Watercolors are not just for little kids. Many great pieces of art have been created with watercolor paints. Of course, these paints are not the ones you would find with the markers and crayons at your local grocery store. Watercolor paints are very easy to work with and can create truly beautiful art, if you have the right brand of paints. As with everything, some brands are better than others. Some of the best brands of watercolor paints (which can be purchased at most craft stores) are:
M. Graham Watercolors
These watercolor paints are actually made with honey. That may seem a bit surprising, but they honey helps keep the paint from drying up in the tube and out of the tube. It also makes them very easy to work with. Each of the colors have their own unique formula that makes the color look the way it does. The best thing about this brand of watercolor paints is that M. Graham has a gouache line with the exact same colors, so you can combine the two in your artwork. Each paint ranges in cost from $6-$11.
Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors
This brand of watercolor paints has more color than you can imagine. There are more than 200 different paint colors, and they are still finding new ones. Any color that you might need, they have it. One of the bonuses of this line, is that you can buy these paints individually, so if you run out of one particular color, you don’t have to go buy a whole new set. The paint prices vary from $5-$20 each. They are also sold in sets, all of different sizes and different color families, which cost anywhere from $20-$80.
This is family owned company that has been passed down over four generations. The Schmincke Horadam Aquarell company is proud of its reputation for using only the best products in their watercolor paints. They have 110 different paint colors to choose from, and these paints come in tubes or in pans. You can buy watercolor paints individually, the prices range from $9-$20. You can also buy sets, which cost anywhere from $100-$220.
Winsor and Newton Artists’ Watercolors
This line of watercolors is a big favorite among professional artists. Winsor and Newton take pride in having some of the purest and most reliable watercolor paints on the market today. Also they offer tubes of different sizes, which is something that many other companies do not do. The prices of the paints vary because of size and color, but can cost as low as $5 to as high as $25. They also offer watercolor sets that cost as low as $45.
Daler Rowney Artists Watercolors
You can be sure that you will get your money’s worth when buying from Daler Rowney Artists. The watercolor paints are tested and compared to old samples to ensure that the color is exactly the same. They are also guaranteed to retain their color under extreme heat or cold. For individual tubes, they have only two different prices, $7.42 and $11.93, depending on the color.
