Metallic Watercolour Paint - Do You Really Need It?
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Do you need metallic watercolour paint? Well, need is a funny word… as in how many pairs of shoes does a woman ‘need’...?
It is much the same with art supplies. We don’t actually need that much. A loose watercolour painter really only needs decent paper, a big brush and one watercolour paint colour. And the water of course.
So what about metallic watercolour… is it necessary?
There are so many glorious colours available in watercolour these days you are quite likely to want to start a little collection. And its not only colours - watercolour comes in so many forms too.
Aside from metallics, there are at least 12 different types of watercolour to choose from last time I counted and wrote about them - click here to read about all of those.
You certainly don’t need to rush out and buy yourself some metallic watercolour. I really don’t think you need it.
But just because it is unnecessary, it doesn't mean you won't want it.
It is rather fun.
Who doesn't love a little bling? 💍😉
You can get whole sets of metallic watercolour, or buy them individually. There is so much available these days and at various price points.
The Schmincke set I bought came with this metallic gold paint. I don’t use it often, but gosh it feels festive when I do!
By the way, if you’d like to paint a cute picnic food scene using a spot of metallic watercolour, step by step with me, you can!
Aside from traditional watercolour pans or tubes of metallic paint you can get all sorts of other forms these days.
For example, Faber Castell makes a product called Gelatos which look like lipstick. They are creamy sticks of lightfast pigment which can be used on their own or with water, making them a suitable option for adding to a watercolour painting if you felt that way inclined.
The gelato range includes some metallics and adding one to your stash might be a fun little treat while you experiment and decide whether metallics suit you.
It is a very personal thing of course, but I think that paint bling is like regular bling.
Less is more.
I like it as a little sprinkle on the cake - it is not the whole cake. A little metallic highlight somewhere can bring a little magic and whimsy to your painting. I’m all for that, once in a while.
I don’t own a whole set of metallics but I have a few handmade watercolour paints made by a friend of mine that happen to be metallic. They came with such delightful magical names I was helpless to paint anything other than fairies with them when they first arrived.
By the way, if you want to see more of these tiny metallic fairies you can follow my mini sketchbook project video series here.
I did get over that and used these handmade metallic watercolour paints to add a little sparkle here and there to this tiny garden scene.
I also have some Twinkling H2Os which are commercially produced metallic watercolour paints. I do like those but they come in individual little pots so you have to undo the lid on each one, give them a spritz of water and then leave them to soften up a bit and become workable.
You might prefer a small metallic set instead of these individual pots instead. There are so many available these days.
All quite delightful but definitely more of a little luxury than a need!
How to Create a Metallic Version of Any Watercolour Paint
Did you know there is actually a way that you can turn any one of your current colours into a sparkly metallic version quite easily?
It’s a medium.
Now, if you are a watercolour painter, one of the things that might have attracted you to watercolour in the first place is that it doesn't require mediums.
A medium is a product you add to your paint to alter its properties. Acrylic and oil painters are quite familiar with this idea.
Sidenote: If you are thinking that medium refers to your art supply of choice like watercolour or charcoal or pastel, you would be right. And mixed media means you make your artwork with a combination of different art supplies. I think it is confusing too. But in this context we are talking about the kind of medium that you add to your paint such as linseed oil for oil painters or matte medium for acrylics.
When you use acrylics or oils there is a whole raft of mediums that you can choose from that will do all sorts of things like make your paint more fluid and transparent for glazing, or make it thicker for an impasto effect.
There are mediums to add texture, change drying time and all sorts of other things that we watercolour painters never need worry about. Our medium is water. That’s all we need.
Brilliant, I tell you.
Simplicity rules.
However there is one medium I couldn't resist for my watercolour and that is the iridescent medium, made by Winsor Newton.
You can use this medium in two ways:
Mix your colour with a little of the medium to create an iridescent version of your colour before painting
Paint a little pure iridescent medium over dry paint to add a little shimmer to your finished painting.
This is like a little bottle of fairy dust. Add it to some yellow ochre paint and you have a lovely gold metallic. Dot it over the crest of the waves in your finished seascape and you have the glint of summery sunlight catching the sea foam.
So to sum up, when it comes to metallic watercolour….
Need it - you do not...
Want it - you probably will.
By the way, I have a whole class on watercolour supplies - it’s free, and you can sign up here.