The PROS and CONS of WATERCOLOR

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 Even though watercolor is probably the first kind of paint most people will ever experience (as kids in a classroom), it still has a reputation as one of the more difficult and less forgiving mediums. For me, watercolor was the metaphorical gateway back into making art after nearly three years of not drawing or painting, so it was what I used to learn how to paint. Like every medium, watercolor has its pros and cons, and this article will dive into some of the most notable ones.


PROS

1. Portability

One of the best things about watercolor is that its very easy to bring around with you. Many different brands make travel palettes that allow you to carry watercolor paints in a pocket sized form-factor. If you are a more frugal painter, you can even make your own Altoid's palette for less than 5 five dollars. Watercolor can be poured into half or full pans. This lends itself well to plein air painting and urban sketching as well. Along with the small form watercolor can be put into, it also doesn't require many accessories to start painting. All that you need is a water-cup, water (obviously), a brush, and your paint. 



2. Quick Drying

Similarly to the last pro, this one also lends itself to plein air painting and urban sketching. If you 've ever worked with watercolor, one thing you'll notice is how little time you have to work on a layer before it dries. Depending on the climate where you live, this effect can be even further exaggerated. While some people find this quick drying annoying, plein air painters and urban sketchers love (at least most of them). Because watercolor dries so fast it can be used when you are in a bit of a rush and don't have time to watch oil or acrylic paint dry. Along with that, because watercolor dries quickly, you don't have to worry about smudging the layers of paint below. 


3. Affordability

The last pro I want to bring up is affordability. When you are just starting to get into painting, it can be very intimidating seeing a tube of oil paint of $25 or a set of acrylics for $50. But what you'll often find is that watercolor paint is much more affordable. The high end of watercolor tubes is around $10 but many great brands sell whole sets for under the $10 mark and they are perfect for learning to use watercolor. And I don't mean children's paint either. For example, Royal and Langnickel sells a twelve pack of actually good watercolor paints for only $5. 



CONS

1. Learning Curve

As with any painting medium watercolor isn't perfect and does have its cons. Watercolor's transparency makes it a unique medium and quite different from oil or acrylic. Many people express that watercolor is a difficult medium or that is just doesn't make sense to them, and this is more than a fair statement. Watercolorists work from light to dark and paint around the brightest highlights, leaving them the color of the page. For some people, this process is less intuitive and can cause some frustration. 


2. Mistakes

The next con of working with watercolor is that fixing mistakes isn't as easy as with other mediums. When you make a mistake while painting with gouache or acrylic, all that you have to do is wait for the paint to dry and paint over top of your mistake. Because watercolor is so transparent, to fix a mistake you have to either cover it up with white paint or use a paper towel before the paint dries and hope that the pigment didn't stain the paper. 


3.Lightfastness

Relative to other mediums like oil and acrylic, watercolor is an impermanent kind of paint. Because watercolor is so heavily mixed with water, its lightfastness is always in question. Along with that, paper itself tends to be less archival and more prone to yellowing than canvas or canvas board. 



Watercolor, while it is not a perfect medium, is one of my favorites. After becoming quite familiar with it, I've come to appreciate both its pros and cons for what they are. Like anything, watercolor is something that you can learn and get more and more comfortable with to overcome some of the difficulties that accompany this age old medium. 



Photo Credits (Unsplash)

sweetpagesco

carissaweiser

nbmat

jeshoots

auntneecey

russn_fckr


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