If you are looking for a brand of watercolor paint, you will notice that there are very many manufacturers on the market to choose from. Each brand of watercolor paint will have its own characteristics. Ask professional watercolor artists which brand to choose and they’ll probably come up with a long list of watercolor brands that will confuse you.
So how can you find the best brands of watercolor paints?
- Are you looking for safety from a reputable brand? Maybe consider watercolor paints from one of the oldest European watercolor brands.
- If you need high-quality but competitively-priced watercolor paints, then watercolor paint made by a company from Asia might be what you are after.
- Are you after a powerful performance? A brand of United States offers a lot of advantages.
Key Considerations When Rating a Watercolor Paint Brand
You want to make sure to choose the right watercolor paint and brand of watercolor paint for you. We recommend the best watercolor paint brands for professional artists based on the following features.
- The history of the brand is one of the key factors, a long-standing brand with its own unique formula and experience, and its reputation built over generations of artists. This is not easy to get from brands at a young age.
- A brand of watercolor paint used regularly by many painters for a long time for their final artwork is the clearest proof of the quality of that watercolor paint. Don’t just believe in the ads, believe in the actual product experience.
- A good brand of watercolor paints must describe the product information clearly. Product information must be transparent, non-deceptive, and care about the artist’s health through warnings of toxicity on their products.
08 Best Watercolor Paint Brands for Artists
To help you on your way to watercolor painting fun, we’ve listed the top 08 watercolor paint brands for you by popularity, reliability, and performance.
1. Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolor
We begin our list with a brand that can be considered as one of the most reputable art supply manufacturers. The story of Winsor & Newton begins in 1832, seizing the opportunity of the scientific, technical, and commercial boom of the Industrial Revolution. Newton & Newton was founded in the UK with the aim of providing painters with the best choice of pigments with the highest possible durability.
To date, Winsor & Newton’s product line ranges from premium to student/beginners. Their products all have one thing in common: they’re praised for their reliability and superb quality.
Professional watercolors are available in 108 of which up to 79 single pigment colors, they offer the widest range of modern and traditional pigments to ensure brightness, permanence, and stability of color.
- Includes 24 whole pans of artist's water colour
- Cased in a lightweight metal box
If you are looking for high-quality watercolor paint to go along with you on your artistic journey for many years, then Winsor & Newton could be one of the best choices.
2. Holbein Artist's Watercolor
Holbein is an art supplies manufacturer from Japan, the only Asian brand in our suggestion. They are also one of the world’s largest companies of professional artist materials. Holbein uses only the finest pigments available, each artist’s pigment meets the highest quality control standards, to satisfy the special requirements of professional artists with stability, brilliance, and technicality. They do not make any products for students and beginners.
First introduced in the early 1920s, Holbein Artist Watercolor is a Western-style transparent watercolor and is now available in 108 colors. They are manufactured without ox-gall, an additive of animal origin. This gives users greater control over the dispersion of their pigments, improving processing quality and keeping colors high in intensity and purity.
- Holbein Artists' Watercolors - Assorted Colors, Set of 24, 5 ml tubes
- Set of 24 Colors
Holbein Artist Watercolor is available in two formats, tube (5 ml and 15 ml) or Half pan.
3. Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors
Like Holbein, Daniel Smith only produces a line of products for professional artists. The art supplies company from the USA was founded in 1976 by Dan Smith – a famous print artist. At first, the company only produced artist ink; next, watercolors and oil paints were added to its products.
Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor is a classic watercolor paint style of excellent purity and lightfastness. They create truly unique color choices by using pigments derived from semi-precious minerals and other unique geological deposits.
Artists all over the world believe in Daniel Smith’s outstanding performance – lightfastness, color value, transparency, particle size, and thickness.
- DANIEL SMITH is the Innovative Manufacturer of Beautiful Watercolors for Artists...
- The DANIEL SMITH Essentials Watercolor Set has six, 5ml watercolor tubes that are just the...
They have a total of 266 colors across three lines: Extra Fine, PrimaTek, and Luminescent – The most in the world.Â
All colors are available in 15 ml tubes; moreover, many colors are also available in 5ml Tubes, Half Pans, Half Pan Sets, Watercolor Sticks, Tube Sets and Dot Cards.
4. Sennelier L'Aquarelle
The French manufacturer has a history dating back to 1887, Sennelier is one of the best brands for artists. Their products are famous for their hand-selected pigments sourced from all over Europe. Famous painters such as Cézanne, Gauguin and Picasso, Vincent van Gogh are also known to have used Sennelier’s work.Â
Now, Sennelier continues its mission of combining the traditions of old masters with the innovations of modern technology to best serve today’s artists with brilliant pigments and high lightfastness.
L’Aquarelle Sennelier is produced by traditional methods, using the finest pigments and top-quality Gum Arabic as the binder. This combination of natural materials creates smooth, bright, and colorful pigments.
Besides, Honey is also added to L’Aquarelle Sennelier not only as a preservative but also as an additive, bringing shine and smoothness to watercolor paints.
- Features an elastic strap that keeps the box securely in the palm of your hand while you...
- Extremely smooth color application
5. Schmincke Horadam Watercolors
With Schmincke, their mission is to bring satisfaction to artists- who dedicate their precious time to creative activity by providing the best quality pigments possible. This brand with a history of more than 100 years was founded in 1881 in Germany.Â
Schmincke’s story begins in 1881 with the production of resin-oil color. In 1892, Josef Horadam, one of the founders of the company, developed a breakthrough in watercolor technology and received a patent for watercolor. This helped them become one of the world’s leading watercolor companies.
Schmincke Horadam Watercolors are manufactured from high-quality materials and are uniquely formulated with optimized ox-galls to ensure that the artist can easily control the flow of paint; even on lightweight and waterproof watercolor paper.
- 🎨 THE BRAND: Schmincke has been producing the best, finest artists' colors Made in...
- 🎨 The HORADAM AQUARELL SET "Fog" contains 5 supergranulating colors in 5 ml tubes with...
The Horadam line of watercolors includes 139 brilliant, intense colors, 112 of them with the highest lightfastness ratings of 4 or 5 stars. This product is available in Tubes, Tubes set, Haftpan set.
6. M. Graham Artists' Watercolor Paint
Graham & Co was founded just 25 years ago. Even so, this company has won the trust of artists by providing them with safe, high-quality, solvent-free products. The idea dates back to 1970 when artists began to feel worried about the health effects of toxins in their art materials.
Graham & Co selects the purest traditional materials and spends a lot of time grinding each custom pigment. They all serve one mission: to create rich, vibrant colors to enhance the artist’s work.
M. Graham artist’s watercolors use honey as a binder, this is a traditional formula that has been around for centuries. The natural features of honey allow colors are stronger and more realistic; moreover, watercolors are easily diluted after months of non-use. This product just is available in tubes and tubes Set.
- Artist quality watercolor paint made with natural blackberry honey
- Watercolor made with honey absorbs moisture from the air preventing hardening on the...
7. Royal Tales - Rembrandt Watercolors paints
The history of Royal Talens begins in 1899 in the city of Apeldoorn, Netherlands. Initially, they were only interested in the production of office supplies and printing ink. In 1904, they released Rembrandt oil and watercolor paints, marking the beginning of their production of high-quality artist paints.
Rembrandt Watercolors are known to be their highest grade watercolor paints, using the highest quality pigments and gum arabic. It is formulated to achieve maximum transparency and lightfastness while still keeping the highest pigment volume concentration.
Royal Tales: Rembrandt Professional Watercolor is available in 120 high-quality colors, many of which are available in 2 formats: Tubes and pans.
8. Old Holland Classic Watercolor
An art supplies manufacturer with the longest history in the world. The story of Old holland begins in 1664 when members of the Society of Saint Luke founded the Royal Academy of Arts. They started making their own paints according to the traditional recipe that had been kept.Â
During the 1700s, They continued to improve the formulation by using cold-pressed linseed oil from the first pressing of the seeds to allow the paint to dry optimally. And with excellent quality, their products were used by artists of the time, the most famous being Rembrandt.
Today, Continuing the legacy of Old Dutch Masters, Old Holland is known as the world’s leading manufacturer of oil paints, acrylics, watercolors, and pastels.
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Old Holland Classic Watercolor is a high-quality watercolor paint made from the best and purest pigments and binder based on gum arabic, glycerine in of 168 rich colors. This product is also available in Tube, Half Pan, Half Pan Set, and Tube Set.