This is a great video that gives a high level overview of many different brands of watercolor. It’s a personal choice, though, and I do have a different top three because I’m not that fond of Daniel Smith watercolors.
My top three, in order:
M. Graham
Qor
Da Vinci
I really like the honey based watercolors and I even add *more* honey to them so they’re even more wet and the colors separate a little bit better after they’re down on the paper. I have a small half pan of honey in all my travel kits, in fact. Certainly, that’s not for everyone. I can use M. Graham paints in a very controlled fashion as well surreal and more loose. My newest love affair with one of the Fletcher palette (download the Fletcher book here) known as Y-B-RV. In fact, I limit myself to just three colors:
Ultramarine Blue
Naphthol Red (particularly staining, btw)
Azo Yellow
In addition to the honey, I also have a small amount of these two to work with just to make the color intensity move up and down easier (mostly, I go down in value):
Lamp Black
Titanium White Opaque
I like to follow a pseudo glazing technique akin to the methods used by the old masters in their Oil Paintings. So, my colors go down on the paper in a very wet manner with very little pigmentation for each layer and I build it up slowly. Sometimes, I even add clear gesso so I can capture the light from the side of the painting and make it seem to breathe.
PS: I’m blogging along with Effy Wild in April. If you’d like to join the facebook group to read the rules, go here:
For some odd reason, I never thought of adding more honey!
And I’m a Qor girl myself
QoR are my favourite. Daniel Smiths are nice, but they don’t seem as vibrant as the QoRs. Thanks for the video link! xo
I love all the paints lol….I have a lot of DS and Winsor and newton. My mom loves Sennelier which are a honey based paints and lovely…but not great if you make pans from tubes as they are so soft…..couldn’t take them out and about. I love trying new paints, a friend has sent me some QoR as a dot card for me to try.