Watercolor Workshop - June 7-10, 2008
by Dick Sneary and Susan Lynn

Art Supply List

Paints: If you are a beginner or student, we would recommend Winsor & Newton’s Cotman watercolors – they are good quality student-grade paints, and you can usually find small sets at reasonable prices (Jerry’s Artarama currently has a 10 color set for $29.99). If you are a professional, or feel ready to invest in higher quality paints, Winsor & Newton, Holbein, Daniel Smith, Schminke, and M. Graham are all excellent brands. As for colors, our basic palette includes: Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red Light, Olive Green, and Winsor Violet (Dioxazine). A more expanded palette might include Cadmium Orange, Quinacridone Gold, Rose Dore, and Cerulean Blue. We should note that we use two different brands of Olive Green, Winsor & Newton and Schminke, which are quite different. Schminke’s Permanent Olive Green is a very deep forest green – not what you would traditionally think of as olive. You can find Schiminke watercolors at www.jerrysartarama.com, if you would like to give it a try.

Brushes: We use Scharff brand Series 3000 Kolinsky Red Sable rounds, no smaller than a #5. You can find Scharff brushes at www.artbrush.com/ . You can accomplish most of what you need to do with a good quality #8 round. We would also strongly recommend getting a 1” squirrel hair Oval Wash brush. Ours are Impressario, but many other brush manufacturers make them. Isabey offers a very good line of squirrel hair round brushes, series 6234 Squirrel Quills – their sizes run larger, so a #5 would be about equivalent to a Scharff #10. If you are a student or are on a budget, Robert Simmons makes a “White Sable” synthetic brush that is very inexpensive – a #8 and a #12 round (series 785) would be good to start with, along with a 1” Oval Wash (series 752).

Paper: We use Winsor & Newton cold-press. 140# paper would be appropriate for the workshop. We will be working on ¼ sheets, so you may want to go ahead and cut the sheets into 4 pieces (11”x15”) to make packing easier. Canson watercolor sketchbooks are also acceptable, 7”x10” or 11”x14”.

Pallette: A plastic palette is fine – make sure you have enough wells for each of your colors and a large mixing area. John Pike and Zoltan Zabo both make plastic palettes with lids (good for traveling) which we use in our studio.

Misc.: A large water cup, 2B drawing pencils, pencil sharpener, kneaded eraser, paper towels, and hair dryer.

Art materials suppliers::
Jerry’s Artarama - www.jerrysartarama.com
Scharff brushes - www.artbrush.com
Daniel Smith - www.danielsmith.com
Cheap Joe’s - www.cheapjoes.com
Blick Studio - www.dickblick.com.