Brand Overview: Holbein

Brand Overview is a series where multiple authors give their opinions on a brand. Thus far, we have covered Schmincke Horadam, Daniel Smith, and Winsor & Newton.

Holbein is a Japanese paint manufacturer which introduced their professional watercolor line in the 1920‘s. They offer 108 colors in their standard range. They also carry special watercolor ranges: the granulating range with granulating and separating colors, the nightfall range with a dark granulation, the luminous range with neon colors, and the chromashine range with iridescent colors. Holbein’s watercolors don’t contain ox gall or other dispersing agents, which explains why they don’t spread as far in wet washes. They are quite affordable in many parts of the world and are very inexpensive in Japan itself. 

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Our hot takes and favorite colors

Sandra

Holbein is a watercolor manufacturer that I discovered somewhat late in my watercolor journey. Their quality convinced me right away. I can get Holbein colors for around half the price of Schmincke colors. This alone is an argument to use them more. Their low dispersity makes them really easy to control and fun to paint with. Unlike many European or US brands they offer many cute pastel colors, which are basically colors that are mixed with white. But it has something really satisfying to paint with soft and opaque colors. Lately I bought some of their new granulating colors. They really came up with some fun and unique separating shades that other manufacturers didn’t think of. Sadly, some of them are not lightfast.

My favorites:

• Lavender (PB29, PV15, PW6) is a lovely violet leaning opaque blue. I love to use it for dusty skies and carry it for that purpose in my plein air palette. It can also be used to mix sage / dull greens. Needless to say that it also mixes soft purples with different kinds of red or pink. [Buy Lavender]
• Opera (Quinacridone Opera) (BV10, PR122) is a beautiful bright pink that I love for using it by itself but also for mixing. It’s honestly one of the best mixing colors that makes the most gorgeous oranges, reds and violets. I would use it all the time if it was lightfast. But it has its component BV10 that will fade. Luckily it has a lightfast component, PR122. But with the fading of BV10 it will lose its vibrancy. I am testing its lightfastness in my own lightfastness tests. I’ll see in the future how it holds up. [Buy Opera]
• Bourke‘s Parrot Pink (PY159, BV10, PR122) is one of the granulating colors. The vibrant pink mixed with the yellow granulation is really fun to look at. I love to use this color on its own for vibrant flowers.
• Twilight Purple (PV47, PR233, PO13) is a muted granulating purple that’s just right up my alley. I honestly love this color a lot. But it has a not so lightfast component: PO13. And because of that I didn’t buy it but made myself a lightfast mix by mixing tube colors in a pan. I substituted PO13 with PO73. I don’t mix a lot with this color, but I love to use it on its own. 

Colors to avoid: 

• I haven’t truly tested colors that I don’t like. I have some dots and can say that some of their earth colors are really low tinting but other than that I can’t say anything bad about them.

Logan

Holbein is one of my favorite brands. They are bright and strong. They have a very consistently pleasant brushfeel, which is important to me; I have never encountered a Holbein paint that is sticky or hard; they’re always Goldilocks-perfect, easy to rewet, great from the tube and great when dried in your own pans. I find that Holbein paints disperse a bit less than other brands I use, which can lead to less dramatic effects, but can make water control easier.

I find Holbein is a solid and dependable brand for most standard pigments, and the specific hue of each of their colors is often a pleasant one. They’re well-known for their mixes and pastels, but even opting for single pigments I usually do, I often find that they are my preferred brand.

Favorite paints:

• Pyrrole Rubin (PR264) is my hands-down favorite version of this pigment. Other brands can tend toward being brickish or plain, but Holbein’s version is just a gorgeous deep rich velvety crimson. [Buy Pyrrole Rubin]
• Quinacridone Magenta (PR122) is a wonderfully strong purple mixer. [Buy Quin Magenta]
• Imidazolone Lemon (PY175) is a bold, very cool lemon yellow that I love for spring mixes. I find Holbein stronger than most other brands of this pigment. [Buy Imidazolone Lemon]

I avoid:

• Burnt Sienna (PBr7) – I weirdly had one that faded in my lightfast tests even though it’s supposed to be a lightfast pigment. 
• Gamboge Nova (PY154, PY150, PY110), for some reason the tube I tried was very smelly.
• Check pigment numbers; some use non-lightfast pigments, such as PR83 and PY83. 

Felicia 

This is the watercolor brand I have used since February 2025 and my very first professional/artist grade watercolor paints after 7 years of using a student grade watercolor set from Sakura Koi. They shine the brightest when it comes to their convenience mixes, like their gorgeous Granulating Set and cheerful Pastel Set. I am not a botanical or landscape artist, so my opinions about this brand are mostly from the point of view of an illustrator who paints with a lot of modern color and/or convenient mixes.

Color selection wise, they have a lot of convenience mixes. They do have options for single pigment paints as well; some are very rich in color pay-off and gorgeous. I think the reason for this is because Holbein watercolors are more curated towards illustrators, especially those who work in anime style and love designer colors like I do. However, I have seen people use them for botanical and landscape paintings. In those cases, even these paints do the job well! 

One of my personal dislikes about this brand is their lack of special pigments like PR233, PV15, PO73, single pigments Raw Sienna, single pigments Raw Umber, etc. I wished they could make those single pigments in their own tubes/pans, rather than putting them in their convenient mixes and call it a day. 

Picking my own top 5 colors from Holbein was very hard for me, especially because I love a lot of colors from their lineup. A lot of elimination processes happened here, and after a long contemplation as well as thoughts, we have my top 5 colors. 

Here are my favorites and why I love them: 

• Scarlet Lake (PR254, PO73, PV19). A gorgeous scarlet red mix that reminds me of red roses and ashoka flowers. I love using this for shading skin or as a base color for red eyes. Over the past few months, I found myself reaching out to this color instead of Vermillion Hue or Pyrrole Red for my warm red. [Buy Scarlet Lake]
• Isoindolinone Yellow Deep (PY110). This is probably one of the few yellow colors from Holbein that I am in love with. It’s a cheerful color that shows as vivid orange when painted thickly in masstone, but shows more yellow when diluted. Great for painting spicebushes, gingko leaves, and sunflowers. This color also pairs beautifully with blues, adding a bright contrast when paired with blues like Phthalo Blue (PB15) and Ultramarine Deep (PB29). [Buy Isoindolinone Yellow Deep]
• Viridian Hue (PG7). AKA Phthalo Green Blue Shade, this is a bright, intense emerald green color that stole my heart from when I first swatched it. If I could have only one green in my palette, this is what I would choose. A very versatile color with intense and strong staining power that can be used on its own, or mixed with other colors to create beautiful darks. I love using this green color to create a dark purple black that reminds me of Daniel Smith’s Moonglow (minus the intense granulation).  [Buy Viridian Hue]
• Verditer Blue (PB28, PW6). A pastel mix! This periwinkle color is basically Cobalt Blue mixed with Titanium White, but I really love it! When diluted, it can be used as a shading color for white clothes or white hair, but it can also be used thickly like gouache to add a dash of bright color on top of a finished painting. [Buy Verditer Blue]
• Shoebill Blue Grey (PB71, PB29, PBk11). A granulating blue grey color that beautifully captured the essence of Shoebill Stork’s blue grey feathers. Layered on top of Verditer Blue, this combination of colors is gorgeous for giving depth to the darker parts of white clothes or white hair, without shifting the tone to be too blue or too purple. It adds beautiful texture and interest to the otherwise boring white color. 

As for the colors I would avoid, here is my answer:

• Raw Sienna and Raw Umber (PY42, PBr7). In general, Holbein doesn’t have the most beautiful earth tones; they rewet nicely, but nothing stands out much. The selection of earth tones are your standard earth tones selections; some are outright boring and uninspiring even though the consistency is nice. If you want earth tones that are more suited to your taste and/or single pigment earth tones, look elsewhere.
• Luminous colors (Bright Violet, Bright Rose, Luminous set). They’re made with fluorescent dyes and by nature, they’re fugitive. From my experience with Holbein’s Opera, these kinds of paints dried pretty hard and are rather stubborn to reactivate, so try to not use your nicest brushes with them. If you’re not a fan of unnaturally bright colors, steer clear of the Luminous sets and tubes.

Hanna

Jumping on the bandwagon here: this is one of my favourite brands, too! I might even say that they are my default brand: I love how they travel (I have used them in all sorts of climates), they have very good versions of many basic colours, and they are cheap-ish almost everywhere I go (in many Asian countries, but also in Germany!)

I would not want them as my only brand, however, because their colour selection is a bit limited (they are missing some of my favourite pigments, like PY129), and because they are a bit boring in their lack of crazy granulation or dispersion. (They do disperse, just relatively slowly and  politely. And they do have a few granulating colours – but again, rather polite ones.)

They are not entirely lacking excitement, however: they have recently come out with a large set of separating colours, which I have reviewed, and which contains some fun and original gems. (It is definitely not a dupe of other brands’ specialty mixes!)

My favourite colours:

• Sap Green (PG7, PY150, PR122): I do not usually carry basic pre-mixed greens, but when I do, this is my favourite, because I love the vibrant hue, and because I like how polite it is. When I am mixing foliage on the page I do not want things to get too wild and mess with my values. [Buy Sap Green]
• Cobalt Violet Light (PY47): The best version of this pigment (and the whole cobalt violet family) I have ever tried and the only one that does not make me rip my hair out because of its weakness. I use it either on its own/backed up by a stronger pink to paint clouds of textured flowers, or as an ingredient in interesting greyish mixes. (Note: it is not as weak as its cousins, but it is still weak-tinting and runs out FAST!) [Buy Cobalt Violet Light]
• Bourke’s Parrot Pink (PY159, PR122, the dye BV10): The one potentially-fugitive paint I have bought a tube of by choice, (And it is not THAT bad: a six month test conducted during a Polish summer showed no changes.) I tend to just dupe the commercial mixes I like, but I could not recreate this one as I do not own the dye and find the PY159 I won (Winsor Newton) frustrating. I also dislike the PY159 mixes Schmincke sells, for the same reason, but this one works like a dream!

I also like their versions of many of the basic non-earths, like PY175, PY154, both PB15s, both PG7s, and PR254… It is a great brand for non-earth staples. However, I find their earths rather meh, possibly with the exception of the bright Ochre. (Special anti-shoutout to their Burnt Sienna, which seems oddly lacking in lightfastness.) And I do not like the PB60 or PBk31, which both seem extra dull to me

Do you have opinions on watercolor brands? We are searching two additional people for their opinions on Da Vinci paints.

Do you have other brands you want to give an opinion about that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know in the comments below or contact Sandra on Instagram. Roman Szmal and Rosa Gallery are already planned and will be posted in the next weeks.