If pan watercolors weren’t enough, someone had to go and create liquid watercolors. Does that mean you need them? What about those tubes? And did you hear correctly? Some actually have glitter?
Why would you want liquid watercolors?
When kids use pan watercolors, there’s a process. Water, load the paint, paint on the paper. And then kids will notice that the colors aren’t as bright as they want. That orange looks like peach. That purple looks more like lavender. And some pan watercolors take a LOT of digging that brush into the pigment to get it to be the color that it promises when looking at it.
This is where liquid watercolors shine.
Vibrant right out of the bottle, liquid watercolors immediately paint in lemon yellow, fuchsia, peach, teal, and deep violet. There’s no guessing if your color will be bright enough – it’s guaranteed.
Why are they so expensive?
It’s easy to pass on liquid watercolors when you see the pan sets. The pan sets are what we grew up with – and they’re much cheaper.
Liquid watercolors, however, will last for a long time. You can even dilute them with a little bit of water. Only a teaspoon of them with a tiny drip of water will be enough for a couple of students.
How do you use liquid watercolors with kids?
When using liquid watercolors, you’ll need to put the paint in something, and you can’t use a paper plate like you can with tempera or acrylic. Plastic palettes and cupcake tins are perfect, and so are salsa containers that you can pick up on Amazon or at your local food supply store. The bonus to using these is that you can snap a cover on them and save it for later.
When using a palette or cupcake tin, remember that a little liquid watercolor goes a long way. I’m Queen of pouring far too much in the palette or tin, and having a lot leftover. Start with a small amount and add to it, instead of going crazy like I do. You’ll save yourself a lot of paint!
You’ll still want a cup of water nearby to rinse your colors, just like with pan colors. However, you don’t need to dip your brush in water first, unless you are using a watercolor technique where it requires that the paper be wet. Dip your brush and go.
You can also use them for other fun techniques – marbling paper, coloring homemade playdough or salt dough, and dropping the color onto color diffusing paper.
Remember, to get your pale colors, you will want to add a little more water to the watercolor to dilute it. So if you are looking for beautiful pastels for your project – you can use these watercolors too. Just use less paint.
Which one should I choose?
Most often, if you spend a tiny more in purchasing good art supplies, they will go a lot further. I’ve had great luck with less expensive brands, however, including Colorations. Here are my favorites (any Amazon links are afflinks).
Amazon carries all of these brands, but you can also find liquid watercolors at Michaels, Discount School Supply, Lakeshore Learning, and many other craft stores.
And if you want to have fun with blacklight projects, liquid watercolors come in fluorescent colors! Sargent Watercolor Magic is one brand, but I’ve gotten uneven coverage, so my favorite is:
Last, but not least, I wouldn’t be the owner of The Glitter Bomb without mentioning that sometimes you can also find these liquid watercolors with glitter. Availability goes in and out, but HandyArt and Colorations have both been known to have glitter varieties and they are absolutely gorgeous.
If you have any questions about using liquid watercolors for kids that I didn’t address, make sure to drop those in the comments below as well. If you missed the first post all about pan watercolors, make sure to go back and read it here.
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