This entry was originally posted on Tuesday, January 24, 2012.
If you really want to know the properties of your paint, each manufacturer posts that information on their website. Makes life so much easier having that information right in front of you.
My favorite brands are Winsor & Newton and Daniel Smith.
Winsor & Newton is consistently the best brand out there. It is well known for their watercolors and I like how clean their colors are. I don’t feel like they are too heavy or chalky with pigment or filler.
Just look for your color then the T/O on the chart.
T = transparent
O = opaque
The chart can be found by clicking Winsor & Newton Watercolors
My other favorite brand is Daniel Smith. Their colors are so rich and creamy right out of the tube. Plus they have the coolest names for their paint. Wouldn’t that be a great job? They are like the OPI of watercolor.
The quinacridones are especially wonderful to work with.
Their chart is actually a color wheel. If you click on a color, it tells you not only its properties but what other colors it goes well with. Very helpful.
*Update:
Daniel Smith no longer has the color wheel that is mentioned above. However, they have another color wheel that can be found here.
They also have some helpful color charts that explain the properties of all their wonderful colors.
These charts can be found here.