🎨 Watercolor Basics for Beginners #3 — How to Choose Watercolor Paints

Welcome back to the Watercolor Basics for Beginners series! If you’ve already read our how-to posts on watercolor paper and watercolor brushes, you’re well on your way to building a solid foundation. Now, let’s talk about one of the most important questions beginners ask:

“What watercolor paints should I buy?”

Whether you're choosing your very first watercolor paint set or trying to understand the difference between student vs artist watercolor paint, this post will guide you through everything you need to know. We’ll cover paint formats like tubes vs. pans, pigment types, lightfastness, transparency, and how to pick the best beginner watercolor paints for your creative journey.

1. Watercolor Tubes vs. Pans: What’s the Difference?

One of the first choices you’ll make is deciding between watercolor tubes and pans.

🎨 Tubes

Tubes contain moist, paste-like paint that you squeeze onto a palette.

Pros:

• More vibrant color straight from the tube

• Readily mixable

• Ideal for studio work and bigger projects

• Great for mixing large amounts of color

Cons:

• Slightly messier for on-the-go

• You need a palette to squeeze the paint onto

• Can dry out if not closed properly

🎨 Pans

Pans are small, dried cakes of paint activated with water.

Pros:

• Extremely portable — convenient for travel or outdoor painting

• The box that hold the pans of paint usually has a built-in palette, which is perfect for painting on location

• Pans of paint are low-maintenance and easy to store

Cons:

• Requires more effort to build up rich color

• Harder to mix large quantities of a color, so less ideal for big washes

Beginner tip: Either format is fine to start with! Many artists use both. If you plan to paint mostly at home, tubes may be more practical. For quick painting sessions or outdoor sketchbook work, pans are perfect.

2. Understanding Pigment Types in Watercolor Paints

Watercolor paint is made by combining  pigment (color particles) with gum arabic or similar binder. The source of the pigment — the actual coloring agent — affects everything from vibrancy to texture.

🌿 Natural Pigments

• Made from minerals, plants and other organic materials

• Often have unique granulation and earthy tones

• May vary slightly between batches

🧪 Synthetic Pigments

• Lab-made for consistency and intensity

• Often more affordable and lightfast

• Common in most modern watercolor lines

Beginner tip: You don't need to memorize pigment names or chemical codes but knowing that some paints behave differently because of their pigment source can help explain why certain colors blend or layer in unique ways.

3. Lightfastness: How Long Will Your Paintings Last?

If you’re wondering what watercolor paints to buy for art you plan to frame, display, or sell, pay attention to lightfastness — a rating that tells you how resistant a color is to fading from sunlight.

How to Identify Lightfast Paints:

• Look for ASTM lightfastness ratings (I = Excellent, II = Very Good, III = Poor)

• Artist-grade paints typically list this on the packaging or brand website

• Some student-grade paints don’t include this information

Beginner tip: For practice pieces or sketchbooks, don’t worry too much. But if you are creating something you hope to sell, gift, or keep, choose paints that will stand the test of time.

4. Transparency vs. Opacity: What’s the Difference?

Watercolor is famous for its airy and atmospheric transparency — but not all paints are transparent.

Transparent Paints

• Allow light to reflect through the layers

• Create the luminous look watercolor is famous for

• Best for glazing and soft layering

Opaque Paints

• Contain more pigment or fillers

• Tend to sit on top of previous layers

• May look chalky or muddy when layered

Most paint brands label their colors as transparent, semi-transparent, or opaque. You can also test them yourself: paint over a black line. Transparent colors will let the line show through; opaque ones will cover it.

5. Student vs. Artist Grade Watercolor Paints

One of the biggest decisions you’ll make as a beginner is choosing between student grade and artist grade watercolor paints.

🎓 Student Grade Watercolors

• Made with less pigment and more binder/filler

• More affordable and widely available

• Good for learning brush control and color mixing

Downsides:

• Colors may be less vibrant or harder to blend

• Often use multiple pigments in one color (which muddies mixes)

• Lightfastness ratings may be missing

🎨 Artist Grade Watercolors

• High pigment concentration for better intensity and flow

• Single-pigment colors for clean mixing

• Professional lightfastness and transparency labeling

Downsides:

• Higher price tag, yes — but you use less, so they last longer

Beginner tip: If your budget allows, start with a few artist-grade colors and expand from there. You’ll immediately notice the difference in color payoff and blendability.

6. Watercolor Paint Formats: Pros and Cons

You don’t need all of these to get started! Most beginners stick with pans or tubes until they find their style.

7. What Watercolor Paints to Buy as a Beginner

Now for the big question: what watercolor paints should a beginner buy?

So what’s the best way to start?

• Go small: A set of 6–12 colors is plenty for beginners.

• Choose a warm/cool primary palette: This gives you a wide range of mixable colors.

• Look for open stock availability: This means you can replace individual colors as needed.

• Quality over quantity: A few artist-grade colors will serve you better than a massive set of muddy student paints.

Here’s a Beginner-Friendly Primary Palette:

• Cool Primary Colors

  • Lemon Yellow or Hansa Yellow Light

  • Prussian Blue or Phthalo Blue

  • Permanent Carmine or Quinacridone Rose

• Warm Primary Colors

  • Cadmium Yellow or New Gamboge

  • Ultramarine Blue or Indanthrone Blue

  • Cadmium Red Pale or Pyrrol Scarlet

• Earth Colors

  • Yellow Ochre

  • Burnt Umber

  • Burnt Sienna

This combination lets you mix a huge range of colors while practicing color theory and brush technique.

Beginner tip: Don’t stress about owning every color — focus on quality over quantity :)

8. Beginner Watercolor Paint Sets I Use and Recommend

This post contains affiliate links, which means as an Amazon Affiliate I may earn a commission (at no cost to you) if you make a purchase. Be assured I only recommend products I genuinely use and love :)

🎓 Kuretake Gansai Watercolor Paint Set, 36 Colors

• When I started with watercolors in 2020, several artists I followed recommended Kuretake Watercolor Paint Sets for beginners. I bought the Kuretake 36-color pan set. The colors are beautiful and the quality really is quite good — I've been very pleased with these paints, and still pull out the set for quick painting sessions.the paints dry with soft edges, so layering and flat washes are easy

• The paint pan size are larger than typical pans, so the paint is easier to access no matter your brush size

• The set comes with a protective sheet that keeps your pans from shifting and also can be used as a palette mixer.

• It also includes a color chart so you can distinguish between them and swatch the colors yourself.

• Note: If you prefer to start with fewer colors, Kuretake has 12-color and 24-color paint sets which are also more budget-friendly :) As a beginner I had chosen the 36-color set because I was new to paints and nervous about color-mixing.

🎓 Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolor Paint Set, 10 Colors, 5ml Tubes

• A few months after I started watercolor painting, I was gifted with a tube set of 10 watercolors from Winsor & Newton's student-grade Cotman line. I was truly amazed by the intensely-colored paint, and also noticed a qualitative difference in the way the paint behaved.

• These student-grade paints are higher quality than Kuretake, but not Professional-Grade

• The color coming out of the tubes are much more vibrant and the paint itself was easier to mix and a joy to paint with

• Although the tubes are small, I still have paint remaining in every tube more than 5 years later

🎨 Artist-Grade Watercolor Paint Brands I Use and Recommend

• Daniel Smith

  • Daniel Smith Essential Watercolor Mixing Paints

  • assorted professional-grade tubes in various colors and sizes

• Winsor & Newton

  • assorted professional-grade tubes in various colors and sizes

Final Thoughts: Choosing the Right Beginner Watercolor Paints

Understanding your paints is one of the best ways to grow more confident as a watercolor artist. With the right information, you can make smart choices without wasting time or money — and your art will thank you :)

Remember, there’s no perfect setup — just the one that works for you. The best beginner watercolor paints are the ones that invite you to sit down, dip your brush, and enjoy the process.

Happy painting! 🎨

📋 References

• Artist's Manual: A Complete Guide to Painting and Drawing Materials and Techniques, edited by Angela Gair (1995 HarperCollins Publishers).

• Hello Watercolor! Creative Techniques and Inspiring Projects for the Beginning Artist, by Jeannie Dickson (2020 Get Creative 6).

• Painting Tools & Materials, A Practical Guide to Paints, Brushes, Palettes and more, by Walter Foster Creative Team (2017 Quarto Publishing)

• The Joy of Watercolor, 40 Happy Lessons for Painting the World Around You, by Emma Block (2018 Running Press).

• Watercolor Secrets: Over 200 Tips and Techniques for Painting the Easy Way, by Robin Berry (2012 Quarto Publishing).

🔗 Related Posts

• Watercolor Basics #1 – How to Choose the Right Watercolor Paper

• Watercolor Basics #2 – How to Choose the Right Watercolor Brushes

•  Watercolor Basics #4 – Easy Color Mixing & Pigment Guide

✨ About the Author

Written by Mary Moreno of Mary Moreno Studio, self-taught watercolor enthusiast since 2020 and creative blogger sharing practical, beginner-friendly tips and tutorials.