A Little Drag in the Brush

I painted my first picture with this set of 24 Whiskers Plus watercolors. When I squeezed the tubes into my palette, the first thing out of a few of them was a gel. Some colors smelled particularly strong. It was an unpleasant way to open the box. After two or three days of air-drying, things felt a little better, and I tried the paints on a small landscape.

The trees on fine-grained paper

Some colors still felt heavy with binder. I could feel a little drag as I drew the brush across the paper. As it happens, I quite like that feeling.

The painting is small, on fine-grained paper. The green went down quite thickly in the clump of trees on the left. When I want a few fine branches there, I like to scratch them out. That little bit of resistance suited my hand.

How far do I want the color to travel?

It reminded me of Holbein Artists’ Watercolor. This range is made without ox gall. Holbein also sells an ox gall medium for painters who want more flow. Color still moves wherever there is water on the paper. When I work wet into wet, a slower spread can make it easier to keep the color where I want it.

When you first try watercolor, it can be lovely to watch the paint fan out the moment it touches water. But if I want a tree shadow to spread only as far as the bank, I might not catch it in time. How much spread I want depends on the mark I am trying to make.

Holbein Artists’ Watercolor · Watercolor mediums

What I learned from this little painting

I really did dislike the amount of gel I saw when I squeezed those tubes. Yet when I got to the trees in this little painting, I liked the way the paint handled. I would have had a hard time guessing that from a color chart.

With time, I get to know which paints feel right for the effects I want. For me, that familiarity comes one painting at a time.

See the painting in my 2026 collection · Whiskers Plus 24-color set