Paints

When it comes to watercolor paints, handprint had always been my best guide.
Recommended link:
Handprint watercolor paint guide
Handprint watercolor guide by brand
Fountain Studio watercolor tips

Please note that I only use watercolor paints in tubes. I am not really familiar with pans and liquids. However you can check Handprint's guide to watercolor paint in tubes, pan, and liquids if you'd like to know the differences in using each one of them.

What to look for in Paints
The first time I bought artist quality paints, I didn't know what to look for besides the color that I really like. But as I researched more, I learned that there's more to simply having artist quality paints. That includes knowing certain paint properties such as lightfastness (so you'll know whether the color of your painting would change or last overtime), granulating and staining qualities, transparency and opaqueness, lifting and mixing ability. Since I, myself, is a self taught artist and am only beginning in my aquarelle journey, I'd simply recommend this link that could further explain watercolor paint's properties.


http://www.watercolorpaintingandprojects.com/basics/properties.html
http://www.fountainstudio.com/watercolor%20tips/tip-choosing_colors.html

Based on my observation, as I compared the properties of M. Graham paints with Winsor and Newton, I discovered that lightfastness, staining and granulating properties varies in every brand.

My Artist Quality Paints

The first artist quality paints that I bought was still Winsor and Newton permanent rose and permanent magenta plus an M. Graham Dioxazine purple. I first used the M. Graham purple as a background for one of my roses and didn't like it at first coz it stained too much in my plastic palette. However, when I used M. Graham Dioxazine purple to paint my first greeting card, I discovered that it wasn't that bad at all. M. Graham is actually a good quality paint and right now, most of my quality paints are M. Graham and Winsor and Newton. The only problem that I have with M. Graham is that some of the paints that I bought, Titanium white and burnt umber specifically, had too much liquid in it. I'm not sure why though. Also 3 of them have a foul odor, burnt sienna, burnt umber and ceruleaun blue. I researched why and found somebody having the same problem. Some people said that it may only be due to the packaging. I'm just glad that Dick Blick Art Materials accepts returns.

You can use handprint.com as a guide in choosing your own set of quality paints. The top 3 in my list were M. Graham, Winsor and Newton and Daniel Smith. I haven't had the chance to try Daniel Smith but most people had a good review with these paints. However, I prefer going and buying my paints directly to my favorite stores, either at Dick Blick Art Materials (Bond Street, New York) or Pearl Paint (at Canal Street, New York). Unfortunately, you can only buy Daniel Smith through their website.(Click here to Get 20% Off Your Order at Daniel Smith!)

My first set of Student Grade Paints
The very first set of paints that I had was Winsor and Newton Cotman Colors. I also bought Cotman's Permanent Rose and Purple lake.


I have both the tubes...

and the cakes..The cakes was recommended by the guy at Pearl Paint when I told him that I was only starting with my watercolor painting. However both of these are only student grade paints. It's good to have them for a start - since you can freely use a huge amount of paint without worrying about wasting a costly paint - but I still recommend having artist quality paints.

In addition, I also tried Van Gogh's Olive green, sap green and vermillion red. (I never actually had the chance to use vermillion red but I was able to create leaves and rose buds in one of my paintings using the greens. However, some wouldn't recommend Van gogh especially if you love mixing paints coz some could of them could be very muddy)