Art Fun Cheap

Cheap watercolors are generally full of fillers, which means they look great in the package but are too diluted for real watercolor painting, They are fun to play with, though, and are great for art journaling and other uses (where light colors are what you want).

Generally, if watercolors look pretty in the package, they are useless for real painting. In contrast, artist-quality watercolors tend to look very dark. Some colors appear to be almost black until you add water.

However, cheap watercolors are a lot of fun to play with, and there are exceptions to the rule, so try them out. Cheap watercolors come in three forms: hard cakes (not covered here), semimoist, and tube paint.

Semimoist Watercolors
Semisoft watercolors are like the Prang watercolors I grew up with. You can still buy the good old Prang sets, but now there are also cheaper sets with bright, fun new colors. I bought a set at BigLots for $1.99 that fits in my purse. The case is about 3 inches by 4 1/2 inches.

At King Dollar I got a set of Colorific paints with removable pans and a very nice natural bristle brush in a sturdy portable case for just a dollar. At 10 inches long, this is not pocket size, but it fits fine in a tote bag, briefcase or backpack.

Colorific is a wonderful brand at its regular prices, and its products are sold in many drug and discount stores. This would have been a great buy at the regular price (probably $4.99 or $5.99). The brush alone may have been worth the original price.

Having removable pans means that you can rearrange the colors to suit your own way of working. As you use up colors, you can either refill each pan from a tube of watercolor or take out the pan, wash out the old color, and refill it with a totally different color.

Cheap Watercolor Paints in Tubes

Not all watercolors that come in tubes are expensive. Niji, maker of the famous waterbrushes; Loew Cornell, another brushmaker; Koi, Yarka, and others also offer sets of tube watercolors for under $10.

The tube paints tend to have the traditional color names of artist-quality watercolors. The colors are rich and smooth, and they flow well. (I don’t know if they fade in bright light.)

You can use tube paints to refill portable watercolor cases, too. Just squeeze some into a paint compartment or pan, and let it dry with the case open. It will rewet just fine later with water from a brush.

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