The Best Watercolors I've Found - Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolor Pan Set (24 half pans)

12/28/2018

I've been painting a lot of watercolors recently and have been using a wide range of paints. I've tried Jack Richeson Watercolor Sets, Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors, among others. I always found that the watercolors felt too opaque even when I did light washes of color. I knew something was just wrong with the way the paint was handling. I thought it was my own way of using the paint, but then I discovered Winsor & Newton's Professional Watercolor Pan Sets.
  I had read that John Singer Sargent used Winsor & Newton pan watercolors, which prompted me to buy myself a set of half pan professional watercolors for Christmas. One of my first watercolor sets was a really small W&N set of 8 or so colors way back when I was an early teenager, but most of my watercolors lately have been painted using a Jack Richeson pan set.
  The beauty of the W&N pan set is that the colors are light and transparent. They have a certain airy quality to them that I haven't found in other companies. The colors are very rich, even after they dry; I've noticed some other watercolors dry with a very chalky look to them.
  Of course, with any art supply, it won't automatically make you a master painter. But it does really help to find materials that work for you. I want to emphasis that last part by saying that you should test out a bunch of different paints because you might not like this set, but you'll only find that out by painting.