Overview of Painting Course materials

The following is a general overview of materials to bring for your Painting Week. Have a read through, and do not hesitate to ask me any questions you might have.

NB. No materials are supplied - you will need to bring your own equipment and supplies.

Paints: a Cotman pocket box of paints contains the 12 colours which most artists use. i.e. Lemon yellow, Cadmium yellow, Alizarin crimson, Cadmium red, Ultramarine blue, Cobalt blue, Sap green, Viridian green, Yellow ochre, Burnt sienna, Burnt umber, Chinese white. It would be a good idea to replace the Chinese white pan with a Cerrulean blue pan.

 Lemon yellow   Cadmium yellow

Alizarin crimson Cadmium red

Ultramarine blue Cobalt blue

Sap green            Viridian green

Yellow ochre        Burnt sienna

Burnt umber          Ceruleum blue


Cotman paints are student quality and are perfectly adequate for beginners and improvers.  Artist's quality are much more expensive.



Cotman boxes are available from all art stores as well as W.H.Smith. Tube colours are an alternative but may cause problems for starters.

Brushes: I recommend three brushes, No 10, No 7 or 8 and a No 3. Beginners could get by without a flat. There are many brushes on the market. Synthetic/prolene brushes are fine. Sable are very expensive and unnecessary. Pro Arte brushes are recommended.

Example of prolene brushes from the Pro Arte range

Also recommended is a 1/2" hake for skies (A hake brush is an oriental-style wash brush on a long flat handle, bound in a traditional method). Please avoid cheap ‘children's' paints and brushes of squirrel hair or ox hair with no points.

Another handy little brush is the 'Rigger' (also known as a Liner). It is a pointed, slim brush with long hair and has excellent colour-carrying capacity. Liners are shorter and narrower. Useful for delicate lettering, highlighting, outlining, and long continuous strokes...for example, masts on boats.

Recommended paper is '140 lb' (NOT the actual weight of the sheet of paper). Most watercolour pads are of this weight. Bockingford, Saunders, Arches, Whatman and Daler Rowney Langton are options. Buy a pad, then you will have a stiff backing and will not need to bring a lightweight board. Beginners need to know that cartridge paper, while OK for drawing in pencil or pen, is unsuitable for watercolour painting.

An easel is unnecessary and too bulky for travel. I recommend you take a light weight board, hard board or a proprietary board from a shop. Size approx 16" by 12". You may tape your paper to the board with masking tape. This also automatically provides a white border to a finished painting!



The extras required are: A putty rubber, masking tape, a roll of kitchen paper, a plastic water container (you can use a margarine tub or a used water bottle), a 2B pencil is adequate, a small sketch book (a 10" by 7" of cartridge paper is very suitable) and a small natural sponge.


And finally - bring some elastic bands - very handy to hold your paper down and stop it flapping about or flying away!