Swatching Holbein Watercolors: My First Impressions
In this post, I’m sharing my first impressions of Holbein Artists’ Watercolor by swatching all the colors in this 18 color set.
To preface this post, I am certainly no expert on watercolor paints. In fact, for someone who watercolors and writes a blog about watercolor, you would probably be surprised at the amount of supplies I own (not many, relatively).
And if you know me, you’ll know it’s because I try very hard not to accumulate too many different supplies. That being said, I’ve been gifted different paints over the time I’ve been painting and that is where I have been able to test different brands and manufacturers.
So, while there are likely more experienced supply enthusiasts out there, I am here to offer my personal impressions of these watercolors based on what I look for in paints that make them enjoyable to paint with!
What this review will not include
This review is not going to be technical. Like I mentioned, I am not an expert at paints and pigments. In fact, I prefer not to get into too much of the technical data behind the supplies I use.
Why? Well, I prefer to just paint! I don’t want to spend a lot of time looking up things like:
What binder was used to make this paint (Honey? Gum arabic?)
Where was this made?
Exactly what pigment was used to make this color from that brand versus another color from this other brand?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s important! And I look up the gist of it in order to understand that I’m getting a quality product. Or I just rely on recommendations from other artists that I trust.
But I’m not going to spend time typing out technical details of all the paints in this review. That’s not what I’m about, and perhaps you don’t really care either!
In any case, you can look up that stuff on the manufacturer’s website anyways.
Why Am I Swatching Holbein Watercolors?
So why Holbein Watercolors? Like I mentioned above, I don’t seek out purchasing new supplies very often. But this post is actually sponsored by MisterArt.com, an online arts and crafts supply store!
I selected Holbein Watercolors because I wanted to test them and share my impressions with you. Other reviews have been helpful for me when I’ve looked into supplies and thought it would be fun to share my own review for a popular brand among watercolor artists!
All the supplies used in this post (unless noted otherwise) have been provided by MisterArt.com. And make sure not to miss a really special offer they have put together for my readers at the end of this post!
Supplies Used
Below are the supplies I used for swatching in this post (affiliate links):
Arches Coldpress Watercolor Paper 140lb/300 gsm - cut into 2”x2” swatch cards
Pilot Envelope Address Writing Gel Pen - Extra Fine (my own)
Please note that I am no longer selling my swatch stamp at the moment. Apologies for the inconvenience. The best way to keep in touch and find out if I decide to take orders again for Swatch Stamps is to click here and sign up for my newsletter.
My First Impressions of Holbein Watercolors
Prepping the paints
This set of 18 Holbein Artists’ Watercolors comes in tubes, which means they need to be squeezed out in order to be used.
The 18-well Fusion palette by Mijello Mission fits all 18 colors perfectly, so the first thing I did was squeeze all the paints out into each well. One of the reasons I love tube watercolors is that I can choose how I want to use the paints:
Freshly squeezed out of the tube
Squeezed out and let dry in a palette so I can easily use it each time I paint (just need to re-wet them with a few drops of water)
I also love that I can choose how much to squeeze out each time. That means I can put some of it in a palette and save some in the tube to use fresh.
What I look for in watercolor paints
If you are new to swatching paints, you might want to check out this blog post about my swatch cards, how I make them and what they tell you about your paints.
When I’m painting with watercolors, below are the qualities I look for. (And as a reminder, these are not industry specific technical terms - they are just personal to me!):
Pigmentation: How pigmented are the paints? Do I get a nice rich color?
Smoothness: How does the paint feel when painting, is it smooth and creamy?
Rewetting: Is it easy to rehydrate from a dry state? Or do I have to “work” at it?
Depth of Color: Do the colors have dimension or are they flat? Are any colors granulating? (Not sure what granulation is? Read this!)
What I think about Holbein Artists’ Watercolors
Based on the qualities I look for in paints, here are my first impressions of Holbein Watercolors.
Pigmentation
Beautifully pigmented
Deep colors
Easy to get a saturated wash
Smoothness
Paints really smooth and creamy
Paints are not grainy
Looks smooth when dried
Rewetting
Very easy to rehydrate
Didn’t need to let the water sit on paint to “soften”
Could pick up color right away
Depth of Color
While colors are saturated, they appear mostly flat
No colors in this set appear to be granulating
Not a lot of depth/interest in the colors (not necessarily bad, just personal preference)
In summary, I can tell that these Holbein Watercolors are great quality and will be enjoyable to paint with. The only thing that I personally like in my paints that I didn’t see during swatching is more depth in the colors.
If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know I mainly use Daniel Smith paints - and the reason is that I feel like their colors have beautiful dimension and depth all around.
However, that being said, Holbein colors are bright and clean and will no doubt produce beautiful watercolor paintings. I will definitely need to spend some time painting with these!
If you’d like to watch the swatching and review process, check out the video below:
I hope that you enjoyed reading about my impressions of Holbein Artists’ Watercolors! And thank you to MisterArt.com for sponsoring this post!
As always, thank you for reading,
Susan
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