Brand Overview: Maimeri Blu

Maimeri Blu watercolors are produced in Italy. The company, founded in 1923, began making watercolor in the 1990s and followed with reformulations and updates to the line. In 2018 the reformulation and catalog transitioned to consist solely of 90 single pigment colors. Maimeri’s website states they are made with pure pigment using gum arabic as a binder, with no other additives.  They are known for being easily resettable and highly transparent. Maimeri Blu can be purchased in individual 12ml tubes and 1.5ml half pans and various sets from Blick, Jackson’s, Artemiranda, and Amazon, as well as independent art supply dealers in some areas.

Our hot takes and favorite colors

Lynne

I began painting with Maimeri Blu by picking up a color here and there when I ran out of something in another brand; probably the first time I have been successfully budget-minded when it came to wanting to try a new brand! I now have a completely functional palette, which I adore. The paints dry nicely without shrinkage and rewet easily. They are creamy and smooth…and dry super bright. Moreover, I have found some new “staple” palette combinations that I have never had as much success with in other brands. It’s a challenge to narrow my choices down to just a few favorites, but I will try.

My Favorites

• Faience Blue PB60 has been a total surprise for me. I purchased it to replace my Daniel Smith Indanthrone Blue, a color I’ve never really loved despite its many rave reviews. At first I was disappointed; Faience Blue is greener leaning, not the violet-blue I was used to, so I wasn’t sure what to do with it. However, as I began to frugally build a palette, I used it as my warm blue (partnered with cool Turquoise Green PB16) rather than make an additional purchase of my usual ultramarine. It is fantastic. It makes a beautiful range of greens with PY129 and PY97, violets with PR122, and fills in as a dark blue to replace Indigo. Paired with Burnt Umber I can make a spectrum of browns to near black. It’s a keeper – so much so that despite having added ultramarine in addition, I am finding I only rarely use it. Faience is very versatile!
• Burnt Umber PBr7 is another surprise. I have tried MANY over the years and always found them lacking, returning to a pairing of Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber instead. This burnt umber is at once warm and deep. It has lovely granulation, and mixes beautiful browns and greys as well as a nice raw sienna/yellow ochre hue with PY227. Definitely another keeper.
• Verzino Violet PR122 is the boldest PR122 I have come across. It gets very dark, and as a result, makes beautiful, rich reds, almost crimson, when mixed with scarlet. Add a little Dragon’s Blood (PBr25) or Burnt Umber for a deep brick red. No blue needed! It washes out to a lovely pink hue perfect for delicate flower petals. For the first time, I have PR122 in my palette without being wistful about having chosen it over PV19 Rose.
• Green Gold PY129 and Cobalt Turquoise PB28 come as a pair for me. Not because I use them together a great deal, though they do make a punchy bright green, but because they are each equally useful as mixers and beautiful alone. Green Gold is the sole green on my Maimeri Blu palette and is perfect for mixing greens with PB29, PB60 or PB16. This one does not get as gold as some others, which is a welcome attribute for bright foliage greens. Cobalt Turquoise is my partner with Faience or Ultramarine Deep Blue for skies, and beautiful soft grey browns with Burnt Umber or Dragon’s Blood. I couldn’t choose just one as my final favorite!

My Not-So Favorites

I can’t call these colors to avoid, but I found them much different than I expected,  and challenging to use. 

• Permanent Yellow Deep PY227 is listed as transparent, but is most definitely not. On a positive note, it has a creamy consistency and reminds me of a brighter Naples Yellow Deep. I will treat it that way as I continue to explore how best to use it. As noted above, it does contribute to a yellow ochre hue, which may be useful.
• Brown Madder (Alizarin) PR206 is disappointingly NOT a replacement for crimson. Winsor Newton made a fabulous Permanent Alizarin Crimson with PR206, and though the swatch did look browner, I thought it would work. I tried it as the warm red in my palette and was not happy with the oranges it made with PY97, nor could I get it to yield a crimson with PR122, even after trying various combinations with different blues. However, it may be a candidate for my earth orange slot, currently filled by Dragon’s Blood. So it’s on deck for further experimentation.
• Dragon’s Blood PBr25 is beautiful. And most decidedly NOT a typical earth orange/brown. It goes to violet much too quickly as compared to my usual choice of PR101. Lovely violets, but nonetheless, violet. Not brown, and not grey or near-black. I love the hue, but unless I can figure out how to expand its usefulness as a mixing component, it will be reserved for expanded palettes only.

Hanna

Maimeri Blu is the first pro brand I tested fully, by buying a used tube collection on ebay. I later supplemented this with a few extras (cheaply, as I was in Italy at the time!) and built a 25-colour palette that I used for about a year before branching out into many other brands. I liked a few of the colours so much that they are now part of my main multibrand travel palette. These include:

• Green Gold PY129: I love this pigment in general, and this is my favourite version for mixing foliage. It is particularly green-leaning and less aggressive than most versions of this pigment, which means that it is wonderful for on-paper mixing: it lets the blues and greens I drop into it spread out and diffuse softly.
• Potter’s Pink PR233: Many people call this the best Potter’s Pink because it is such a granulating and (relatively) strong version of this specialty colour. I agree, and love using this colour for various building textures, especially in Italy.
• Mineral Violet PV16: As with PR233, I find this a particularly strong and granulating version of the pigment. I also like that it is on the redder side of the PV16 spectrum, since there are several blueish-violet granulators, but reddish ones are rare.

I also agree with Lynne’s recommendation of the burnt umber. I think that the Maimeri Blu basic earths form a very balanced set of four, for people who like to use those classics. (The Burnt Siena has the classic shade that mixes neutral blacks with Ultramarine.)

On the whole, I find Maimeri Blu dispersive, but not crazily so, and medium in terms of staining. As Lynne mentioned, the brand dries and rewets nicely; in humid climates, it gets rather sticky but is one of the few brands that have never spilled out all over my palette. I have seen people complain that, when applied diluted, it can form bubbles, which pop as it dries and leave marks on the wash, butI have not particularly noticed this. I think that, on the whole, I find them very comparable to Schmincke.

My one issue with Maimeri Blu is batch inconsistency. I am not talking about the fact that their whole selection got a complete update in 2017, changing their formulations and their label design, and that the older tubes (with a hummingbird logo) are still available in many places. No, I have also found that two tubes with the same formulation can contain different pain. For example, one of our discord friends (V.) loved my PV16 sample, and tried to buy her own tube–but it took her several tries before she found one she liked as much as mine. And I myself own a tube Lynne’s fave Verzino Violet, but find it very weak; I have also tried a sample of PB28 and found it less gorgeous than hers.

Also, I do have a couple of definite Maimeri unfavourites: PB36 Cerulean Blue, which is the weirdest Cerulean I have ever used, being so finely-ground that it barely granulated and stains/backruns almost like a phthalo (Handprint noticed this too!) and PY175, which seems a little chalky and dull to me.

Anyway, in spite of these negatives, I do still like and respect the brand, and am happy using it. If I have moved away from it, it is mostly because they do not have the catalogue and granulation of Roman Szmal, or the humid-weather robustness of Winsor Newton, or the politeness of Holbein (which is useful when I do not want to worry about dispersion).

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