The Courtesan Itsutomi Holding a Plectrum after Chobunsai Eishi

The Courtesan Itsutomi Holding a Plectrum after Chobunsai Eishi. Woodblock print recreated as a watercolour.

Materials

Sketching

Charcoal for Studies and HB Pencil and a putty rubber for painting.

Brushes

Round No. 6 & 9, No.2

Ink

Indian Ink, Small amount of Water and dip pen.

Page from 'Japanese Colour Prints' by J. Hillier 1981

Palett 35. The Courtesan Itsutomi Holding a Plectrum after Chobunsai Eishi

Watercolours

A set of Watercolours pans or tubes i.e: Good Value Medium Quality Watercolour Tubes such as a 24 tube set of Reeves watercolours or for a better quality Jackson's Art Winsor & Newton are great.

Colours

Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre, Violet, Magenta, Sap Green and Payne's Grey

Masking Tape

Low tac or cheap (ish) Masking Tap is good for taping your watercolour paper to a drawing board all the way around. This will help the painting dry back flat after the wet and wet washes.

Drawing board

A lightwieght drawing board slightly bigger than A3 is great for watercolours a to a firm surface to work on to tape your paper too.

Table Top / Portable Easel

Placing your board on your easel at a 45 degree angle to your profile is much better than working flat. Its better for your neck! and creating correct proportions and the using the pull of gravity for certain wet in wet techniques.

Watercolour paper

300 gsm textured, acid free paper is best for watercolours. I often use Daler Rowney, Aquafine, Texture Pad A3 which has 50 sheets and is very good value with losing quality. Considering the amount I go through thats just as well. There are much better papers, but anything less quality than the paper mentioned will led to problems especially when using wet in wet washes.

Click here to see full list of materials I use for watercolour classes