JULIA MARTINEZ

Co-signing Cotman/Van Gogh - pans are tidy in a small space and you can squeeze tubes into empty pans and let them dry overnight. For a quick quality check, swatch a solid patch and a watery wash; good paint should look clear, not chalky, and rewet easily the next day. To get that juicy flow, tape your paper down, pre-wet larger shapes, and if spills worry you, use a water brush instead of open jars.

Start with student grade tubes that list pigment names and an opacity icon so yeah single pigment colors tend to mix cleaner than multi pigment blends and so your greens and purples stay bright instead of muddy. Skip paints labeled craft for now since they often have more fillers and which can dull mixes. For landscapes a small palette is enough. A warm and a cool of each primary, an earth brown, an earthy yellow, and a good white will cover skies, foliage, rocks, and water. Make a quick mixing chart on scrap paper to see how far those go. Works great.