Watercolor in the Wild Materials

(Link to video excerpt)

Here's a complete list of materials and a buyer's guide for plein-air watercolor painting.
This is a supplement to my instructional video "Watercolor in the Wild."

I carry these art supplies practically everywhere. The basic elements are pretty simple: a sketchbook, a paint box, a few brushes, watercolor pencils, a rag, and some water. They're all listed in detail below.

Watercolor Sketchbook

• I have often used the Moleskine Watercolor Album (5 x 8.25 inches) I like the fact that it opens flat and I like the horizontal (landscape) format. It has 36 pages—72 if you paint on the facing pages. It has a fake leather hardbound cover, an elastic strap, and a pocket in the back. The paper is 90-pound weight, which is rather lightweight for very wet watercolors, but it's OK if you're doing mostly drawings rather than juicy paintings.

• I also recommend the Pentalic Aqua Journal (5 x 8 inch), which is priced about the same as the Moleskine but has better paper — 140 lb (300gsm) cold press, acid-free paper. [Edit: I inquired directly with Pentalic to find out the fiber content of the paper, and heard back from the factory that it is indeed 100% cotton rag, which is excellent quality.] With the heavier paper, it has just 24 pages. But they'll hold up to wet washes or even light impasto, such as with casein. It has generous extras, such as an elastic strap, a back pocket, an elastic brush-holding sleeve, and a placeholder ribbon.

• The Global Art Materials Watercolor Book (5-1/4 by 8-1/4 inch) is another alternative with a linen cover. The linen cover is attractive if you want to do a little acrylic or oil painting on the cover.

• The Stillman and Birn Beta Hardbound Sketchbook (5.5 x 8.5 inches) is a vertical book with 26 pages of cold press 180lb. archival paper. The paper is substantial, but it doesn't open flat easily [Edit: unless you work to press open the binding, which doesn't hurt the book]. It can be held flat with clips. If you're thinking of working in casein, the heavier paper reduces the chance of impastos cracking.

• The Pentalic Watercolor Field Book (7 x 10 inches), is well suited those who prefer a spiral binding. It's bigger, so check to make sure it will fit in your belt pouch or purse.

• One other option: There's a Kickstarter campaign by Erwin Lian Cherngzhi going on for the next nine days to build "The Perfect Sketchbook," with 60 pages of 100% cotton paper at a pocket size of 3.5 x 5.5 inches, with a grayscale and and 18% photo gray built in.

To decorate the cover, I use the oil-based One-Shot Sign Painter's Lettering Enamel, which is very opaque. Paint markers also cover fairly well, but they tend to wear off faster. I usually title the sketchbook with a phrase taken from the first page of the sketchbook.

Watercolor Sets

Quality Metal Pan Sets

Schmincke Small Watercolor Set (12 Half Pans)

Winsor and Newton 24 Pan Set with Metal Box

Rublev natural watercolor pigment basic set (12 full pans of historical colors)

Sennelier Watercolor Metal Box (12 Tubes)
Blockx Watercolor Set (24 half pans)

Custom Sets Made from Empty Pans
You can get exactly the colors you want by buying an empty metal box and filling it with colors that you choose. When the colors run low, you can refill the pans with tube colors.

Large size empty box. In my videos, I'm using an old Talens box from the 1960s. You can get a similar large empty metal watercolor box, which holds 24 half pan colors or 12 full pans. This box opens up to 9 x 8 x 1 inches. You can combine half pans and full pans in the same box, using full pans for colors you use more often. Sometimes I put in two pans of the same color if I use them a lot.

Small size empty box (left). The smaller empty metal watercolor box opens up to about 5 x 8 inches, which fits the left side of a Moleskine or Pentalic sketchbook. This box will hold 12 half pans or six full pans.

Empty half pans. The most economical route is to buy plastic empty half pans and fill them with tube colors. The empty pans cost only 34 cents each. For students or anyone on a tight budget, you can get the 12 Tubes of Student Grade Winsor and Newton Watercolor Tubes for just $30.00. If you have dried up watercolor tubes, don't throw them out; cut them open and scrape out the tar-like pigment to fill empty half pans. Even if they're dried hard you can reactivate them with water once you cut the tube open.

Alternately, you can fill your box with factory-filled pans.

Colors--Here's a basic set of 12 half pans. These are really all you need.

Payne's grey (a bluish black)

Burnt sienna
Cadmium red

Alizarin crimson

Eight more classic colors if you have room for them.

The smaller the set, the more likely you'll have harmonious color. I've been reworking my own small metal box to limit it to just nine colors. Here's what I've got in it at the moment.

Economical options

If you're looking for a super-compact pocket rig, or if you're a student, a first-timer, or on a budget, I recommend the Winsor and Newton pocket watercolor set with 12 colors, which you can get for around $15.00. This has a plastic box containing Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue, Ultramarine, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow Hue, Cobalt Blue Hue, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Red Pale Hue, Sap Green, Burnt Umber, Alizarin Crimson, Viridian Hue, and Chinese White. That's a pretty good assortment, and the quality of the paint is OK. Note that when it says "hue," they're replacing an expensive pigment with a cheaper pigment of a similar hue.

A lot of field artists and urban sketchers love the Sakura Koy 12-Color Field Set with Water Brush, which is under $20. It includes the brush and fits in your pocket. The case is made of plastic, so you can't use magnets on it, but the lid has mixing wells, which helps if you're laying down larger washes. Two cautions: the lid doesn't open all the way flat, and when the colors are wet they can spill over into each other.

There's kind of an arms race for small sets. Some of the smallest watercolor sets are the size of a business card, and easily fit into a pocket. At left is the Pocket Palette by Expeditionary Art. The metal pans can be filled with tube colors, and they're held in place by a magnetic backing inside the case. The flip-up metal lid has a white surface for mixing colors. The downsides are: 1. The lack of mixing wells to hold wet washes, 2. The reflective metal, which can be blinding on bright days, and 3. The overlapping flange on the left side that covers part of the pans.

At lower right is a 30-year-old Winsor and Newton "Bijou Box," which they no longer make. It has an enameled steel case with 18 colors and a tiny travel brush. The pans are tiny, and I think there are more colors than necessary. I'd rather see 6 or 8 for a box this size. The lid has four mixing wells, which is a big plus. If you can find one of these used for a good price, grab it, but a comparable super-mini set that you can get in USA is the Winsor and Newton Cotman Water Color Mini, or you can make your own equivalent of the Bijou with an old Altoid tin, some spray enamel paint, and some extra half pans.

The brushes shown above are the Niji Short Handled Water Brush, a small travel brush, and a sawed off brush. The book is the Moleskine Pocket Watercolor Book, 3½" × 5½" (9 × 14cm).

For more on these micro kits, check out my YouTube video "Ultra Compact Watercolor Kits," part of the "Watercolor in the Wild: Bonus Features" video.

Water Cup and Rags

I use a Nalgene 2-Ounce Jar with three 1/4 x 1/16 inch Neodymium Magnets, held on with Magic Sculpt Epoxy Clay. You could also use a generic epoxy plumber's putty instead of the Magic Sculpt. The magnets are powerful, so keep them away from your credit card and phone.

I keep a second jar with clear water handy, and often just a regular drinking water bottle, and I use an old plastic "Tupperware" basin or yogurt cup for a brush cleaning bucket when I'm painting with the tripod easel.

I cut up old cotton T-shirts for paint rags, or use paper restaurant napkins or paper towels.

Brushes
Here's a good inexpensive starter set of brushes: Richeson Sable Hair Watercolor Brush Set/5

I like sable flat brushes, such as:
1/2-Inch Sable Brush
3/4-Inch Sable Brush

I also use a 1/4-Inch Synthetic Watercolor Flat Brush, which work well for architectural detail.

For laying bigger washes and wetting the paper, a Cat's Tongue Wash Brush is a good tool. It has a flattened ferrule similar to a filbert brush.

Round Kolinsky sables (note: some brands may become discontinued in the U.S. as the Kolinsky ban exhausts stock on hand):
Winsor and Newton Series 7
Richeson Siberian Kolinsky brushes
Escoda Optimo Kolinsky
Da Vinci Maestro Series Kolinsky Red

If you have a very compact kit and can't carry a box of brushes, you might want to use a Sable Round Travel Brush, which safely stows the brush tip inside the handle.

Water Brushes
I always try to carry four Niji Water Brushes with large round tips. They're the best brand I've found, and stand up to a lot of hard use. For info about filling them with ink, please scroll farther down this post.

I also carry a tube of white gouache, such as Holbein Permanent White Gouache. Winsor and Newton is also good. Sometimes I bring a whole set of gouache colors to supplement the transparent watercolors, but gouache will be the topic of future posts.

Plastic clamps
Here's a 2-Inch Plastic Clamp and a 3.75-inch Clamp. Of all the clips and clamps that I've tried, these seem to be the most versatile for holding the book open or clipping the watercolor box to the easel.

Sharpener

I use a Kum Pencil Sharpener, which not only catches the shavings, but also has a little flap that covers the hole, so the shavings don't leak out and pollute the pages of the sketchbook.

Eraser

I carry two erasers, a Kneaded Eraser and a White Latex-Free Eraser.

Water-Soluble Colored Pencils
These add a lot of options and variations to traditional watercolors. I recommend trying a few test pencils from several different brands to see which ones you like. My favorite brand is Caran D'ache Supracolor, but I also like Derwent Inktense Pencils for rich, saturated colors.

I started with a Caran d'Ache Supracolor Set of 18. Over the years I have added and subtracted individual colors from the standard set. Below are the colors I take with me most often. It emphasizes warm colors that I like for portraits and animal drawing.

Caran d'Ache Supracolor watercolor pencils
#001 White

#241 Light Lemon Yellow
#245 Light Olive

#047 Bistre
045 Vandycke Brown

#003 Light Grey

You can also get woodless watercolor pigment sticks or crayons. Derwent makes Aquatone Woodless Pencils, which are like pencils made of solid pigment, and they also make square pigment sticks called Derwent Inktense Blocks. Another company is Lyra, which makes pigment sticks that have the feel of wax crayons.

Caran d'Ache makes round water-soluble pigment sticks called Neocolor Pastels (shown above)
They're all a good value because you get a lot of pigment for the price, and I do use them occasionally for creating rough textures.

I also often use a Graphite Drawing Pencil(HB, B, or 2B) for the initial drawing.

Pencil Box
The pencil box I use was customized by armorer Tony Swatton. It began as a metal box I bought at a Japanese bookstore called Kinokuniya in Los Angeles. (I painted the Apple logo as a gag.)

Tony then added the hammered brass piece with rivets and I aged it with paint.

Waist Pack / Fanny Pouch / Belt Bag

I use a Black Diamond Spring '03 Waist Bag (Unfortunately it's 11 years old and discontinued, so the photo is for comparison.)

[The Explorers] Multi-Purposes Fanny Pack looks pretty similar. I recommend that you buy the pack at an outdoor store after you select the contents to make sure everything fits. A quiet zipper and minimal Velcro is a consideration if you plan to sketch in quiet places where you don't want to attract attention.

Tripod
I use a Velbon CX 444 tripod because it's lightweight, folds small, and reaches up to a reasonable standing height when fully extended. Unfortunately, that model has been discontinued, but a similar replacement is the Vista Explorer 60-Inch, which is also lightweight and inexpensive. If you'd like something more robust and sturdy, with more metal parts, you might consider the Velbon Sherpa 200 Tripod.

Three-legged stool
A Tripod Stool is something I carry in the car or in a backpack when I plan to sit. Sometimes I bring an extra to use as a field taboret for art gear. If you want a very compact folding stool that fits in your backpack, and you're lighter than 175 pounds, you might prefer the Coleman Event Stool. I'm too heavy for those, and one of them gave out on me once in a museum, but my wife sat happily with no problems, laughing at my misfortune.

Sketchbook Pochade
The simplest sketchbook holder is a piece of 1/4 inch or 5/16 inch thick plywood cut to the dimensions of the sketchbook opened up flat. I call it a "sketchbook pochade." I drill a hole in the back of the panel and insert a 1/4-20 Tee Nut which will attach to the tripod and securely hold the plywood. The sketchbook attaches to the plywood base with rubber bands or plastic clamps.

Homemade Easel
I made this device, which I call a Sketchbook Pochade Easel to hold the paint set, the water, and the sketchbook. I also use this for gouache and casein. The diffuser frame attaches to the top, and it uses White Rip-Stop Nylon Fabric that I sewed onto an old aluminum Pendaflex file folder frame, a holdover from the dinosaur era.

Here's a clearer shot of the sketchbook pochade. It attaches to the tripod with a Tee Nut, and uses a Southco SC-773 Adjustable Torque Hinge and a furniture slider to hold the parts at the proper angle. The "camera bar" for holding the video camera swings out from the front, held at a constant position by a piece of brass furniture hardware called a Friction Lid Support.

The palette area is made from the lid from a pencil box, primed and then spray-painted with white enamel, and held on with Velcro. That way it can be removed for cleaning, especially when I use it for casein or gouache.

EDIT: Aug 16--

Here's another view of the camera bar extended, with a Canon PowerShot ELPH 340 Digital Camera (Black) held on with an adustable Mini Ball Head Bracket I'm holding a Mighty Bright HammerHead LED Book Light, which clips onto the bar for night sketching.

My workhorse video camera is the Canon VIXIA series camcorder, which is small and light and full-featured. I also use a Canon EOS Rebel T5i Digital SLR with a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens. For time lapse, I use a GoPro HERO3 with a free time lapse program called "Time Lapse Assembler."

Refilling Water Brushes and Fountain Pens

Water Brushes
I've tried several brands, but none seem as reliable as Niji Water Brushes. I recommend the ones with round tips, but you can also get them with a 12mm Flat Tip. I normally carry between three and five water brushes. One is filled with water, which fills easily under a normal faucet by unscrewing the handle and squeezing the barrel.

The others are filled with blue, black, brown, and gray. I mix the gray myself, put it in an empty bottle, and mark the bottle. To identify which water brush is which, I paint the back end tips with acrylic (see lower left of photo above).

Ink
The ink in a brush pen should be water-soluble so that it doesn't clog the brush fibers. I use Higgins Eternal Ink(black), and an old bottle of Sheaffer Skrip Ink. The color in my 30-year-old bottle is mellow blue-black, which I believe is no longer available. The Waterman Fountain Pen Blue Bottled Ink is a bolder blue. For a brown color, I use either the Higgins Sepia Fountain Pen Ink or the Waterman Brown Ink, the latter of which has a redder cast. If you mix two colors of ink, you should mix the same brands.

Refill Tool
Several different tools will work for refilling water brushes. My favorite is a Syringe with a Blunt Tip Fill Needle. You can also use a Syringe with a Tapered Plastic Tip (center of photo above). A Glass Eyedropper doesn't always work as well because the tip isn't small enough to fit inside the chamber of an empty fountain pen cartridge or water brush.

Fountain Pens
I use a relatively inexpensive Waterman Phileas Fine Point Fountain Pen (top) for written notes. In the USA, you can buy refill cartridges in black and blue, but it's not easy to find brown or gray or other colors. As with the water brushes, you can refill them with your favorite color. The pen comes with a piston converter insert, but if you don't have one of those, you can refill empty cartridges with the syringe.

When I need to use waterproof ink for my line work, I like Micron Pens and brushpens. They come in many colors, and give a constant indelible line, similar to the classic Rapidograph pens. For a brush-style tip, I've used the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, a waterproof brush-tip pen with replacement cartridges. A caution about the Pentel: the ink can bleed through some thinner paper.
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For a PDF version of this list and buyer's guide, check out the extras of gum.co/watercolor.

To learn more about the 72-minute video "Watercolor in the Wild":
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DVD: (NTSC, Region 1)
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