Each brush is created for an intended purpose. You don't need to start with a huge assortment of brushes, but a few key types will help as you try to achieve different results. A small, medium and large round brush, a flat brush, and a mop brush is a great way to start. Low quality paint can become crackly and chalky versus having smooth, even color. Either works depending on your preferences, but making sure to use quality brands makes a difference.
Watercolor paint comes in both tubes and pans.
Our 300 Series Watercolor paper is a great, economical place to start that will let you practice, experiment and create beautiful work. In general, we recommend a watercolor paper that has a weight of 140lb. It remains flat, has an even color tone, and doesn't pill or tear. The watercolor paper is heavier weight and is made with additives called "sizing" that allows it to absorb moisture in the proper way. The copy paper also pills, meaning the fibers start to tear and ball up on the sheet. The copy paper isn't made in the same way as watercolor paper and results in a buckled, wavy wash. Below is a comparison of a watercolor wash on regular copy paper, and another on watercolor paper with the same paint mix. Not all paper is created equally! If you're going to watercolor, it is essential that you use actual watercolor paper. Lets break it down by paper, paints, and brushes:
It may also deter you from wanting to continue painting as the results just won't be the same as if you use quality materials. Poor quality materials often just plain don't work and cause frustration, wasted time, and wasted money. Using quality materials is essential to give you results you'll be happy with. Having the right tools in your toolkit makes a world of difference. With the amount of ways to use it, this could be a really long list, but we've boiled it down to the top 7 basics to get your started. Watercolor is a fun and sometimes unpredictable medium. Try using shortcut keys when drawing to make your workflow more efficient.If you're looking to get started with watercolor or improve your techniques, check out this list of 7 tips and basics.
Enter the key in the Shortcut Key field, and press OK to confirm.Įven if a specific graphics software is not mentioned here, most available programs have shortcut keys and the option to customize them. To set shortcut keys for tools, double click the tool that you want to adjust to open the Custom Tool Settings dialog box. Once the Keyboard Shortcuts Preference dialog box appears, you can add commands for shortcut keys. (2) Double-click the item to edit, then enter the desired keyįrom the Other menu, select Keyboard Shortcuts. (1) Select a category from the Setting area dropdown menu (2) Select the item to edit, then enter the desired keyįrom the File menu (the application menu in macOS) choose Shortcut Settings.įrom the Shortcut Settings dialog box, set the shortcut keys for commands and tools. It is not possible to set shortcut keys in Photoshop Elements. It may be helpful for your to change the key bindings to something easier to remember, or something that is easier to reach with one hand on the keyboard.įrom the Edit menu, select Keyboard Shortcuts.įrom the Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus dialog, set your preferred shortcut keys for different commands and tools. You can change the initial shortcut settings of most graphics software, or add new shortcut keys for menu commands and tools. You can also check “How to change shortcut keys” to find a list of shortcuts. Select the Other menu > Help to go to the page explaining the various available shortcut keys of the software. List of shortcuts (Clip Studio Paint User Guide) The help pages of graphics software sometimes have a list of shortcut keys, which can be a great way to discover new shortcuts easily. Photoshop users can also hold down on the tool button to display the shortcut key. In Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint, hovering the cursor over a specific tool will reveal the shortcut key in a tooltip. Menu commands that have shortcut keys will have their shortcuts displayed right next to them in the menu. You can discover them within the software yourself. Of course, there are many more shortcut keys than the ones introduced here. These commands are the same in Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, and Paint Tool SAI unless stated otherwise.
Keys marked with a “+” indicate that you need to press both buttons. MacOS users can do the same by holding down the Opt key instead of the Alt key.įollowing are some of the most frequently used shortcut keys in Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, and Paint Tool SAI.