Best Watercolor Paints to Purchase for Watercolor Paint Alongs

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Buy watercolors that are labeled as artist or professional grade.

I’ve gathered many different watercolor paints over the last thirty years. You will hear artists strongly recommend different brands of watercolor. The characteristics of watercolor will vary from brand to brand, and you may find yourself feeling strongly towards one brand. I personally like Holbein and Daniel Smith.

For the first few lessons of this series, to help artists who are just starting out, I only use three paints that can mix a huge variety of colors:

Antwerp Blue

Permanent Rose

Aureolin Yellow

And if I were just starting out and could afford two more tubes of paint, I would add one of these blues and one of these browns listed below.

Indanthrone Blue (or Ultramarine Blue which is a very close color to Indanthrone Blue)

Quinacidrone Burnt Orange (or Burnt Sienna, which is a very close color to Quinacidrone Burnt Orange)

Here is my main palette, my go-to-palette, that I use for most of my watercolors. Some watercolors are similar in color even though their other characteristics are different. In these cases, I’ve separated the colors with a slash. The first pigment before the slash is the one I personally used more often. The following pigment is an entirely wonderful version of the color as well and in some cases is more readily available.  The starred pigments are just colors personally love and can be easily excluded.

Aureolin Yellow

*New Gamboge

Quinacidrone Gold / Yellow Ochre

Quinacidrone Burnt Orange/Burnt Sienna

Alizarin Crimson/Permanent Rose

*Opera Pink

Antwerp Blue

Manganese Blue Hue/Cerulean

Indanthrone Blue/Ultramarine Blue

Hooker Green

Sap Green

*Green Gold