The Best Medium for Beginner Artists

The Best Medium for Beginner Artists

In Vincent Van Gogh's infamous "Sunflowers" artwork, the artist chose to use oil paints as his medium. Georgia O'Keefe on the other hand often used watercolour paint in her works. Other artists such as Henry Moore used bronze in his semi-abstract sculptures. There are so many mediums available to artists today, the choice is almost endless.

In this blog post though I am going to focus on the medium that I feel is the BEST for new artists who have the urge to create but are not yet sure where to start.

And... that is... watercolour!


Not only is watercolour painting very on pointe at the moment - it is all over Instagram, notebooks, bed linen, popular art print retailers - it is incredibly accessible, mess-free, soothing for the soul and easy to do in small spaces.

Here are some of the main benefits of painting with watercolours:

1. Painting with watercolours is very much mess-free. No matter what form of watercolour paint you choose - a pan set, tubes or liquid - the paints remain very neat and tidy. You are not working with large quantities of sloppy paint and you are not having to get out the odorous turpentine to clean up.


2. You can re-activate your watercolour paint on your next painting session. Once you mix up your paints in your palette, you can leave them to naturally dry and then next time you sit down to paint, simply add more water and your paints are ready to go again.

3. On a more emotional note, watercolour paints are soothing for the soul. There is something magical about watching the colours flow into one another and observing the paints intermingle, particularly when you use the wet on wet technique.


4. Watercolour painting can be neatly contained especially if you work with a pan set. You don't need a large easel. All you need is a small space on your kitchen bench or kitchen table, a jar of water, a paint pan set, a brush and some paper and you can get started. After your painting session, clean-up is very simple and you can easily put away your supplies and artwork without taking up much space at all. Your artworks are on paper and can be stored in a flat document folder or art display folder - simple!

5. Watercolour painting is very accessible and achievable for people from all walks of life. With some instruction and guidance, anyone can learn to paint with watercolours.

 


6. It is not costly to paint with watercolours as there is such a wide range of supplies available. You can begin your watercolour adventures will low cost materials and build up from there once you see for yourself how magical the medium is.

There are so many beautiful things about each and every art medium, but it is watercolour specifically that I believe is the BEST medium for beginner artists.

With love and gratitude,
Ros
x

P.S. If you would like to grab my free watercolour video tutorial to try your hand at watercolour painting, simply click here, enter your email address and I will send it straight to your inbox.

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