Warm Blue – French Ultramarine: PB29 (Transparent & single pigment). This hue also counts as a blue-violet, almost purple color. The pigment used for French Ultramarine is quite granular but it’s also a very stable, single pigment, warm blue. The choice of brand seems to be quite a personal choice. I prefer Daniel Smith. They produce beautiful vibrant colors, lay down smoothly and re-wet easily in my palette. You can read more about what I consider good watercolor brands here…

Quinacridone Coral: PR209 (Single pigment, transparent). This is a brightly saturated red and mixes beautifully with yellows and greens to produce a wide range of earthy browns. It has a chromatic appearance somewhere between a warm and cool red. Lightfastness is a rating of how much a particular paint will fade or discolor over time when exposed to light. Watercolor paints are rated using the ASTM scale (American Standard Test Measure) which ranges from “excellent” to “very poor”. Granularity Ok… Great! So that just gives you one more choice to make! But let me make life simple for you – choose tubes!Warm Yellow – Hansa Yellow Deep: PY65 (Semi-transparent / single pigment). This pigment gives a beautifully warm, vibrant, and pure yellow appearance. It only undergoes a very slight color shift as it dries, keeping most of its color saturation. Makes fantastic oranges when mixed with warm reds.

I have tried several brands of watercolors for my sketches and watercolor painting, but I have not tried M. Graham yet. However I have heard some of painter friends recommending and talking about their experience with M. Graham. And if you are also new to M. Graham like me, and do not wish to spend a fortune buying too many paints and then regretting later, the basic 5-color set is highly recommended. This is exactly the same reason I bought the basic set to test before I commit myself to getting the rest of the colors. Even if you are new to watercolor but want a fairly good watercolor paints to start with, M Graham might be the brand you may want to try out, as it has a long standing reputation of producing high quality artist paints.

About Me

I don’t think you should select your watercolors without knowing a little bit about what you’re buying first. And that means you need to understand a few basics about the characteristics of watercolor paint.