Gail and I have been exploring watercolor lately. I have done watercolor in the distant past. I pretty much stopped after I graduated from MIAD. Last year I had a job teaching at Michaels which included watercolor classes, so I dragged my old watercolor materials out. I had to quit teaching when I got hired full-time at Metal Ware. In the past couple of weeks, Gail and I have gone through a watercolor DVD from the Great Courses. It was pretty basic so I didn’t get much out of it, but it was okay.

It did make me realize two things. First, I do like watercolor painting. Second, my watercolor paints are a mixed collection of varying quality paints, mostly low quality I think. Long ago I bought only Winsor & Newton watercolors, but many of those are hard inside the tube. I don’t know if there is a way to get it out and use it, but they are thirty-five years old, so the dried ones went in the trash.

When I was young there were few choices for paints in Racine and no internet: Winsor & Newton for watercolor, Liquitex for acrylics and Grumbacher Pre-Tested for oils. These are what was available to me so they are what I used. I still mostly have the Grumbacher oils, Winsor & Newton watercolors and Liquitex acrylics, but there are a lot of other choices on the market today. Finding the best has become a lot more difficult. I want to get myself and Gail a more complete collection of professional quality watercolors. I’ll be trying out a lot of different ones, starting with what I have, and trying to gauge the quality, narrowing down to one brand for us to always use.

So where should I start? The paint part is easy. I have a fair number of paints from Daler-Rowney and Royal Langnickel. What little I have used these I think they are value grade paints, but I want to be fair and give them a chance. Besides I already have them, might as well use them. But what to paint? I should choose one subject that I can use to test all brands. I’ll have to give some thought to what image to use. More to come about this.