HolbeinArtist's Watercolors Set of 18 5ml Tubes W403

These are lovely watercolors, very pigmented & a great set & value, especially for those switching from student to artist grade. Definitely planning to pan them, but they dissolve beautifully & can be transparent or opaque easily. They rewet wonderfully as well, even though I have not panned them yet, they reactivate with ease on my palette. Haven't ran into any granular issues either, though I've heard Holbein is one of the top watercolors for this since the pigments are extremely finely ground. It does come with a shade that appears to be skin tone-like, though I personally don't care for it because it looks like it's mixed with white & can be slightly muddy in my opinion, so I mix my own skin tones, but I've heard others like the shade, that's my only real 'dislike' with this set, though I would use the shade for things other than skin tone, so I'm not sure it exactly qualifies as a true dislike!

I have had this watercolor set for about a little over a month. Other watercolor products I have include Sakura Koi (travel pan set of 24 colors), Kuretake Gansai Tambi (36 color pan set) as well as budget brands, Jerry Q Art 18 (pan) color watercolor set as well as Reeves (tube).Thus far, I would have to say that Holbein's been my favorite out of all of them although I do really love the Kuretake set as well. I do squeeze out watercolor from the tube and let dry before use since that is more convenient for me, having seen some videos that led me to believe that Holbein paints would not crumble and would rewet nicely. I am a watercolor hobbyist, and make no claims to any artistic skills. I have taken no art classes but I do enjoy experimenting with different media and in fact. I am learning techniques from online videos, websites and books.The colors rewet very easily, either from adding a drop of water per pan, or just picking up color with a wet brush. The colors are vibrant and mixes well to get either soft, subtle and translucent effects or bright and vivid colors.

To be honest, I bought these Holbeins to color my coloring books. A bit too extravagant for coloring books? Maybe, but I've tried cheap and mid-grade watercolors as well, and now that I've seen what these watercolors can do, I'm ruined for anything else.This is my first artist grade watercolors. The moment I laid down my first color on paper to test it out, I was in love. An instant fan. I regretted not getting a bigger set so that I could have a bigger sample size. There are 108 colors, and I'd love to add more choices to my palette, but it can be pretty overwhelming and I've only seen 15ml tubes sold. Naturally, those cost more. I wish I could return these and buy a bigger set, but since I've already used them I'll have to keep these and buy the bigger sets later.My only complaint is that the box came already torn and ruined. It's easy enough to slip the plastic covering off the box and slip it back on, so I assume someone else already owned mine as my set was sold through a third party and fulfilled by Amazon. But shipping came fast and the quality of the Holbein stands for itself, so I can't ding the product over something like that.

Holbein makes great watercolor paint.Unfortunately, this particular set is just not inspiring.If you can, maybe try choosing your own colors instead.Holbein paint is vegan except for ivory black and colors that contain that pigment (PBk9).This set does contain a tube of ivory black though, so the set is not vegan.The other 17 colors are vegan though.The set also contains a (titanium) white (PW6).And some odd mixes.It does not contain any of the colors that are known as Holbein's "specialties" or signature colors. (For instance, there's no bright rose or shell pink or manganese blue nova or etc.) Only 8 of the 18 are single pigment colors. Those 8 include the black, the white, threee earth tones, a prussian blue, a phthalo green ("viridian hue"), and what appears ro be the non lightfast but beloved alizarin crimson (PR83) ("rose madder") - or some version of that pigment anyway.Some paint brands are masterful at creating mixed pigment colors that layer and mix as well as any single pigment (Sennelier, for instance) but i have never heard that said of Holbein.Overall, the set is not bad, but it definitely will not give you a real taste of the best of the brand.You may even wind up thinking you don't really like Holbein. (I did, at first)But again Holbein makes great watercolors.They just didn't make a great intro set.

These are a great deal for the price. I prefer to use tube paints when I watercolor and I needed to get new tube paints but I didn't want to spend a fortune so I thought I would give these a chance to get me started. These are very rich colors and they layer well which is how I typically work with watercolors. I would recommend these for anyone thinking about taking up watercolor along with the martin mile airtight watercolor 18 well palette and some good quality watercolor paper. It is more expensive than picking up a student watercolor set but you will be much happier with the results and will not be fight your paints as you begin.

No, this is poorly put together, most colors are not useful. There are better reds, blues and yellows. Most would not be on an instructor's list.