The best watercolour paints allow you to create washes of transparent colour that can be layered to create depth and complexity. The unpredictable way the pigments interact with water can lead to surprising and beautiful effects, helping you to produce unique and evocative art, so they’re worth trying even if it’s not your normal painting media.
To compile this list, we’ve been road-testing as many liquid and solid pan watercolour paints as we could get our hands on. We’ve got hands-on with a range of products to assess them in terms of how well they work, how easy they are to apply, the range of colours on offer and overall value for money. In our list below we’ve included paints that will suit beginners, pros and everyone in between.
The best watercolour paints
Best overall
+ Intense colour
+ Stays wet
+ Good value
– 15ml tubes
Using blackberry honey as part of its binder, these smooth, viscous paints remain sticky, keeping the paint vivid, but less suitable for reuse. They lift easily, with intense colours that go a long way in washes. The tubes won’t dry out easily and offer good value.
Best pans
+ Reactivates easily
+ Bright colours
+ Good value
– Stays sticky
These honey-based paints have rich, high-pigment colours and great consistency. Pans mix, perform, and reactivate exceptionally well, though they take a while to dry, and may remain tacky in humid climates. They are good value for professional quality paints and an excellent choice for portable sketching.
Colour range
+ Excellent quality
+ Colour range
+ Granulating textures
– Expensive
These extra fine watercolours are vibrant, artist-quality paints, with an immense range of 261 colours including exclusives, Primatek minerals, and a number of luminescent colours. They tend to be more granulating, depending on the pigment, but will still lift easily from paper.
Best consistency
+ High quality
+ Consistent behaviour
+ Non-toxic options
– Expensive
These reliable, versatile, artist-quality paints behave consistently with minimal variation between colours, making them good for beginners. Colours are intense and rich, with good-quality pigments and non-toxic alternatives. The paint stays wet and readily reactivates, making it convenient for pan and palette users.
Best sketching
+ Great value
+ Large pans
+ Consistent and smooth
– UnconventionalĀ
These affordable paints include a good range of bright, easily activated colours with a smooth texture. They are more opaque than standard watercolours, developing a slight gloss when layered, and once on paper, they don’t move much. They lay evenly on dry paper, making them great for sketching and colouring illustrations.
Best portability
+ Portable
+ Pocket-sized
+ Includes brush pen
– Weak colours
– Low-quality pigments
This student-quality, pocket-sized watercolour set is great for portable painting and even has a waterbrush. It’s well-designed, with a partitioned mixing tray on the lid. Colours behave predictably and mix well, but aren’t very intense, containing ‘hue’ imitations of some pricier pigments.