Holbein Artists’ Watercolour and Gouache – review by Nienke Vletter

Japanese brand Holbein is known for its materials VOL pigment: gorgeous pencils, beautiful watercolours and lovely gouache. I already knew the pencils and their Acryla Gouache, for this blog I tested Holbein Artist’s Watercolour and Artist’s Gouache.

For this blog I used;

I was allowed to pick my own materials – this is my choice!

HOLBEIN | IRODORI ARTISTS’ GOUACHE – 12-set Summer

The ARTISTS’ GOUACHE also has standard colours, but I opted for the traditional Japanese IRODORI colours.

This set of summer colours in 15ml tubes caught my eye:

○ 803 Hiiro / Scarlet ○ 813 Kouji / Orange yellow ○ 822 Nanohana / Canola yellow ○ 831 Taisha / Taisha brown ○ 843 Wakaba / Spring green ○ 845 Tokiwamidori / Evergreen ○ 846 Aotake / Bamboo green ○ 867 Gunjou / Ultramarine ○ 864 Asagi / Oriental blue ○ 873 Edomurasaki / Edo violet ○ 884 Sumi / Black ○ 885 Gofun / White

TIP: There are also three other sets: Spring, Autumn & Winter, each with colours matching the respective season.

HOLBEIN | HWC ARTISTS’ WATERCOLOR™ watercolours – 24-set Botanical Art

The colours in this set are selected for floral motifs, in 5ml tubes:

○ 010 Crimson lake ○ 011 Carmine ○ 007 Pyrrole red ○ 013 Opera ○ 019 Vermilion hue ○ 043 Cadmium yellow deep ○ 040 Cadmium yellow lemon ○ 050 Imidazolone yellow ○ 034 Yellow ochre ○ 066 Permanent green #1 ○ 062 Hookers green ○ 075 Sap green ○ 092 Cerulean blue ○ 090 Cobalt blue ○ 093 Ultramarine light ○ 097 Prussian blue ○ 115 Permanent violet ○ 110 Cobalt violet light ○ 175 Luminous bright violet ○ 120 Quinacridone violet ○ 134 Burnt sienna ○ 133 Burnt umber ○ 139 VanDyke brown ○ 156 Payne’s grey

And furthermore, I chose paper and brushes.

GERSTAECKER | CENTENAIRE water colour paper

Professional water colour paper (300 g/m²) made of 100% cotton, traditionally produced on the round screen. There are two variants – fine-grained and coarse-grained. I tried them both – needless to say!

I LOVE ART | Watercolour brush ○ round ○ synthetic hair – size 3 & size 8

Step 1: Always swatch
My first step when testing new materials? Swatching! In other words, making a list of all the colours in the set (I also made a mini-course on this).

Why this is so useful? First of all: it’s an approachable way to get to know your materials. How pigmented is the colour, how transparent or opaque are they, how much water do I need for an even result, etc.? Plus: you immediately see what the colour does on paper. Often the colour is slightly different from the one on the packaging, especially after drying. So, it is a nice reference when you start painting.

Step 2: Playing!

You only really get to know a material by working with it. Do you fall into the trap of being very careful with your beautiful materials and therefore do not use them? I often hear this from my students. The best advice for this? It is a waste not to use materials! They are made for playing and experimenting with. So that is exactly what I started doing.

The difference between watercolour and gouache

Both watercolour and gouache have similarities and differences. Both can be mixed with water and – even after drying – can be reactivated. So don’t throw away your palette, save it for next time!

The biggest difference? Water colour is transparent, which is why you always work from light to dark. Gouache is thicker, dries matt and is particularly opaque, especially if you use it with little water. You can also use gouache without water, but personally I like to always add a little water, as this gives the paint a much finer flow and less “pull”.

Because gouache is opaque, you can also put light colours on a dark underlay. My main tip for gouache? Work in layers from thin to thick in terms of consistency. This prevents you from reactivating the underlayer and thus “smearing” layers together.

MY FIRST IMPRESSION

It’s full of pigment!

What is striking about both the gouache and watercolour is how much pigment Holbein’s materials contain. This ensures that you get very bright and intense colours, even when mixing colours.

I started with a size 8 brush, because – due to the fine tip – it allows you to work both larger and detailed.

For details, I grabbed the smaller size 3 brush and worked wet-on-dry and dry-on-dry.

TIP! These synthetic brushes from I LOVE ART were new to me, but I found them surprisingly nice to work with. Especially also because of their inexpensive pricing, I highly recommend them.

When swatching the colours, I only needed a small tip of my brush to get a colourful result on paper. Which is nice, because the high intensity of pigments puts Holbein in the higher price segment. But with this, you really get artist-quality paint that also has a degree of lightfastness. In other words: the colours will not fade as quickly as with student or hobby quality materials

Incidentally, Holbein has also recently launched granulating watercolours, which I am also very curious about! This is watercolour that gives beautiful shades of colour due to a mix of different pigments.

Getting started – Gouache

For the gouache version, I worked on Centenaire paper with “grain fin”. I started with a mid-tone, mixing white with colour. And again: I only needed a small amount of pigment to arrive at a good colour already.

I initially worked with more water, for a thin undercoat. I also put some various shades next to and mixed together (ultramarine, oriental blue and a small dot of scarlet red) to create subtle variations between a purple-blue and green-blue. Gouache, by the way, still changes colour when drying. Light colours become darker and vice versa, so don’t correct too quickly. Give the paint time to dry up before putting on another layer.

After the base coat dried, I added depth by juxtaposing both dark and light shades with a more opaque layer. Finally, I added the final details with gouache and very little water, so you really get the full colour and consistency on paper.

MY CONCLUSION

Both results have their own charm! The spontaneity of watercolour gives such beautiful unexpected results, but those opaque layers of gouache are also really beautiful. I’m curious which one appeals to you the most.

I might have been biased because I was already a fan of the Holbein materials. But the watercolour and gouache again confirmed what I already knew. These are just wonderful artist’s quality materials full of colour. It is therefore really enjoyable to work with them!

ABOUT NIENKE

From her historic studio in Utrecht, Nienke creates portraits and illustrations that she shares almost daily on Instagram. With her extensive knowledge, she translates materials to paper and shares that knowledge in workshops, videos, social media content and blogs. Her mission? To contribute to a colourful and diverse world, where everyone rediscovers how nice and important creativity is. After all, it’s all about fun and practice, not about talent!

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Instagram: @nienkevletter
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Website: www.nienkevletter.com
© 2025 – text: Nienke Vletter & editors Gerstaecker NL | © 2025 – image: Nienke Vletter, HOLBEIN & editors Gerstaecker NL and GreatArt