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Botanical Art Online Dianne Sutherland
Resources: Materials & Equipment
Welcome to My Materials & Equipment Page
This new page is all about the materials and equipment I use, and I’ll be adding to it over time. I decided to create it simply because I get asked about these things so often.
Whether you’re taking one of my classes, just starting out with botanical painting, or you’re simply curious, this is where you can find information about what’s in my paintbox, the paper I use, my sketchbooks, brushes, pencils, easels… and much more.
It will take a little while to build this page fully, so bear with me. Materials change, availability changes, and my preferences evolve too, so this page will grow and shift as needed.
To begin, I'm starting with the painting materials in the first section, where you can find a downloadable PDF of my core painting materials.
Watercolour Paints
What Colours are in my Paintbox - and Why?
This is actually quite a simple question to answer, because my palette doesn’t change very much. I do add a few extra colours for specific types of work - particularly when I’m painting on toned paper or vellum - I’ll write about those variations later. For now, here’s an overview of the paints I use and the thinking behind them.
My first piece of advice is not to buy a ready‑made set of paints. They often look appealing, but they rarely suit your needs. Instead, choose individual colours, either in pans or tubes, and build a palette that genuinely supports the way you work.
Why I Use Primary Colours
Years ago, longer ago than I care to admit - I used to carry around a paintbox filled with quite a large range of colours. It looked beautiful, but it was impractical for travelling. After many trips, and a lot of unnecessary weight in my bag, I realised I didn’t actually need so many paints.
So I made a decision:
If I could mix a colour using primaries, then that paint didn’t need to be in my box, you can see this exercise in the image below.
This shift changed everything. It simplified my palette, made travelling easier, and most importantly improved my colour mixing. Working with a primary palette forces you to understand colour relationships more deeply, and it gives your paintings a natural harmony because all the colours come from the same few sources.
Matching colours using 3 primary colours I removed all of the paints that I didn't need because I could mix an equivalent using the primary colours.
A Palette That’s Limited - But Not Too Limiting
That said, my palette isn’t especially small compared to some artists. It’s made up of 14 Winsor & Newton Professional watercolours:
5 reds
4 yellows
5 blues
I could reduce it further, but the vibrant colours found in nature often require more flexibility than some ultra‑minimal palettes allow. I didn’t want to restrict myself to the point where mixing became laborious or where I couldn’t achieve the clarity and brilliance that botanical subjects often demand.
The 14 paints fit comfortably into my paintbox, so there’s no practical issue - but depending on the project, I sometimes pare the palette down even more. It’s all about choosing the right balance between simplicity and the ability to capture the full range of natural colour
Other Paint Brands
Other manufacturers make excellent paints too, brands such as Schmincke and Daniel Smith who produce beautiful, high‑quality watercolours. If you want to match colours across brands, you can look at the pigment numbers, which will tell you whether the same pigment is being used.
However, even when the pigment number matches, the colour will almost certainly differ slightly. Each manufacturer has its own way of processing pigments, adding binders, and creating the final paint. It’s a bit like baking cakes: you can use the same ingredients, but the recipe and the result will vary from one maker to another.
This is why many artists enjoy exploring different brands while still keeping a consistent core palette.
Why I Use Pans
The first thing you’ll probably notice is that I use pans rather than tubes. There are a few reasons for this but for me the reason is rooted in habit and practicality.
I’ve been using pans since I was about thirteen, so they’re second nature to me. Over time, I’ve also come to appreciate their practical advantages:
Higher pigment content - Pans generally contain less binder (such as gum arabic) and more pigment, which means they last a long time and give beautifully strong colour, if used correctly (more about that later).
Perfect for dry‑brush work – Because they’re already dry, it’s easy to control exactly how much paint you pick up, which is essential for fine botanical detail.
Ideal for travelling – Being dry, they’re clean, compact, and easy to transport. No leaking tubes and no mess.
Familiarity and consistency – After decades of using them, I know exactly how each pan behaves, which makes my workflow smooth and predictable.
Pans are actually a key part of how I work and perfectly suited to the precision required in botanical painting.
BUT if you prefer tubes they are also good, some people, squeeze tube paint into pans and dry them but I finds that some brands they can stay sticky, and to me its just not the same, but use what you are familiar with.
Get to Know your Paints
Another advantage of keeping a relatively limited palette is that it becomes much easier to truly learn your paints. Understanding how each pigment behaves is one of the most valuable skills you can develop in watercolour.
You can find information about your paints on the packaging—on tubes it’s printed on the back, but with pans the label is usually removed, so it’s often easier to look up the details on the manufacturer’s website. Winsor & Newton, for example, provide a downloadable colour chart that includes all the essential information.
From these charts, you can learn about a range of important paint properties. The more you understand these characteristics, the better your colour mixing and painting decisions will become.
Winsor & Newton have a downloadable chart
Lightfastness
Lightfastness is one of the most important qualities to pay attention to. It measures a paint’s resistance to fading under UV light, measured by ASTM International (American Society for testing Materials)
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Winsor & Newton use the ratings I (excellent) and II (very good).
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These are the ratings you want for fine‑art botanical work, where longevity matters.
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If a colour has no lightfast rating, it’s best avoided for original artworks.
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However, for print‑only work, these less‑stable colours can still be used.
Permanence
Permanence sounds similar to lightfastness, but it measures a paint’s resistance not only to light, but also to humidity and atmospheric pollution.
Winsor & Newton use the following ratings:
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AA – extremely permanent
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A – permanent
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B – moderately durable
This is relevant for botanical artists, as some pigments are more sensitive to environmental conditions than others and there colours can change under certain conditions
Other Paint Properties
When learning about your paints, it’s also helpful to understand:
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Staining – how strongly a pigment sinks into the paper (and so cant be moved)
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Opacity / Transparency – whether the paint lets light through or sits more solidly on the surface
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Granulation – whether the pigment particles settle into the paper texture, creating a textured effect
These qualities influence how colours mix, layer, and behave in washes or dry‑brush work.
I use most transparent paints but not all.
Colours to Avoid
There are a few colours that are best avoided for original artwork because they are fugitive or alter over time, these include: Opera Rose, Rose Madder, Alizarin Crimson, Potters Pink, Aureolin ( turns grey when used in glazes or dilute washes ...and others. Allways check paint properties. If you've been to an exhibition of old watercolour paintings you may have seen faded colours in paintings and been puzzled, this is due to fugitive pigments, so a leaf that was once
About Single Pigments
If you look at the labels on different colours, you’ll notice that some paints contain more than one pigment pigment. While these can look like appealing colours, they can also lead to muddier mixes when combined with other colours.
For this reason, I prefer to use single‑pigment paints wherever possible. They mix more cleanly, behave more predictably, and give you greater control, which is especially important in botanical painting, where clarity, accuracy and precision are key.
In the image shown, this is a tube of Permanent Sap Green, which is a popular choice for greens.
The arrow is pointing to the two pigments: PB36 and PY110, which stands for Pigment Blue 36 which is (the pigment is Cerulean Chromium) and Pigment Yellow 110 (the pigment is Isoindolinone). You will most likely need to add other colours. But I it's just as easy to mix your own pigments and created a system for mixing greens, which you can see in the colour chart.
Make a colour card with swatches of your paints and keep it in the lid of your box, that way you will soon learn about each colour and will also know the properties of each paint
A Note on Lifting Paint from Pans
A common issue I hear from students is that they sometimes struggle to pick up enough paint from a pan and so they cant achieve the richness of colour. Fortunately, there’s a very simple solution:
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Lightly mist the pans with water first. A fine spray softens the surface just enough to release pigment more easily, without turning the pan into a puddle
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Use a synthetic flat brush to lift the paint. Synthetic hairs are slightly firmer and more resilient, which makes them ideal for activating pans and gathering pigment efficiently
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Try not to use your best brush for this job.Your finest brushes are for painting, not for scrubbing pigment out of pans
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Keeping a dedicated synthetic brush for lifting paint will help preserve the points and edges of your high‑quality brushes
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These small adjustment makes a big difference, especially when you’re working with dry pans or highly pigmented colours and it allows you to easily mix those rich colours.
A green and brown colour chart, all mixed with primary colours. I use the light value of the blue as the determining colour when mixing greens. This is covered in detail my colour mixing tutorial
The Beauty of Mixing with Primary Colours
One of the great advantages of working with primary colours is the extraordinary range you can achieve from just a few pigments. As shown above in the green and Brown chart, the variety is remarkable—far more than many people expect from such a limited starting point. And this same colours can mix many more colours....everything that you could possible need
Taking the example of green mixes: the greens can feel daunting at first, and the secret to mixing them isn’t simply about matching the basic hue but also all the subtle variations that occur under the influence of light and shade on the subject.
A Leaf isn’t Just “Green.”
It contains:
cooler greens
warmer greens
it might have muted, greyed greens in receding areas
bright, fresh greens in lights
deep, rich greens in the shadows
and recesses
Understanding these shifts is what brings botanical work to life. When you start to see greens not as a single colour but as a family of tones shaped by light, form, and surface texture, mixing them becomes far more intuitive and more enjoyable.
Using 3 primary colours to mix a range of greens, rather than just identifying the basic hue, is important. The effect of light upon a leaf results in many variations in the green and also in underlying colours, such as the blues and yellows in this primula leaf. Varying a green mix as shown above image is a very good way of finding the full range of greens in a leaf, including the shade colours.
So Many Colour Possibilities
The number of colours that can be created from primary pigments seems almost limitless. In the example shown on the right, you can see just a selection of the colours that can be mixed from only three primaries: Indanthrene Blue, Permanent Carmine, and Transparent Yellow.
That’s just three of the fourteen colours in my palette - so imagine the potential when all of them come into play.
The benefits from using a well‑chosen primary palette:
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You gain an enormous range of hues
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You maintain harmony across your mixes
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You avoid the clutter and confusion of dozens of unnecessary paints
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You can produce everything from delicate neutrals to vibrant botanical greens, rich purples, warm oranges, and beautifully subtle shadow tones.
The true potential of colour lies not in the number of paints you own, but in how well you understand them.
What Paintbox do I Use?
A paintbox is needed to store all those pans, and there are many options available. A few years ago, I swapped my old Winsor & Newton wooden box for the Frazer Price box, which I bought empty and filled with my favourite colours. It holds 18 half pans, though I use a mix of whole and half pans-using the whole pans for the colours I use most often.
It’s not the most inexpensive box - but bought it in a sale - and it suits my needs perfectly for both indoor and outdoor painting. Being made of brass, it’s incredibly strong and durable. I also purchased one of their original paintboxes on eBay.
It has a generous mixing area and even carries a small water bottle, which is ideal when working on location,, although I often take this storage bottle out and store spare paints or other items in the space.
I’ve travelled with it extensively and it's pretty well worn now - its protected my paints well and has a strong latch I've never had a single problem with it. For me, it strikes a great balance between practicality, durability, and is beautiful too! In fact, as it ages I like it even more
You can buy budget metal paintboxes and they will be perfectly good - especially if you don't travel much with the box, they can sometimes come open but overall are good enough. Wooden boxes are great too but most are quite bulky, I still use my old one at home.
It's always better to buy an empty box and fill it with the best colours rather than to buy a set of watercolours, which usually has colours that you will never use.
Other Paints: Black and White
It might sound surprising to mention black and white in the context of botanical painting, but they both have their place
Using White
I often work on toned paper and vellum, and for this purpose I use white gouache. In the small Fritillaria uva‑vulpis painting shown below (on grey paper), you can see how the white is used to lift highlights and bring luminosity back into the subject.
White can occasionally be used in traditional watercolour too, but only for very selective touches. It can also be mixed with watercolour to create body colour, just as the Victorian watercolourists did. My preferred white is Winsor & Newton Permanent White Gouache.
Using Black
For quick tonal studies-known as grisaille (from the French gris, meaning grey). I sometimes use a black or grey tube paint. These tonal paintings are a wonderful way to study form without the distraction of colour.
Of course, black can also be mixed from the three primaries, for example French Ultramarine (or Indanthrene Blue), Permanent Carmine and a small amount of Transparent Yellow. mis a creamy consistency of blue and red to make a rich purple, then add a small amount of the yellow until it turns black. For a watercolour painting of a dark subject, I would absolutely mix my own black and dark colours but for ease and speed in tonal sketches, I use Lamp Black.
Above are three examples using white and black paint: 1. Watercolour and white gouache on Paint On Clairfontaine Gris paper, 2. Lamp black watercolour tonal study of an Opium Poppy Leaf on Stonehenge Aqua watercolour paper and 3. Watercolour and white gouache on a primula vulgars painted on dark veiny vellum.
Drawing
Graphite Pencils
You can draw with a variety of tools including graphite, ink, coloured pencils etc. I'm going to focus this first section on graphite pencils.
Wooden Pencils
Lets begin with good old wooden pencils, that what I learned to draw with and they are perfectly good for all types of botanical drawing. In terms of brand, there are quite a few available and I've tried most but always come back to Faber Castell 9000 and pretty much all of my drawings have been completed with them, including this lichen encrusted branch below.
The reason I love these pencil is because they are harder than many other brands, Staedtler Mars Lumograph are also an excellent botanical drawing pencil but personally I prefer Faber Castell 9000.
Another brand worth using is
