Start Your Masterpiece! Quality Paint Sets for Beginners

Ready to pick up painting, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! It’s tempting to start at the cheapest option, but student paint sets are often poor quality and can be frustrating and creatively stifling. Instead, we rounded up three quality but still affordable painting options for beginners.

Watercolors require patience and a light hand. When buying watercolor paints, it’s important to look for paints with strong opacity as it’s easier to water down a color than to layer it up. Beginners should get a basic yet quality set to learn how to mix colors in a tray and should use thick paper specifically made for watercolors.

These paints are sold separately. Start with the basic colors: white, black, red, yellow, and blue. Text: Great for beginners, acrylics are easy to paint over. They are also a good option for those with less patience, since it’s fast-drying. Acrylics can be used on a wide variety of surfaces: wood, canvas, thick paper, and even cardboard.

Gouache paints handle water like watercolors but are thicker and more opaque like acrylic paints. They’re often overlooked by beginning painters, but this versatile medium is a great place to start if you’re not sure if watercolors or acrylic paint is right for you. Like acrylics, gouache can be used on a variety of surfaces, but we recommend starting on watercolor paper.