Watercolour and soft pastel for beginners [video]

Here’s a quick painting demo I made of me using watercolour and soft pastel for beginners. In this demo, I am not using anything special to show you that you can start painting right away. Just start now and upgrade later!

Here are the tools I use in this watercolour painting demo:

watercolour paint. If you have kids, you probably have some watercolour paint at home. Here I am using a hobby-grade Reeves kit that’s probably over 25 years old. It worked fine for practice! But if you want to buy some paint, I recommend choosing a name brand paint. You can choose student quality paint, or a pro-quality pro paint if you can afford it. Pro quality paints have better colour and the all-important lightfastness necessary for longevity. But for starting out, student quality is fine. You want to feel free to make lots of paintings, and use lots of paint, so don’t buy stuff that will make you stingy or miserly. Getting better in painting is all about quantity.
watercolour paper. You want to use watercolour paper because it’s thick and won’t buckle. I am using 140 lb watercolour paper. It’s available at art stores.
brushes. I used cheap watercolour and synthetic brushes. But my fave was an old make-up brush! Some watercolour brushes can be very expensive. Good quality brushes last a long time if you take care of them. But I like the energy you get from cheap brushes with wayward bristles.
soft pastels. Use them last to punch up your colour.

To make your watercolour and soft pastel pastel painting, start with watercolour. Then wait for the watercolour to dry. And then use the soft pastel for the final highlights. Not too much because pastel needs tooth to cling to. And you want some of the watercolour to show through.