Before diving into the painting process, it's important to gather all the necessary materials for this watercolour tutorial. In this lesson, we will discuss the items you will need to ensure a smooth and enjoyable painting experience, as well as some extra items that are optional if you so choose to use them. From watercolour paints and brushes to paper and other essential tools, we will guide you through the ideal materials required to create your masterpiece.

LET'S START WITH THE ESSENTIALS:

PAINTS - this tutorial has been designed specifically for watercolours so make sure you have some of them handy! It doesn't matter what kind of watercolours you have, whether it be liquid or dry pan, cheap or fancy. All that matters is that you have these colours:

• WHITE
• BLUE
• BLACK
• BROWN
• RED
• and GREEN is an optional extra but you can absolutely get away without it.

Here is a colour swatch of the paints I used. Do your colours have to match mine identically? Absolutely not! Just as long as you have some form of each of the colours mentioned, you will be just fine!

BRUSHES - In the tutorial, I just use two brushes but it is up to you what you prefer to work with. As long as you have a small/fine brush for the details and a bigger brush for the larger areas of the bird, you will be just fine!

The sizes of your brushes will also depend on how big or small you do your painting. I did mine on an A5-sized piece of paper (~21x15cm) and these are the two brushes I used next to an Australian 20 cent coin for scale:

But like I said, as long as you have one fine brush for smaller details, and one larger brush for the bigger, less detailed areas, you will be just fine!

PAPER - It is important that you use "watercolour paper" for this painting. Normal paper doesn't like to get wet so will struggle with the watercolours so you need to make sure that the paper you are using is described as "suitable for watercolours".

You can get watercolour paper from most art and craft stores as well as some cheap shops or stationery stores. If you are in Australia, a few places you should be able to find very affordable watercolour paper include Kmart, BigW, Spotlight, Officeworks, and many more.

I like to use a "rough" or "cold pressed" watercolour paper because I like the texture, and I also usually go for around 250-300gsm weight. However, as long as you have any kind of Watercolour Paper, you will get through this tutorial just fine so don't stress or overthink it too much!

ADDITIONAL ESSENTIALS - Make sure you have a jar/cup of water, something to dry your brushes while painting, and something you can use as a palette to mix your watercolours on.

For drying my brushes, I just use a hand towel that I have dedicated to painting but some paper towels or old rags will also work just fine. Basically, just something that you can use to clean/dry your brushes while painting that you don't mind getting a little paint on.

For my palette, I use a side plate (again, one that I have dedicated to painting) and it works great. You can use a plate too, or a specific painting palette, basically just any flat, nonporous, non-bsorbent surface will do just fine. You can get away with not using this, but I find it wayyyyy easier to control my paints if I use one.

OPTIONAL EXTRAS:

These things definitely are not essential to complete the tutorial, so if you don't already have these things and don't want to go find/buy them, that is absolutely fine! However, if you do already happen to have these things and want to use them, you are absolutely more than welcome to and I will prompt you along the way as to when you can use them.

Firstly, white gel pens. I use these at the end of the painting to add finishing touches and extra details. Specifically, I use the uni-ball signo white gel pens from Officeworks (see below), but you can use whatever you have got if this part interests you.

If you don't have a white gel pen, you could try swapping it out for a white pencil or paint pen, or you could even try just doing it all with a super fine brush using white watercolour or acrylic paint.

Secondly, masking fluid. Masking fluid is a liquid latex you can use to keep paint off certain areas while you paint, which can be peeled off later to reveal the clean, blank paper underneath. If you already have some masking fluid and would like to use it to protect the white parts of the Santa hat while you paint the rest of the fairy wren, go for it! I haven't used it in mine so it definitely isn't completely necessary but you're more than welcome to use it if you'd like to.