Swatch Comparison of Popular Watercolor Brands

Today I thought I'd talk a little on watercolors. I have the three leading brands (and prismacolor watercolor pencils) and I wanted to make a swatch to show why I do or don't like certain watercolors. Following the picture will be a breakdown of the brands and pros and cons.

1. Sakura Koi Pocket Field Sketch Box 

It's clear that I adore these watercolors. I use them on EVERYTHING. I also love to use them in my Bible because of the beautiful, bright, colors and the fact that it takes very little water to work with them. I can do some bold colors in my Bible with no bleed without prepping. 

As you can see the colors are very bright and still transparent over the writing. I find this very important in my Bible Journaling because when I paint over the whole page I still want the Word to be mostly visible. I know I sort of seem to push them on everyone but they really are the best for Bible Journaling. The price in stores can be intimidating but with the 40% off coupon or an amazon prime membership you can get it for $20 or under! 

Pros: Bright, vibrant color. Highly pigmented so you don't need as much water if you want to dilute it and layer the color a bit better. Very easy to work with diluted with water in the palette or straight from the blocks! Mostly transparent, more so than other brands. Professional grade. Seems more like an ink than a paint. Works well on the thin pages of the Bible without prep and just a bit of shadowing. Less likely to bleed and won't rub off on the opposite page. Most likely to have staying power if you plan to pass down your Bible as a keepsake. Blends well. Less likely to clog up a Micron Pen.

Cons: Price? In reality $20.00 isn't bad for a pan of professional grade watercolors. Even tube color is much more expensive. I don't really see this as a con, personally, but if you're on a budget could be a deciding factor.

2. Master's Touch Pan Watercolors (Hobby Lobby Budget Brand)   

These are second on my list because they're actually OK. If you can't spend the money on the Sakura Koi these work for only about $6 for the 12 color set at Hobby Lobby. The colors are vibrant but can be hard to blend and layer, eventually just becoming muddy. They also have a horrid smell. I don't like how they are opaque when used full strength and even after diluting with water in a palette. I'm hesitant to use these in my Bible because of the opacity issues. These were my first pan watercolors so they work well for beginners. I don't recommend using a Micron pen over these as they may clog the pen nib.

Pros: Bright, Vibrant colors. Not too bad if you're on a budget and definitely my choice for cheap watercolors. They don't seem to bleed if you don't have time to prep or choose not to prep. Pretty inexpensive at 6 bucks and with 12 colors you can blend the basics to make more colors.

Cons: They don't blend well. At all. Even with water on a palette. They don't layer well and it takes several layers to get the color you want. They dry pretty opaque. Did I mention they don't blend well?

3/4. Artist's Loft Pan Watercolors (Michael's Budget Brand)

Let me start off by saying... just don't. Don't buy these. Go to Hobby Lobby and get Master's Touch. I absolutely hate these. They don't blend well, they're CHALKY no matter how much you work them with water in a palette. The colors are DULL after layering. They don't work well for anything but FLAT color. It's good these come in so many colors because really, you can't blend them on paper. Even worse I think they actually ARE chalk or at least pastels. After drying they brush off on your fingers just like chalk. I doubt they have any staying power at all. Not good for a keepsake Bible and I don't recommend these for beginners because you're not going to learn how to work watercolors. These just don't work. 

They're available at Michael's for only $5.00 for 36 colors so remember that you get what you pay for. These are the most popular brand that almost everyone is using and you're really losing out. Please don't buy these....

Pros: Cheap.. super cheap. Colors are bright on their own. Lots of colors in the pan for the price. 

Cons: Chalky! They work like chalk. They brush off on your fingers and will likely do the same on the opposite page. They're super opaque when dry. They don't dilute well and stay chalky. They become muddy when mixed on the paper and quite dull. They don't blend. You absolutely CANNOT use microns ontop of these. They will destroy your pens. Pitt Pens are safe to use over them. 

EDIT: After speaking to other Bible Journalists that use this brand they find that theirs do not have the same effect and even dry transparent. It seems that this product is a hit and miss. I do want to caution there are others who have the same problem with it being chalky so buy at your own risk. The good thing is that, even if you end up with a bad batch, you're not out a bunch of cash since you can use the weekly 40% off coupon to purchase them in store for next to nothing.

Sample of Artist's Loft watercolors that actually work by Stacy Fidler in Journaling Bible Community.

5. Prismacolor Watercolor Pencils

Ok this really should be in my watercolor pencil comparison but as these are all I have right now I'm adding it so that you can see the difference. Watercolor pencils don't work as well for large paintings or larger areas because they dilute so easy and work so much differently from watercolors. I prefer them for details. I'm not as much of a fan of the prismacolor brand because they still seem waxy and hard to apply to the paper. I had to press pretty hard to get alot of pigment and it washed out pretty easily. They didn't seem to absorb as much into the paper and sat on top. It's important to remember they don't work just like colored pencils. Available in store but also best price on Amazon for $18 if you have prime.

Pros: They're great for details and the colors come out very bright and vibrant. They're portable and very easy to use in a pinch. Less likely to clog your Microns. 

Cons: They're not watercolors, they're still pencils and you lose alot of the look you can get with regular watercolors. They're alot more transparent and it's harder to layer up color. They won't last as long as pan watercolors will. 

In closing I say that if you can't afford the Sakura Koi go for the Master's Touch watercolor pan set. They come in a larger pack as well but they work more like professional grade watercolors and are better to learn with until you can spring for the Koi. 

I hope that this was informative and helpful and that we all remember the reason we journal. It doesn't matter what you use in the end as long as you're doing it to draw closer to the Lord. God Bless and we'll see you next time!

Palm Sunday Sakura Koi Watercolor Cakes VS Artist Loft Watercolor Cakes

I've seen alot of people asking questions about watercolors. What's the best watercolor to use? Why is my watercolor chalky and opaque? Why aren't my watercolors vibrant? What's the difference between what I have and the more expensive brands? Well I'm here to answer those questions. In this blog I'll be posting a comparison between the Sakura Koi 24 portable watercolor cake palette and the Artist Loft brand watercolors from Michael's. Note that the Artist Loft brand is comparable to most of the cheaper brands you'll find in kits and most art stores and comes in similar packaging. 

For my image I first made a sketch and then went over the lines in Sakura Pigma Microns Sepia 01 and 05 and the brush pen. These are waterproof inks that will not smear if you let them dry (do NOT go over your watercolors after to make lines more visible unless you have high quality watercolors! It will clog and ruin the pens over time). 

For the right side of the image I used this 36 set of Artist Loft watercolors available in Michael's for around $5.00. 

On the left I used the Sakura Koi portable watercolors in a 24 set. This set is available in Hobby Lobby for almost $40.00 but you'll get a better deal on Amazon at $20 for the pack.

With the Artist Loft Watercolors on the right the colors look vibrant in the pan and it comes with a brush (mostly unusable... really..... maybe for like a wash or something....). I do love the amount of colors you get with this palette, especially the pinks. Note that when you use watercolors you're not supposed to use them directly from the pan. You're to wet a brush and work the pigment and mix into water on a palette (I used the lid for these watercolors because they already had a nice area that covered each watercolor... which I like). To achieve different hues of a color that isn't available in the palette you lift the pigment onto your brush and mix into some water that had another pigment to make the color you need. Watercolor is intended to be, well, water. It should never be a thick consistency. You want it more like an ink than a paint. I liked how easily the pigment lifted from the pan and mixed into the water. It didn't take much to achieve the consistency I wanted. I noticed as I mixed that it had a more grainy texture than what I'm used to with my finer watercolors. 

When it came to actually painting with them I noticed the texture remained chalky and felt almost like a plaster. I was constantly reloading the brush because the pigment thinned so quickly that I couldn't paint for long with one dip. The paint dried very quickly and became more opaque as I tried to layer. I was worried that it wouldn't blend well because of how quickly it dried and if it would lift to blend when I applied more color. The biggest problem was that it didn't layer well at all. Instead of absorbing and being able to create shade as I added more of the same pigment, what I had laid before lifted easily from the paper when it was reactivated with water. Instead I took to using different hues in hopes of adding shading but the colors quickly muddied on the page They also were not near as vibrant as they were in the pan. It was VERY difficult to achieve the same vibrancy and shading that I did with the other watercolors. I used the same techniques. Ontop of the blending issues I found that as I layered more product the chalkiness of it made the paint more opaque, covering the lines that I'd laid down. Watercolor is not meant to do this. It should maintain transparency as you paint and you should never have to layer that much pigment to get the vibrant, bold colors that you're looking for.

With the Sakura Koi watercolors on the left it took an extremely small amount of the pigment in a very small amount of water to get the color I wanted. It has a nice pink and purple that can be mixed with the other colors in the palette to get the different hues. The colors blend very well and very easily together on the palette that's provided. It also comes with a waterbrush but I'm not overly fond of the bristles, They're to stiff and perhaps too thick. I may use them for detail work since it keeps a nice tip but it doesn't have much give. I've found that the Pentel Aquash waterbrush is my favorite as the synthetic bristles mimic a real brush much more closely. and are VERY soft. I also like that you can dry it out a bit with just a paper towel and use the dry brush method to lift color, the other waterbrush doesn't do this as well. You can tell by looking at the palette that the texture is very smooth. More like dried watercolor paint or inks. I can also paint quite a few branches with just ONE load of the brush. The paint was well absorbed into the paper and stayed wet long enough for me to work with other colors or more of the same to blend easily into eachother. I only had to layer very little to get the look I wanted. I used the same techniques on the left as I did on the right. The lineart also shows through just as crisp and bold as when I first laid them with the watercolors remaining transparent though still very vibrant and lovely. 

I also performed a test to see how the paints absorbed into the paper, how far I could paint with one dip of the brush (both times the brush was equally saturated, perhaps with the Artist Loft brand even more saturated on the brush), and how easily it lifted from the paper. The Artist loft is found on the left with the pigment not going very far with one load. The pigment also clearly did not absorb into the paper much at all as seen by my attempts to lift it. It didn't lift so much as spread and move around atop the paper. The Sakura koi on the right went very far with one dip.... i probably could have painted a bit more as there was still a good deal of pigment left on the brush as I cleaned it. You can see it absorbed very well into the paper, staining it. It was easy to lift but as it stains the paper there will always be a good bit left.

In my final thoughts the artist loft brand is NOT a good choice for Bible journaling at all. My biggest concern is that it will not stand the test of time. If you're looking to use your Bible as a keepsake I would avoid the cheaper brands of watercolors at all cost. 

It's worth it to spend a little extra for better watercolors. Take a break from the washi tape and save that money for a better product. You will be much happier with your results. God Bless and happy Journaling!

Welcome!

Welcome to DrawByFaith.com. I’m Martha and I’m a professional artist of 10+ years. I’m a preacher’s kid and love the Bible and how I’ve seen God work through His Word to touch others and teach. My first book was a King James Version Bible. I’m happily married going on 9 years now and have two beautiful little girls age 6 and 3. Shortly after my first child was born work moved us to Florida and away from everything I’d ever known.

We were able to buy our own home three years ago after having my second and we were able to have my mother, who has several chronic illnesses and disabilities, come live with us. Earlier this year I had been going through a tough time with stress from my own sickness and that of my mother and had been feeling very overwhelmed. I had seen a few posts here and there about Bible Journaling but didn’t really know much about it. I had a conversation with my mother in law about how I felt overwhelmed and the next morning she saw one of the Bible Journalists that had gone viral on facebook and knew immediately that God was leading her to purchase a starter kit for me.

That afternoon I dropped my children off with her so that I could go spend some time with my husband and, with tear filled eyes, she handed me a gift bag. I opened it to find my first Journaling Bible and a kit with Gelly Roll pens, a nice ruler, and three Sakura Micron pens (which she would have never known was actually my pen of choice). Thus my journey into Bible Journaling started. Over the past few months I’ve mooned over all the beautiful art in all of the groups and made only a few contributions of my own.

Almost daily I see questions asked about the difference between certain products and which work best for what. I thought that it would be nice to have all of this information in one place and preform side by side comparisons and test pages in another Bible so that people can make informed decisions and choose what would work best for them on their budget. I’m a stay at home mom so I don’t have alot of cash flow to buy the more expensive products and will splurge maybe once every other month on something nice.

This blog will be updated as tests are requested or questions are asked. Please don’t hesitate to donate to keep this page going. I look forward to the journey we will share together through Bible Journaling. God bless!