- Water glass with a lid designated specifically for painting that is never used as a drinking glass
- Lamp with a natural-spectrum bulb so that you can see the real paint colors
- Archival artist tape if you want straight edges to hold your painting
- Drawing pencil to trace and transfer the outlines of your artwork to the paper
- Kneaded eraser or white eraser to lift excess pencil lead off the paper before applying paint
- Tracing paper to trace the subject from the reference photo
- Lightbox to speed up the tracing process
- Transfer paper to transfer the subject from the tracing paper to the watercolor paper
- Mixing tray with a lid to mix paints and store them in between painting sessions
- Ruler to measure and cut paper to size and to mark straight lines
- X-Acto knife to cut paper and to scrape off paint
- Masking fluid if you want to retain the white of the paper for highlights or another purpose