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If there is one subject that draws beginners to watercolour more than any other, it is loose florals — those free, atmospheric paintings where flowers seem to bloom spontaneously from the paper with barely a brushstroke in sight. The secret is not talent or years of practice; it is understanding what loose painting actually means and deliberately working in a way that allows watercolour to do what it does naturally. In this beginner's walkthrough we cover the full process: how to think about composition before you start, why your brush size matters more than your drawing ability, how to work wet-on-wet to create the soft petal blooms that define the style, how to paint leaves and stems that anchor the composition, and — crucially — how to know when to stop before you overwork it. We include four colour palette suggestions for different moods from soft and romantic to bold and vibrant, a guide to painting roses loosely, and a straight-talking list of the mistakes that trip up almost every beginner at this subject. Read on, then find everything you need in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.

Brushes are one of the most confusing areas of the art supplies market for beginners — too many options, too little guidance on what actually matters, and a very wide range of quality for superficially similar products. In this guide we cut through all of that with a practical, plain English explanation of what you actually need to get started with acrylic painting and how to build your collection from there. We cover the six essential brush shapes and what each one is for, the key difference between Taklon and synthetic hog bristle and when each is appropriate, and a clear guide to the four brush ranges we stock at Craft and Canvas: Pro Arte Acrylix for precise, controlled acrylic work; Pro Arte Bristlene for expressive, textural painting and as a vegan hog hair alternative; Royal and Langnickel Taklon for responsive, affordable all-round use; and PAB Florence, the Florentine brush maker founded in 1911 whose artist brushes represent the finest quality available. Read on, then find the full range in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.

Most watercolour painters have a handful of brands they know and trust, and Wallace Seymour is rarely among them — not because the paints are inferior, but because they are deliberately produced in small quantities, supplied only through independent retailers, and never marketed through the mainstream trade. Founded in 2011 by Rebecca Wallace and Pip Seymour, two practising British artists, the company makes the Vintage Watercolours range the way watercolour was made before the industry scaled up and cut corners — traditional and historic mineral pigments, Kordofan Gum Arabic of the highest grade, and genuine Acacia honey from a single Italian estate. The colour range includes pigments you simply cannot buy elsewhere: finite stocks of historic colours unavailable since the 1980s, earth pigments hand-dug from specific English quarries, and rare minerals with granulation qualities that synthetic pigments cannot replicate. We stock the full Series A, B, and C tube range at Craft and Canvas in Hebden Bridge. Read on for the full story, then come in and find out more.

One of the most compelling things about acrylic paint is its ability to create genuine physical texture — not just the impression of texture through careful brushwork, but raised, three-dimensional surfaces that you can actually feel. This quality is unique among common painting mediums, and it opens up creative possibilities that watercolour, gouache, and most drawing media simply cannot offer. In this guide we cover six accessible methods for creating texture in acrylic painting, from the boldest approaches — impasto with a palette knife, modelling paste built up before painting begins — to the more subtle: dry brushing for surface grain, sgraffito scratched into wet paint, sand and found materials mixed into the paint, and deliberate gesso texturing of the ground. We also explain why texture matters compositionally, how to combine methods for the most interesting results, and which subjects and styles benefit most from textured treatment. We stock Wallace Seymour impasto gels, modelling paste, and gesso alongside the full acrylic paint range at Craft and Canvas — read on, then find everything you need in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.

Two papers come up again and again when watercolour painters start thinking seriously about what they are painting on: Fabriano Classico 5 and Saunders Waterford. Both are far ahead of budget papers in quality and performance. Both are stocked at Craft and Canvas in Hebden Bridge. And both have genuine strengths that make them the right choice in different situations. Fabriano Classico 5 is a mould-made Italian paper with a 50% cotton blend — well priced, consistent, and a significant step up for painters moving on from student papers. Saunders Waterford is 100% cotton, made in Somerset by one of the oldest papermakers in England, endorsed by the Royal Watercolour Society, and archivally rated for indefinite longevity. In this post we compare them directly — surface texture, absorbency, working time, how they handle reworking and lifting, colour quality, and suitability for different techniques — and tell you exactly which one to choose and when. We also explain where Bockingford fits for everyday practice. Read on, then find the full range in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.

Should you start with acrylics or watercolour? It is the question we are asked most often at Craft and Canvas, and it deserves a proper answer rather than a shrug. Both mediums are water-based and genuinely accessible for beginners — but they feel completely different to use, suit different subjects and working styles, and have very different learning curves. Acrylics are opaque, forgiving, and work on almost any surface; mistakes can be painted over and compositions can be changed mid-painting. Watercolour is transparent, luminous, and less forgiving — once a wash is down, it is largely there to stay — but it rewards observation, patience, and a willingness to work with what the paint does. In this guide we compare both mediums honestly across every dimension that matters to a beginner: opacity and transparency, drying time, surfaces, cost, subjects, and working personality. We also answer the most common questions about using both mediums together and choosing brushes. Read on, then come and find the full range in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.

Painting a convincing watercolour sky is one of those things that looks effortless when done well and hopelessly frustrating when it goes wrong. The secret — and it is not really a secret at all once someone explains it — is the wet-on-wet technique: applying wet paint to pre-wetted paper so that colours spread, blend, and feather naturally into each other without hard edges. It is the technique that gives watercolour skies their characteristic soft luminosity, and it is what separates a flat, overworked sky from one that looks alive. In this step-by-step guide we walk through the complete process for a simple blue sky with clouds, covering paper preparation, colour mixing, reading the sheen, adding cloud shadows, and the most important skill of all — knowing when to stop. We also cover how to adapt the approach for different conditions from stormy skies to sunsets, what to do when things go wrong, and which supplies we recommend from our range at Craft and Canvas. Read on, then find everything you need in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.

Most acrylic painters work with the same handful of mainstream brands — reliable, widely available, and perfectly good. Wallace Seymour is something different. Founded in 2011 by Rebecca Wallace and Pip Seymour — two practising artists with decades of experience in the art materials industry — this small British company makes acrylic paint in small batches with an almost obsessive commitment to pigment quality. Many of their pigments are sourced from original quarries and processed in-house. The colour range includes over 100 shades in 60ml tubes, among them historic earth colours and natural pigments you simply cannot buy from any mass-market brand. The paint itself has a soft gel consistency, a noticeably higher pigment load than most commercial acrylics, and dries slightly more slowly — giving more working time and a rich satin-gloss finish that rewards careful technique. In this post we give our honest, independent assessment of the range — what makes it special, how it compares to the brands you already know, and which colours are worth starting with. We also cover the full Wallace Seymour mediums range that we stock alongside the paints. Read on, then find the full selection in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.

Walk into any art shop and ask for watercolour paper, and you will be asked almost immediately: cold press or hot press? If nobody has explained the difference, it is an unexpectedly tricky question. The terms refer to the manufacturing process — specifically whether the paper is pressed through cold felt-covered rollers (which leaves a textured surface) or hot metal rollers (which smooths it almost flat) — but what matters to a painter is how each surface behaves. Cold press absorbs water readily, softens brushwork, and creates the natural granulation most people associate with watercolour. Hot press is smooth, vivid, and precise — better for detail and illustration, but less forgiving of imperfect technique. In this guide we explain both surfaces in detail, plus rough press, the overlooked third option for expressive textured work. We also cover cotton vs wood pulp, paper weights, whether you need to stretch paper, and how the papers we stock at Craft and Canvas — Fabriano Classico 5, Saunders Waterford, and Bockingford — compare to each other. Read on, then find the full range in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.

Acrylic paint is one of the best mediums a beginner can start with. It is water-based and easy to clean up, dries quickly so you can layer without long waits, works on canvas, paper, wood, fabric, and card, and forgives mistakes in a way that oils and watercolour simply do not. What it does require, though, is a basic understanding of how the medium behaves — because beginners who dive in without that knowledge often hit the same walls: paint drying too fast to blend, colours going muddy, or results that look flat and lifeless.

This guide covers five core acrylic techniques that will immediately improve your painting: layering (the foundation of almost everything), dry brushing for texture and depth, wet-on-wet blending, impasto for expressive thick paint, and glazing — the most powerful and most overlooked technique in the acrylic painter's toolkit. We have also included a full FAQ covering the questions beginners ask most, from paint consistency and drying times to surface preparation and brush care. Read on, then come and find the full range of acrylic paints and mediums in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.

Watercolour is one of the most rewarding painting mediums you can learn — and also one of the most confusing to shop for. Walk into an art shop (or...

If you have never used Brusho Crystal Colours before, you are in for a treat. These small pots of highly concentrated dye-based ink powder — made exclusively in Sheffield by Colourcraft — are capable of producing the kind of vivid, blooming washes of colour that take years to achieve with conventional watercolour. A single pinch dissolved in water produces an extraordinary burst of colour, and every "shade" is actually a blend of multiple dye crystals, which means the colour separates and shifts in ways that are endlessly interesting.

In this guide we cover everything you need to know to get started and go further: how to open your pots safely, which surfaces work best, the four core techniques (including the classic sprinkle-on-wet-paper method), and a range of advanced approaches including bleach resist, salt effects, stencilling, wax resist, and mixing Brusho into other mediums like PVA and modelling paste. We have also included answers to the most common questions about Brusho, from lightfastness to paper choice to whether it works on Yupo. Read on, then come and find the full range in store or at craftandcanvas.co.uk.