Schmincke Horadam vs Winsor&Newton, what's the best professional brand? Watch this video and decide for yourself, or maybe you already have your mind made up, in which case, please leave me a comment letting me know. And, of course, enjoy! Sandy

I bought the 24 of Winsor and Newton as my first expensive professional brand of watercolor. I love them for their reliability. I like the control i have with them. I am trying to be more expressive in my art but I still usually find myself using watercolor in a much more controlled way. My next expensive purchase was Sennelier, which I liked but didn’t love. They glazed and layered well but just werent for the style I usually use. Daniel Smith was my next 24 and I love them, they’re so much fun. I recently bought the 24 pan Schmincke and am in love. It’s just controllable enough and expressive with the Onetz or liquid ox gall. I had used their Akademie 24 palette and I loved those as well. Their Akademie paints are 10x better than most brands professional range. I still find myself reaching for the Akademie palette A LOT. It’s excellent quality and their color choices are good… but not burnt Sienna which I use every time. But their quality is incredible. Their Akademie is still more expensive than most brand’s, and La Petite Sennelier and Cotman are really not good. So if anyone is looking for a decently priced palette and doesn’t want to jump into professional prices, Schmincke’s Akademie is excellent. I love them both as well and I find they have their uses. I think I more freely use W&N and the Schmincke Akademie soley because I don’t have that feeling that they are too expensive or too precious to use. I save my Horadam and Daniel Smith for when I am feeling very very fancy and am ready to concentrate and get down to business. For practices, studies and sketches I can’t bring myself to use them which is the only downside. I don’t get to practice with them very much. My other favorite brand is Holbein. I know they’re have a lot of paints that aren’t single pigment and a lot of people think less of them for them and they’re known more for their opacity and control versus their clarity. But those are qualities I prefer in watercolor. It’s all dependent on the artists and their needs. But I think the only professional brand I ever tried and didn’t like at all was Lukas. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these brands. I am looking to try QOR and Roman Szmal. Have you tried them? Do you like them?

Just for your information (and definitely not a dig) Winsor and Newton has been in existence since 1832, which pre-dates the reign of Queen Victoria who ascended the throne in 1837. Enjoying your comparisons - best wishes from 🇬🇧

I usually just remove that flap before packing the case. 😊 edited to add: thank you for this comparison as I’m trying to decide which one to invest in next. Also your wallpaper (behind you) is so beautiful!

Hi, Sandy! *I love that cat!!!* How long did it take to draw that beautiful mosaic cat? The end result was great! For the comparison, I think, as Swede Potato has said, all brands vary in one point or another, and none is a perfect fit for every painting, that we do. So picking up on both his comment and your reply about not using the brushes, paints and paper we plan to use for our 'proper' paintings is counter-productive to truly intuitive work. Unless we practice with them, and get to know them thoroughly, they will constantly trip us up in what we call our 'proper' paintings, because we'll have learned how brands M, N, & O work, mix, blend, lift, etc, but they aren't the same as our 'proper' brand, even when the pigment or name colour matches exactly! (Eg Payne's Grey, Burnt Sienna, Prussian Blue, Qin Magenta, Sap Green, to name just a few!!!!) I think that this showed up in your swatching. You're used to Schmincke, and those, and Winsor and Newton are two very different paints, just as Sennelier, Holbein, Qor, etc are each one different. The swatches: The W&N Cadmium-free red is a very heavy pigment and opaque, hence the apparently weird behaviour you noted when compared with the others. When blending, it's best to not to play about with it. Again, it's down to water : paint ratio. With the wet-in-wet, you added a second lot of blobs to the Schmincke, because you didn't have enough paint on your brush. and this is why you got confused. If you want to see the mass tone, then the graduation, put your mass tone down on dry paper, then wet the rest of your swatch before adding the paint. Take a look at how Miranda Watson (Alkali Creek) does her swatches. It's worth it. Even this old-timer learned from her technique. 😄 We never stop learning, and I always want to know more!!! In all cases, it's best to check what is on our brushes on a piece of scrap paper - even when swatching (especially when swatching) - to make sure that we have enough pigment / water and that the colour we've mixed is right, because every pigment, every brand will behave differently. I hope there's something here that was helpful. *None of it is a negative criticism,* simply my observations as a 'looker-on' who is also an art tutor. I'll just add a quote from Brian T Meyer on Wet Canvas: _"To me Winsor Newton is unique because it’s priority seems to being practical, and a lot of it’s colors are rather old too, so there is a lot of tradition being maintained, especially with how they’ve replaced a lot of the colors as pigments being phased out. They also have a rather large selection, often with more than one version of a pigment, and I suspect they are trying to cater to everyone. But even those who don’t like them overall, tend to have a few colors which they love from this brand._ _Other brands seem to have a lot more focus on a given style of palette._ _At the end of the day pigment is pigment, try them, get to know them and the various versions, don’t get caught up in thinking it has to be just like so or it’s no good. Rather give yourself time to understand what those differences can do for you. I remember hating WN venetian red for example, now I combine it with da vinci naples yellow deep and get the most wonderful skin tones._ _If you dislike a pigment/paint, that just means you don’t yet know how to use it yet. I suspect the true artist hidden in all of us secretly loves every paint, even the ugliest ones, we just don’t like admitting it."_ 🤗

I've googled vegan watercolour brands and Oto Kana has a very reliable list. This is the part which deals with vegan brands - there is more information on non-vegan and 'unclear' if you check out her database. *Vegan Brands* *Daniel Smith* (except for Payne’s Grey, Joseph Z’s Neutral Grey, Sepia, & Ivory) *Grumbacher Academy* except for: Cerulean Blue Hue (contains PBk9) Davy’s Grey (contains PBk9) Hooker’s Green Light Hue (contains PBk9) Ivory Black (contains PBk9) *Holbein* (except for Ivory Black) *Ken Bromley* except for: Transluscent Grey, Payne’s Grey blue shade, Payne’s Grey Dark, Warm Sepia Lamp Black *Lukas* 1862 *Old Holland* except for: Scheveningen Warm Grey, Indigo Extra, Payne’s Grey Sepia Extra Warm Sepia Extra Ivory black *QoR* (except for Ivory Black) *Rembrandt* (except for Ivory Black & Lamp Black) _Note on Lamp Black - lot of sources quote this color as non-vegan, even though it is made with PBk6 - carbon black. PBk6 pigment is vegan so I can only assume they add something else that isn’t vegan that they don’t add to their other colors. It could also be a mistake, as most sources quote Lamp Black as not vegan but fail to list Ivory Black (which is PBk9 and definitely not vegan)._ *ShinHan PWC* (except for Ivory Black) *Utrecht* (except for Ivory Black and Payne’s Grey) *White Nights* - there are mix info about whether it contains honey on secondary websites and zero info on their website. I finally got confirmation that all their colors are vegan. ** (except for Ivory, Raw Umber & Viridian Hue)

I think Holbein are vegan! Or at least they explictly mention that they don’t use certain animal ingredients in their products

Please give me my time back=]]]]]