Bought these for my wife who wanted to get back into painting after many years, and hadn’t done any watercolor since she was a teenager. She loves this set for it’s versatility and color range. Most of the colors can be completely opaque when not diluted very much. Therefore, as watercolors are usually dilute, this will last a while. She uses a tiny spritz bottle of water to activate the pan she wants to paint with, adding a bit of paint to a ceramic “cherry blossom” shaped palette. With these she can save mixed colors in the palette between painting sessions. They dry to store and she just sprays again to “reactivate”. So much better than acrylic since they aren’t ruined if they dry up, and in fact, are stored dry. (Also, these paints got onto the kitchen table and easily cleaned off with a bit of bleach water and a sponge. No stress.) The only other supplies needed are watercolor brushes, watercolor paper, water and masking tape,and paper towels. So much joy and beauty can come from these paints. They have a plastic ‘bubble’ cover that fits the pans snugly to protect the paints from making a mess on the inside of the lid during storage to keep dust out of the paint pans. Very happy we chose this palette.

Pro tip: lay double sided tape along each row. When you travel with them, they won't all come out in your bag... This is my favorite hack. JetPens should do a YouTube on equipment hacks like this.

Anwyays, yeah, I love the Kuretake watercolors, been using them for 10 years exclusively.

I LOVE this palette! It makes me so happy. The pigments are rich! And the paints have really great "lift" --if you want them to-- which works well with my sketchy style of watercolour painting & the medium weight Arches that I used. I found that there were many blues and greens and a few reds that I normally wouldn't select for my personal style, but I already rearranged the palette to suit my preferences ((which you can do thanks to the design of the individual pans)). I am so glad that I bought the full set though. I have not used watercolors in years, and I am really enjoying re-learning how to use these beautifully made paints. I recommend you try some.

This 48 color set by Kuretake is really wonderful! The paint is vibrant and juicy!

I like them alot, it is true what people say however, they are more of a gauche-watercolour hybrid. My only complaint is that after a few hours of use the paint seems to become a little unworkable creating a coating on my brush that feels like a gum. Once more, this gummy layer has to be worked off and you have to start your pigment buildup again, because it doesn't dissolve without completely soaking your brush and ruining your balance.

Such an opaque blend would actually in my opinion, benefit from a white tray and when I purchased this I thought there was one. There isn't. The two that look white are pearl and silver.

Still lovely vibrant colours, just a little sticky for my liking. I would recommend these and still use them, just not as a beginner set. Try something more traditional first just incase you need to use another paint for a project, because if you train on these switching will be difficult due to the habits you will create dealing with the gummy paint.