Supplies: All About Watercolor Paint

So, you’re ready to dive deeper into watercolor paint and gain a better understanding of what’s going on inside that pan or tube? Yay! This is really fun stuff and very applicable.

Watercolor painting is often seen as a spontaneous, flowing, and sometimes unpredictable art form. But the more you understand what watercolor paint is and how it works, the more confident and creative you can be with it. Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been painting for years, knowing a few key things about watercolor paint will help you make better choices and get better results. Let’s dive in.

On my Watercolor Supplies page I recommend specific colors, brands, and sets of watercolor paint

A (Very) Short History of Watercolor Paint

Watercolor painting has been around for centuries, used for everything from illuminated manuscripts to natural history illustrations. One of the first big names to make watercolor famous was Albrecht Dürer, a German artist in the 1500s. He used watercolor to paint delicate and detailed images of animals, plants, and landscapes. His paintings showed how expressive and precise watercolor could be.

Fast forward a few hundred years, and watercolor became especially popular in England during the 18th and 19th centuries. Artists like J.M.W. Turner used it to paint dramatic landscapes with glowing light and moody atmosphere while and John James Audubon painted the birds of America. In the 20th century, artists like Andrew Wyeth, and Georgia O’Keeffe helped watercolor gain even more respect as a serious medium.

Today, watercolor is used by illustrators, fine artists, urban sketchers, hobbyists, and students all over the world.

What Is Watercolor Paint Made Of?

This is the key to watercolor paint and all of the paint’s behavior comes from these ingredients! Watercolor paint is a mixture of 3 or 4 main ingredients:

• Pigment – This is the color. It can come from natural minerals, plants, or synthetic (manmade) sources.
• Binder – This holds the pigment together and makes it stick to the paper. The most common binder in watercolor is gum arabic, a natural sap from the acacia tree.
• Additives – These can include things like glycerin (to make the paint smoother), honey (to help with moisture retention), or preservatives (to keep the paint from going bad).
• Fillers – Often found in student-grade paints, these are inexpensive substances (like chalk or other inert powders) added to bulk up the paint. Fillers can weaken color intensity, affect how well the paint mixes, and make the paint feel gritty or cloudy.

Why It Matters

Knowing this helps you understand why watercolor behaves the way it does. For example, the gum arabic dissolves in water, allowing the pigment to flow, blend, or bloom (spread out) across the page. The amount and type of additives can affect how creamy, sticky, or brittle the paint feels.

Expensive vs. Cheap Paint: What’s the Difference?

The main difference between expensive and cheap watercolor paint comes down to pigment quality and concentration. Paint quality falls on a continuum, but for simply, I will divide them into 3 grades:

• Professional / Artist-grade paint uses pure, high-quality pigments in higher concentrations. The colors are more vivid, transparent, and mix more cleanly.
  • For example: Daniel Smith (my favorite), Winsor & Newton Professional, Schmincke Horadam, M. Graham, Holbein, and Sennelier L’Aquarelle
• Student-grade paint may have some fillers and often synthetic pigments. They are a medium grade and good to get started with.
  • My personal favorites: Winsor & Newton Cotman, Daler Rowney Aquafine
  • Also: Artist’s Loft Level 1 & 2, Grumbacher Academy, Sakura Koi,
• Craft-grade paint tends to have a lot of fillers and less pigment. These paints can sometimes look dull and faded. Plus, some do not blend as well.
  • Still, I’ve had good experience with: Artist’s Loft Necessities, Hobby Lobby’s Master’s Touch
  • I’d stay away from these: Prang, Crayola, Cra-Z-Art, RoseArt, Loew-Cornell Simply

Notice that many brands have different lines of paints in different grades.

You’ll probably also notice that, especially in the professional paints, some colors are more expensive than others. This is becasue some pigments are more expensive. For example, a paint made with Genuine Lapis Lazuli pigment, which has to be mined in the mountains of South America or Afghanistan, will be more expensive than a paint made with Phthalo blue, which is made in a lab. Blick.com includes a lot of great info about each paint they sell if you really want to buy something specific!

Why It Matters

If you find yourself frustrated because your colors look washed out, muddy or don’t behave the way you expect, it might not be your skill level—it could be your paint. While good technique is important, quality materials make a huge difference. You don’t need a giant set of expensive paints—just a few well-chosen artist-grade colors can go a long way.

Staining vs. Granulating Pigments

The pigments that are in each paint tend to either be more staining or more granulating. Whether a pigment is staining or granulating depends on the type of pigment and the size/weight of its particles. Heavier mineral pigments tend to settle and granulate, while dyes often soak into the paper and stain more deeply. This means that whether a color is staining or granulating is usually consistent across brands.

Staining pigments are usually dye-based. A little goes a long way and they flow and mix uniformly. Also, as the name implies, once they’re dry, they’re hard to lift or erase, but you can glaze over them without fear of lifting or messing up the under-layer.

Others are granulating, which means the pigment particles are heavier and tend to settle into the texture of the paper, creating a speckled or grainy effect.

Watch out though- sometimes you’ll find a cheaper brand that’s using a synthetic pigment in place of a genuine one and suddenly what you expected to be granulating is staining! Cerulean is a great example of this. I intentionally own both a genuine and a synthetic Cerulean because I like it for the sky but don’t always want a granulated looking sky.

For better or worse, this is actually an over-simplification. Want to dive deeper? I suggest DanielSmith’s post: Making Sense of Staining, Sedimentary and Transparent Pigments.

Why It Matters

• If you like lifting paint for highlights or correcting mistakes, use non-staining colors.
• If you love texture and want your washes to look interesting and earthy, try granulating colors.
• When glazing (layering watercolor paint) many artists find they prefer the look of painting a stain first letting it dry, and then painting a granulating color over it.
  • Glazing granulating colors over each other often results in muddy looking colors.
  • Glazing a staining color over a granulating color can result in a flat color

Common Staining Colors:

• Phthalo Blue or Green
• Quinacridone Rose or Gold
• Permanent Alizarin Crimson
• Hansa Yellow
• Winsor Violet
• Indigo (synthetic versions)
• Perylene Green
• Dioxazine Purple

Common Granulating Colors:

• Ultramarine Blue
• Cobalt Blue or Turquoise
• Cerulean Blue (genuine)
• Burnt Sienna (especially genuine or PBr7 versions)
• Raw Sienna
• Raw Umber
• Green Apatite Genuine (Daniel Smith)
• Lunar Black (Daniel Smith)
• Potter’s Pink
• French Ultramarine

Some brands label their paints with whether they are staining or granulating, but you can also test it yourself by painting a swatch and trying to lift it with a damp brush or paper towel once dry. In fact, play around with all your paints and how you layer them!

What Is Lightfastness?

Lightfastness tells you how well a pigment resists fading over time when exposed to light. If you’re painting something you want to last (like a framed piece or something you’ll sell), this is important.

• High lightfastness means the color will stay vibrant for years.
• Low lightfastness means the color will fade or shift over time.

Why It Matters

Not all beautiful colors are permanent. For example, opera pink and alizarin crimson are known for their lovely hues, but they fade quickly. Look for paints labeled “ASTM Lightfastness I or II” for best results.

Tip: Paint manufacturers like Daniel Smith, Winsor & Newton, and M. Graham usually publish lightfastness ratings for each color.

What Is Transparency Rating?

Watercolors are prized for their transparency—the ability to see through one layer of paint to what’s underneath. But not all watercolor paints are equally transparent. Some pigments are naturally more transparent or opaque due to their chemical makeup. Most staining colors are more transparent and most granulating colors are less translucent. For example, Phthalo Blue and Quinacridone colors are usually very transparent, while Cadmium colors, Cerulean Blue, and Yellow Ochre tend to be more opaque. However, this can still vary slightly between brands due to differences in formulation and additives.

• Transparent colors let the light shine through to reflect off the white paper, creating a glowing effect.
• Opaque colors block more light and can look heavier or chalkier.

Why It Matters

• Transparent colors are great for layering and glazing.
• Opaque colors are useful when you want coverage or to dull down an area.

Many manufacturers label paints as transparent, semi-transparent, semi-opaque, or opaque. You can also test it by painting a black line on paper and painting a swatch over it. If you can still see the line clearly, the paint is transparent.

Final Thoughts: Use This Info to Paint Smarter

Understanding your watercolor paint means you’re not guessing—you’re making informed decisions. You know why some colors mix beautifully and others turn muddy. You know when you can lift a mistake and when you can’t. You know which paints will still look good years from now.

This doesn’t mean you have to memorize every pigment name and number. Start simple:

• Choose a few high-quality colors with good lightfastness.
• Notice which of your paints are staining or granulating.
• Play with transparency by glazing or layering.

The more you paint, the more this knowledge will click into place. And when you know what your paint is doing, your creativity has room to grow.

Happy painting!

---

Originally published: Published 2025 August 08