Painting & drawing blog

WATERCOLOUR BRANDS COMPARISON

When buying watercolour paint you’ll be faced with a bewildering number of different ranges, and if you’re a beginner it can be hard to know how to choose between them. Many big manufacturers will make both an ‘artist’ quality range and a ‘student’ grade range and it’s easy to get confused as to which is which.

Price is generally a good indicator of paint quality, but it isn’t a perfect one. The best way to compare paint quality between manufacturers would probably be to analyse the amount to which their paints have been bulked out with fillers. For this however you’d need a microscope! There are other factors though which are easier to compare.

The number of more expensive ‘single pigments’ colours within a paint range is generally a pretty good guide to the overall quality of the paint, so I’ve noted this figure within my comparison table. Companies don’t always boast about the number of single pigment colours that their ranges offer (especially if the figure isn’t that impressive!) so in these instances I’ve added them up from the colour charts that the manufacturers provide. I haven’t been able to provide a figure for some of the cheapest paint ranges because they don’t make any pigment information available – these ranges are really best avoided.

There are exceptions to every rule, and the tally of single pigment colours isn’t an absolute benchmark of quality. For example Daler-Rowney’s ‘Artists’ Watercolour’ paint scores surprisingly highly on a single pigment count but I’m not very keen on the brand in other ways. I’ve divided the paint ranges into my own categories of ‘exceptional’, ‘excellent’, ‘good’ and ‘student quality’ paint. These are of course highly subjective and just based on my own opinions….others will disagree!

The list of paints here is UK-centric, as I’ve excluded watercolour ranges that are difficult or impossible to buy in this country such as those made by Grumbacher, Kremer, American Journey, and the excellent Utrecht paint company. I’ve noted whether or not a range contains honey, partly so that vegans can avoid these brands but also because whilst some people will prefer a honey-containing paint which is very easy to re-wet, others (especially those who live in a hot climate, want to paint out of doors or like to make their own pans from tube paint) will actively want to avoid it.

I haven’t indicated a price brackets for the various ranges since their retail price will depends so much on where you live: US paints can be very expensive when imported to Europe (or Australasia) and European paints can be very costly in North America.