I found the best (affordable) watercolor paints

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Do you now those times, when you attention shifts to a new art medium, and you start to obsessively research every available brand? I fell into this ~~waterhole~~ rabbit hole with watercolors. Roughly a month ago I was rejected from the Museum of Women (by the way, last week they changed their opinion, and I am in… hope they do not change back 🙏) and I picked up sketching in a tiny book to distract myself from this misery. I wanted to explore new paint mediums and wanted to work without the pressure to finish my normal bigger art projects. Just some lovely dabbling in color and lines.

I mostly sketch with fine liner and if I want to colorize the sketch, I use alcoholic markers… And I am really satisfied with this, but… remember I have these frequent migraines and painting with alcoholic markers is smelly. And this is an euphemism in my view… they stink.

Design ohne Titel(136).jpg pencil, fine liner, alcoholic marker and acrylic marker - tried to sketch myself, you can see how well it worked 😱

Last week during a headache period I gave up. I could not stand the smell any longer and I unburied my pencils and my watercolor palette. The post could end here if I were not so obsessed with art supplies. While looking at my tiny watercolor kit (I prefer tiny, as its portable) which I inherited from my father and complemented with some pans of my own choice. This kit is surely over twenty years old and as I seldom use watercolor, I relied on the brand my father bought… it’s the German brand Schmicke Horadam. In my view the colors are perfect: bright, translucent, all paints have the pigments listed, you can get them granulating or not etc. But there is a huge „but“: The colors are soooooooo expensive!

Kopie von Kopie von old neckline(12).jpg my old watercolors, fineliner and alcoholic marker

And then it started, my obsession. I started to research watercolors. And wow has the scene grown. When I was in school (the time I got the colors from my father) there were near to no international paint brands in shops near me. You could buy Schmincke, Lukas (both German), Winsor and Newton (UK) and Van Gogh (Netherlands). But today… there are so many more brands from the US, from China and Korea and India. There is watercolor paint on sheets, in tubes, there are watercolor pencils and naturally watercolor pans.

My want to sketch completely forgotten I went out to hunt for good but affordable paints while glimpsing to Japanese brands like Kuretake but knowing that they are also much too expensive.
I started my research with the wonderful blog art gear which I highly recommend. You can find extensive and very reliable tests of paint, paper, of pencil sharpeners and much more on this blog. A real treasure and a lure to buy art supply you neither need nor want to pay for, so beware. After reading pages and pages of reviews I change to YouTube. I watched – shame on me – for hours how paint is applied on paper and every watercolor brand of the world is discussed in detail.
I spare you my process of „oh, I need to buy this… oh no, I now I need this…“ which changed with nearly every video and come to my results, because I bought something :-DDDD

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My biggest find is Miya (or Himi) watercolor. A palette with unorthodox formed rhomboid pans in a clear plastic box which comes with a pencil and a brush. Close candidates were MeiLiang Excellent and Viviva.
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Why the Himi palette you ask (I hope you are asking this :-DDDD)? Because it is allegedly the same formula/paint as Winsor and Newton. Near the end of my crazy YouTube session I found this video and she convinced me. A video where watercolors are grouped after their characteristics. The combination of Prime days and this YouTubers research brought me to the brand Himi. I bought the palette of 36 colors for 12 € and you can see some of the sketches made with this watercolour throughout this blogpost. I love them. They are not Schmincke colors (where a ½ pan costs 4,50 €) but they are good. The colors are vibrant and translucent only the ochre is opaque. Not a hint of chalkiness.

There is written "How shall we get mor snow?

The Himi website promises that the paints are lightfast and non-poisonous, but yeah… websites are patient (this is a modified German proverb which goes like „paper is patient“ meaning you can write a lot unchecked things). But as I do not plan to lick the paint or dissolve it in my coffee, I should be good. Lightfasteness is also not an issue as I use them in a sketchbook which I can close :-D

Soooooo, after this long monologue about myself falling into the trap of consumerism, I am super interested which brand of color (or paper or brushes) you love to use!!! Please bombard me with paint brands <3

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From 1.7.2022 to 31.7.2022 you can buy my Basquy NFT's on opensea (not expensive and unique - go fo it 😇) The project is curated by Artespace gallery und you can find all of my ten artworks here. Buyers get free entry to Venice Biennale 2022.

Read more about my art und upcoming exhibitions on neumannsalva or buy some of my digital artworks on NFT showroom or Opensea.io

Last but not least: if my post coaxed a smile on your face you could support me with ~~cocain~~ coffee on Ko-fi

And you are so good in encouraging 💕 (because if I am honest I do not have a real clue about watercolour, I also mostly paint with acrylics or digital)
I love to see your paints!!! And I even know one brand: Amsterdam. Funnily I also have a black paint (or even two blacks) from them. Oh and Winston and newton… I know them too, but they are a tad too expensive over here (but the colors are amazing in my view).
I never had the idea to use nail polish, but I can imagine that it leads to interesting effects because its shiny. For me the smell is too strong to use it for painting 🤢 But I am very fortunate to have this Netherlands shop besides me which has über-cheap art supply and some of their paints are really good not professional but good, like their acrylic paint. Their watercolour though is like chalk (its this Shop it‘s not the same as the one I get my cheap yarn from :-DDD That’s a different Netherlands shop called Zeeman :-D) Do you post about painting? (Shame on me if I did not notice!!!!)

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devyleona 2 years ago

Ahhh thought it would be too expensive here in my country @neumannsalva :'

$0.00

faeriestories 2 years ago

AAAAAAAA you are so good with the watercolors!!! I am in awe of your skill.

HURRAH on the reversal from the Museum of Women!!! That's great! Is that for a particular show, or a permanent display, or what? How exciting!

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Here is a representation of different brands of acrylics that I use. The bulk of my supply are the cheaper little plastic bottles that sometimes go on sale for a dollar apiece (in the long ago times, anyway, with inflation now I don't know, I haven't bought any in a while). As you can see, I paint with whatever, including old nail polish! It makes a nice shiny highlight. :) For texture, I have some Golden and Liquitex brands of matte gels.

neumannsalva 2 years ago

2 votes

I only have the one Winston and Newton; they are expensive here too so I probably had a good coupon to buy it or something, ha ha. Sometimes the craft store will have like, "40% off one item" or something and that's when I might splurge on a fancy paint or a fancy brush. :)
I honestly don't think I've posted about painting before (it would have been on main if I did, but I don't think I have?). I haven't painted in a while but I did pull out a canvas and put it on my easel because I was like I'M GOING TO PAINT NOW and then I took a nap, lol. So it's still sitting there, reminding me that I need to paint. :)