Holbein Artist Watercolour Review

 Hello and welcome back to my blog, today l am blogging about the "New Refined Holbein Artist Watercolours". I am in no way sponsored to write this review and l purchase my own art materials. I am not a professional reviewer and this review is based on my own personal opinions. l hope this product critique will inspire you to try new watercolours.
l have decided to experiment and try 3 different brands. I researched a few different watercolour manufactures and choose 3 that offered different price points, but all had great reviews.    Holbein is the first brand that l am reviewing.
While l was researching the Holbein brand, I found out that it was established in Osaka Japan since the 1900’. Holbein is a Japanese manufacturer described as offering high quality artist paints.  You can find sets of this brand on Ebay or Amazon for a reasonable price, but l was not patient enough to order them online and wait for there arrival, so while on a road trip, l was able to purchase the 24 set of 5ml tubes at Wallack' Art Supplies in Ottawa for $119.  Individual tubes are also available to purchase. The staff at Wallack's were so helpful and friendly, l will for sure be going back, click on the link below for the Wallack's website.

Click here for Wallack'S website

 These paints easily glide out of the tube, so be careful not to squeeze the tube to hard. They are moist and easy to mix with water and achieve the right amount of paint to water ratio.  I would recommend depending on the painting you are doing to use dollops of paint at a time. If you squeezed out to much paint you just need to keep the paint dry and closed off to ensure you can reuse them again as they are activated with a drop of water easily.  I also purchased a Mijello palette that can be closed off to keep the paints dry.  If you have left over paint on your palette try to smooth them out when drying so that you don’t have clumps of solid paint, as l think it’s hard on your brushes.  I would recommend flattening out the paint making it easier to reactive.
The 24 Holbein watercolour set that l purchased in the 5ml tubes came with the following colours Crimson Lake, Rose Madder, Vermillion Hue, Juane Brillant No 2, Permanent Yellow Lemon, Permanent Yellow Deep, Yellow Ochre, Yellow Grey, Cobalt Green, Permanent Green No 1, Permanent Green No 2, Terre Verte, Viridian Hue, Compose Blue, Cobalt Hue, Ultramarine Deep, Prussian Blue, Cerulean Blue, Mineral Violet, Light Red, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Ivory Black, and Chinese White.  I found them to be very highly pigmented, hence a little goes a long way. They were smooth, they had consistency on the flat washes and the texture of the paper wasn’t as obvious.  They are vibrant and intense in colour, which l was in awe off, eye candy for sure . Of course they are lighter when dry, but l found the colours pop in the work that l have done thus far.  I also found the Holbein colour chart, (link below) and according to the permanency rating, l found most of the colours indicated "absolutely permanent" or "permanent", out of a huge colour selection offered only a few were "moderately durable". Now l did find it a bit odd that the wording used was "permanency rating" and not "light- fastness", although after reading some other reviews they are regarded as a high quality brand.
These are not the most affordable watercolours out there, but if you are looking for what l believe is an professional artist-grade  material then l definitely recommend the Holbein brand.  I would suggest purchasing them on line to gain a better price point.

 Stay tuned as l will be reviewing two more watercolour sets. The Mijello Gold Class Watercolor set of 7ml tubes and the ShinHan Professional Artist Grade Watercolor 30 paint set of 7.5ml tubes. I am curious to see how they all compare.
In my opinion, if you are looking for a first rate, top quality product then get yourself a set of the Holbein watercolours, you will not be disappointed.

Do you have a watercolour brand that you favor? If so l would love to hear from you.
Have a beautiful day.
Alice Melo