high school… am i missing out on something being a purely digital artist in my middle age
Ok so this is my area of specialty- helping people make more art easier!
So yes, you should, and anyone else out there should too and I am gonna share some starters!!
Start with watercolor. It’s cheap, forgiving, and easy once you realize you are herding cats (pigment) with your brush and water.
First, get one of these travel palettes! I recommend 24 or 36 but you can start with 12. Don’t get too many colors while starting out, because blending is everything in water colors.
These guys are dry. That is how watercolors are suppose to be. Tubes are concentrated, which, just like concntrated cleaner means for SOME jobs you want full strength. But for 98% of people pans are better and instead they often have no idea why water color is so stressful and expensive.
It may look a lil pricy unless you have previously bought art supplies but these last forever. And they come with a perfect starter brush, a round water brush. The tank that hold the water unscrews backwards, idk. Lefty tight, right loose. Squeeze to add water to your paint/paper, squeeze to rinse out.
Don’t worry about other brushes for now, you can buy them individually* as you learn how you paint and what you need.
*spend AT LEAST $5 a brush when you do, or you’ll have regrets.
Already bought tubes at some point? No worries! Tubes are concentrated which means you have a good stock! Find yourself a palette or make one out of anything plastic or ceramic and squeeze a nickel sized spot of each color on it, and let it dry for 24-48.
Now all you need is paper. But you DO want special paper. Anything that calls it’s self watercolor paper and is at least 140 lbs should be good enough to get started with, higher weight and better brands are better. You also don’t really need LARGE paper, you wanna start smaller. If you fancy the idea of painting outside, maybe while you travel, look for a watercolor sketch book (I hate my moleskin tho ftr)
And then start painting!
Water in paint x water on brush x water on paper is how you control your paint, and there are infinite (probably) answers to that equation so just play!
More water means your heard of cats pigments will go farther and wilder. Less water means they are easier to control….until you give them too little water and they can’t move anymore. ALL OF WHICH IS FINE but will give you different effects.
(Sorry OP I am gonna guess you know a huge chunk of this but once I got going…)















