Liquids VS Pans

Watercolour is one of my go to mediums. I have both pans and liquid water colours. But what's the difference? When do I use one and when the other?

Hopefully after this short review I'll have given you a better idea.

I use watercolour for my backgrounds. I choose the type of watercolour based on the kind of background I have in mind.

The liquid watercolours are much more powerful and can give you a really strong and colourful background. The pans aren't as saturated and can sometimes get a little "muddy" when you compare them to the liquid watercolours.

The pans are however much easier to handle. You can decide on the amount of colour you want by adding a lot of paint to your brush or by watering it down. I find this a lot more difficult with the liquid watercolours. I can't get the same amount of in-between-colours as I can with the pans.

I sometimes use a lot of layering in my backgrounds and for this I'll definitely use pans. They have a better finish once they're layered and with the extra control you can achieve some beautifully detailed backgrounds with alternating colours.

We all make mistakes. When you're painting with watercolour you can sometimes correct them by lifting the paint and "erasing" the mistake. It's a lot harder to lift liquid watercolour than pans.

I really like the amazing colours the liquid watercolours have which is why I almost always incorporate them in my paintings. If I want to have a layered background the first layer will be with liquid watercolour and then I'll layer with pans.

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Liquid watercolour: Royal Talens
Watercolour pans: Winsor & Newton