If you’re like me, when you first started painting you didn’t give any thought to your paint.
You just grabbed them and started painting.
Then you noticed some of them were more vibrant, some covered over other colors not letting them shine through and some were easier to remove from your paper if you made a mistake.
I was aggravated early in my painting adventures because I just didn’t know each paint pigment has a different personality.
So I researched them and I created a Beginner’s Guide to help my budding artistic friends sort it all out.
Above I have a video to show you a trick for transparency and then a picture to help you understand the paint label, below is an explanation of paint characteristics. I've also created a cheat sheet you can get here: 
Types Of Paint: Watercolor paint comes in many forms. I’ve listed the most popular forms below. I personally love watercolor paint in the form of tubes but I encourage you to experiment to find what type works best for you.
Tubes- Pigment is finely ground and mixed with gum arabic or honey and placed in a tube that resembles a mini toothpaste tube. Since it’s concentrated, it’s very vibrant. It’s more efficient for mixing large washes but it can also be difficult to judge the amount of paint you need for a painting causing you to squeeze out too much paint on your palette.
Cakes (pans)- Pigments dried into individual squares. These are easily transported and kept “clean.” Can be difficult to soften up before using them to paint.
Liquid- Be careful, some of the “liquid watercolors” may actually be dyes. These are very vibrant but also fade quickly in sunlight or change colors due to chemical breakdowns inside the paint. The true liquid watercolors are watercolor pigments diluted with distilled water. They tend to be dull and not nearly as vibrant as other watercolor forms.
Pencils- dried watercolor in pencil form. Very good for fine details and mixed media. Easily transported and easy to use.
What does “saturated” and “unsaturated” even mean?
Saturated- Each color on the color wheel has a degree of vividness or saturation. When a color is saturated it’s closest to the pure color on the spectrum.
Unsaturated- These colors are not found on the color wheel and are generally less vivid. Many of the earth tones are unsaturated.
What do Permanent and Fugitive mean?
Permanent- If the paint is deemed permanent, then it will not fade or change color over time under normal conditions. These pigments are stable and will stand the test of time.
Fugitive- If the paint is said to be fugitive, then it will deteriorate, fade, and can even change color over time in normal conditions. These pigments are stable and should be avoided if you want your work to last.
Some of the most important properties of watercolor paint:
Transparent- The white of the paper shines through the paint creating a “glow.”
Semi-Transparent (semi-opaque)- The white of the paper still shines through but not nearly as much. It doesn’t have the same vibrant glow as transparent watercolor.
Opaque- The white of the paper doesn’t shine through the paint giving it a heavy dull look.
Staining- These pigments tend to sink down into the watercolor paper fibers making them very hard to remove from the paper without tearing it.
Low-Staining- These may be removed but most likely a light trace of color will still remain.
Non-Staining- These pigments sit on top of the paper’s surface and are easily removed from the paper without leaving a trace of color.
Flow- How much a paint color will spread over a wet surface. For example, Quinacridone Rose will seemingly explode over a wet surface (high flow) while Raw Sienna wants to stay in the general you place it, not wandering across the paper much (low flow).
To make things easier for you, I’ve made a guide of the most common paint colors and their properties. You can get it here:
