I had a chance to take a beginner's class with Valerie Chua, one of my favorite local artists. I remember feeling I'm the odd girl in our table because everybody was an artist of some sort and I'm just a hobbyist. I told them I'm a nurse. Somebody actually asked me, "sooooo... what are you doing here...?" I mentally rolled my eyes at him.
Anyway, I learned a lot from that class. Valerie was really patient. I just realized that this medium requires patience because you don't exactly see the end result right away. You usually have to wait for the paint to dry. You can't be too OC with it.
I didn't pick up the brush again for a long time after that. I don't even remember why but it's probably because I picked up another craft or something. But recently, I remembered and so I picked up a pad of watercolor paper from National Bookstore and started practicing again.
Basically, this is what you'll be needing:
1. Watercolor pad
- for practice, you can use the cheaper 200 gsm pads. This is around 150 php. I really love this pad because it's thick enough so as not to wrinkle when you paint and it has 2 kinds of textures: rough and smooth.
2. Watercolor
- I'm currently using Prang. If you go to National Bookstore, you'll see 2 kinds of watercolors: the ones like Prang and then the tube types. I haven't tried the tubes, though. I like the practicing with the Prang pans. It's just like the ones we used to paint with when we were kids.
3. Paintbrush
- I apologize I can't be technical and tell you the name of the brush or the number based on the size. I kind of just felt the brushes and just selected small, medium, and large. These are Berkeleys and they're cheap (around 33 php to 150php, depending on the size).
4. Water and small mixing plate
- I use this ceramic cup I have because I want to keep the brushes there when I'm not using them. For the mixing plate, you can use Prang's cover or a small plastic plate. As you can see, the Prang that I have only has 8 basic colors. You need the mixing plate so you can create or discover more colors from these 8. It was my favorite part of my practice. Don'f forget to write down the combinations that you discovered!
If you're interested in taking up watercolor, you can check out Alessa Lanot's workshops. I think she has several craft workshops scheduled this summer. Most of the materials found in this post were from National Bookstore.
Have fun creating! :)
