Paint
This is the fun part, paint! Before you get super nice paints, if this is your first time, I would recommend first buying some inexpensive paint to get accustomed to the process of working with it. In the section for Basic color theory, I will show you how to handle your paints.
Watercolor
You do not need fancy watercolors to start painting. I have different types of watercolor that I like to work with at home. The key for watercolors is to make sure that you have a good water to paint ratio. More water than pigment, and your will have a more transluscent wash. More pigment than water and you will have this sticky paint which will get stuck to your paper (we want to avoid this).
Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor: handcrafted, professional-quality Japanese watercolors with a highly blendable, creamy-smooth consistency.
Sakura Koi: these are considered student grade watercolors but I do love the way they blend and they are great on the go
Reeves Watercolor tubes: watercolor tubes have concentrated amounts of the pigment, so they will seem more vibrant. If you don’t close to top properly, your paint will dry in the tube.
Artist’s Loft Watercolor pan set: good value watercolors, student grade
Tempera
Tempera paints are usually used in the classroom because they tend to be inexpensive, water-soluble, easy to clean and most are non-toxic. Tempera dries a bit chalky and the colors will eventually fade and there are less color choices.
Tempera cakes: I have some tempera cakes. To use them, just wet a brush and paint on top of it to get different washes.
Acrylic
Acrylic colors dry as the water evaporates from it. Acrylic dries quick, it dries permanently (so if it gets on your clothes you will now have art clothes) and you will notices that it dries kind of plasticky (shiny). You can change their consistency with mediums and water. However, you do not want to add too much water to acrylic paints since you will be changing its chemistry. They do sell mediums (which are recommended) since its adding paint to more paint.
Depending on the quality of the acrylic paints, you will need more or less layers to make them opaque. More crafty paints require more layers, more professional paints require less since they are thicker and more opaque. Both are fun to use.
Crafts acrylic paint: dried quickly, needs several coats
Liquitex: heavy body acrylic paint
Gouache
Gouache is a great medium, think of it like being in between watercolor and acrylic paint. Gouache can be used as watercolor but it is not the same. It is more opaque, dries matte (and faster than watercolor) and can be blended
Winsor & Newton: professional grade gouache. They have nice opaque bright colors.
Washable kid’s paint
Washable kid’s paint is great if you want to play with colors first, don’t want to spend a lot and don’t want to get your clothes permanently dirty (like with acrylic). Do keep in mind that every time you add layers, the paint will activate and the colors will mix and become muddy. So with these, less layers are best.