With those colors, you can paint anything and follow just about any class that doesn't rely on gimmicky colors and brushes (you really only need a round, with an optional flat for washes). If a class starts demanding you lay down massive amounts of dough for the teacher's own brand supplies, run.
What I mean by warm and cool colors: A red that leans orange and one that leans purple A blue that leans green and one that leans purple A yellow that leans green and one that leans orange Greens because they can be hard to mix I mention sky blue and pink because they cannot be mixed easily
Your pink may also be your purply red (that's what I do) but many sets have all three. Most sets include browns because they are also a pain to mix. I also like beginner sets to include yellow ochre and payne's gray.
So, my boring basic, get the job done, won't fail set has Pyrrole Red (warm) Quinacridone Rose (cool) Ultramarine Blue (warm) Phthalo Blue (cool) Hana Yellow Deep (warm) Lemon Yellow (cool) Burnt Sienna (warm) Burnt Umber (cool) Sap Green (warm) Phthalo Green (cool) Yellow Ochre Payne's Gray
For myself, I don't use sap green all that much but tutorials do. I prefer Chromium Oxide Green but it's a beast and can overwhelm beginners. I also prefer Terra Cotta for my warm brown and add in Caput Mortuum for a purple-leaning brown. And I love Mars Black and Titanium White but that's heresy.
Ooo and I forgot to add to my boring basic set: Cerulean Hue! The Hue is artificial and nontoxic (real Cerulean is a cobalt). You will want it for skies.
Also, no matter what you paid, if the set you are using is enjoyable and you like the results, it's the right set. Capitalism relies on dissatisfaction with perfectly good items. It relies on "limited editions" and fake scarcity to trigger FOMO and open your wallets.
I remember a watercolorist was trying to "help" their friend, who was happy with a children's paint set The watercolorist showed the friend all the wonders of pro supplies and the friend was like "Thanks, but I like the bright, cheery colors of my set and I know how to use it" That's the spirit!
Also, "I didn't think there would be drama in watercolor!" SO MANY of the big online watercolor influencers are either Christian Right-coded women with an MLM vibe or cluelessly affluent housewives who can spend $500 on supplies at a clip. How do you think this is going to go?
In Art the only rule is that there are no rules.
Windows95man said so!
Amen to this! My Mom is an artist; when I was growing up sometimes I had slightly better materials and sometimes not. Her theory was sometimes the point is the doing and not what you're using. Sometimes the quality helps but doesn't always matter.
Yes, you don't want something so awful that you are frustrated but often what people blame on their materials is actually their inexperience and they don't know the difference.
Ha! I remember discovering the unhappy housewife art market back in the scrapbooking days. Are Somerset magazines still around?
Looks like it is! There is also Victoria Magazine for all the 1990s ladies with delusions of aristocracy (I knew one who basically lived her life by the will of Victoria and it was like, ma'am, you were a cashier at Piggly Wiggly)
I loved Victoria when it first came out, but when it became more about impossible recipes and actual rich American’s houses instead of pretty pictures of women walking through rainy woods, accompanied by scraps of poetry.
Yes, it was fun for a while but then they also had their tie-in catalog to push. Very much dead tree influencer behavior.
I left long before that. Took a course on the history of the suburbs that had most of a class devoted to Victoria and how the 80s saw career women turning their backs on the kitchen efficiency movement of the 30-70s and go back to a soothing Victoriana. Some early adopters, of course.