Daniel Smith, Watercolour

Find out more about our Top 10 Best Selling Daniel Smith colours

The Daniel Smith Watercolour brand is regarded as the pinnacle of quality in the world of watercolour. Their watercolour tubes, sticks and accessories are made with the professional artist in mind. Find out more about the range and our best selling colours below!

Daniel Smith Watercolour tubes

Each Daniel Smith colour is formulated with one goal in mind; to bring watercolour artists the very best product available. With a vast number of colours to choose from, the range of artistic possibilities they present is virtually endless and unparalleled within the industry. Currently the range spans a selection of over 216 different colours, with more and more being added! These professional quality watercolours feature historical colours, rare pigments derived from rocks and minerals along with traditional favourites and the newest modern innovations.

Find out more about our Top 10 Best Selling Daniel Smith colours below!

The full range is available in 15ml tubes, with select colours also being available in smaller 5 ml tubes and half pans. Daniel Smith also recently introduced their range of Watercolour Sticks. Daniel Smith Watercolour Sticks use the same high quality artists’ pigments as their tubed watercolour paints, and provide vibrant colour in a convenient stick form. Easily portable, they are a great medium to use for plein air painting and can even be cut and placed in empty pans to use like traditional watercolour! Each stick is roughly equivalent to 3 whole pans of watercolour.

Daniel Smith Watercolour Sticks

Completely new to the range? Why not try the Daniel Smith 238 Try it Dot Cards! These cards offer a brilliant way to try almost all the colours in the Daniel Smith range without committing to a full tube. Just activate the paint dots with a wet brush and test each colour on your favourite watercolour paper.

French Ultramarine

French Ultramarine Tube

French Ultramarine painted out

French Ultramarine is a medium-to-dark warm, reddish-blue which is highly lightfast, has a medium tinting strength and shows beautiful granulation, especially on heavily textured papers. This brilliant blue is excellent for painting skies and can also be easily mixed to create fantastic greens, greys and purples. French Ultramarine is so versatile that you could make it the only blue on your palette. It can be used with Quinacridone Gold to make lovely, lifelike greens or with Quinacridone Burnt Orange to made a range of blue/brown grays. Mixing with crimsons and pinks will give a spectrum of purples; Quinacridone Rose or Quinacridone Pink are especially good examples. French Ultramarine also makes a great companion to Hookers and Sap Green.

Top: French Ultramarine + Hooker’s Green
Bottom: French Ultramarine + Sap Green
 French Ultramarine + Quinacridone Burnt Orange
French Ultramarine + Quinacridone Burnt Gold

Available in 5ml, 15ml and Watercolour Stick

Lavender

Lavender is one of the newer additions to the Daniel Smith range. Quite different to other blues, this colour has a beautiful, delicate periwinkle hue. It granulates fantastically and can be easily lifted. This semi-transparent colour would be a great addition to the palette of any botanical watercolourist. Its subtle hue also makes a great match for those looking to render a hint denim in watercolour portraits or scenes.

Available in 15ml, 5ml, Half Pan and watercolour stick.

Moonglow

Moonglow is made from a blend of three-pigments which interact beautifully with the addition of water. Drop onto wet paper and watch as anthraquinoid reds, ultramarine blues and viridian greens emerge from this deep violet paint. The wet mix can be dabbed and blotted to reveal subtle blue-greens. Salt can be sprinkled onto a damp mixture to create beautiful, spontaneous patterns. Moonglow is a great choice for rendering shadows and silhouettes, and its neutral tinting properties mean that it can be mixed with most other Daniel Smith colours to subtly modify them. Using this pigment with luminescent colours can create some great organic metallic patterns. It makes a great companion to Undersea Green.

Available in 5ml, 15ml, Half Pan and Watercolour Stick

Burnt Sienna

Burnt Sienna is an earth colour that is a staple on most watercolourists palettes. This transparent to semi-transparent earth colour is brilliant for painting landscapes. It will combine with other hues without diminishing intensity or transparency.

Available in 5ml, 15ml, Half Pan and Watercolour Stick

Cobalt Blue

Cobalt Blue is an excellent mixing pigment. As a non staining, semi-transparent primary blue it is a valuable contribution to most palettes. This blue can be easily lifted and will mix readily with other colours. It is also a good colour to use for glazing. Cobalt Blue has a much lower tinting-strength that French Ultramarine, so it is useful for subtly modifying other colours.

Available in 5ml, 15ml and Watercolour Stick

Ultramarine Blue

Cooler and bluer than its more saturated French Ultramarine cousin, Ultramarine Blue would be a welcome addition to most palettes. This blue can be used straight from the tube for vibrant colour. Try mixing it with a cool red for dark neutrals. It is equal to French Ultramarine in its permanence, transparency and lightfastness.

Available in 5ml, 15ml, Half Pan and Watercolour Stick

Aussie Red Gold

The colour of Aussie Red Gold is reminiscent of golden ochre cliffs lit by the sunset. Excellent for autumn landscapes this reddish gold will add a warm light to leaves, flowers and landscapes. This colour is transparent, non granulating and low staining. It will mix a range of lovely, realistic greens when used with blue pigments.

Available in 15ml and 5ml.

Cerulean Blue Chromium

Cerulean Blue Chromium is a highly permanent, low staining colour that is beautiful in its own right. It shows great granulation and settling patterns when used in washes. Dropping this colour into moist underpaintings can create beautiful ‘halo’ effects, as Cerulean is quite a dense pigment. Try dropping Cerulean Blue Chromium into a wet mix of Quinacridone Gold, Burnt Sienna or Quinacridone Burnt Orange to watch this effect. Mixing with Lunar Black, Buff Titanium or Undersea Green can also create some great effects. You can use Cerulean Blue Chromium to create natural, earthy greens and deep aubergines, which makes it an excellent mixer for any watercolourist that specialises in painting misty or dusky landscapes.

Available in 5ml, 15ml, Half Pan and Watercolour Stick

Neutral Tint

Neutral Tint is a versatile pigment that can be used to easily create glowing, dark values of any colour. This colour was specially formulated at the Daniel Smith lab to offer an easy way to make darkened tones without creating murky mixtures. Ideal for both seasoned professionals and beginners this hue is great for modifying other colours and will eliminate muddy colours; it is a quick fix to create clean mixes while retaining transparency.

Available in 5ml, 15ml and Watercolour Stick.

Buff Titanium

Used wet-on-wet Buff Titanium displays beautiful pigment displacement. It is a semi-transparent to opaque colour and is a good neutral to include on most palettes. Excellent for creating clouds, its hue resembles subtle sandy shades or the colour of an eggshell. This colour can be used in anything from landscapes to botanical art. Use it to create hints of antique lace, or mix with Quinacridone Rose or Perinone Orange to make subtle botanical hues. Watercolourists that focus on landscapes will find that it mixes particularly well with Indigo or Van Dyke Brown to create shadowy shades. Using this colour as a glaze over landscapes can create a misty, atmospheric mood.


Top: Buff Titanium and IndigoBottom: Buff Titanium and Van Dyke Brown

Top: Buff Titanium and Quinacridone Rose
Bottom: Buff titanium and Perinone Orange

Available in 5ml, 15ml, Half Pan and Watercolour Stick

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Tanith is a Fine Art Graduate with a passion for drawing and watercolour. Her love of art extends beyond her own practice, as she regularly delves into researching and testing new materials for the Bromleys blog. Through collaboration with suppliers, she gains the technical know-how to help troubleshoot artistic challenges, aiding fellow artists in refining their craft. While she specializes in watercolour, her articles span various topics, inspiring artists of every skill level to explore the world of art.
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2 thoughts on “Find out more about our Top 10 Best Selling Daniel Smith colours

  1. do not forget Imperil Purple, such a brilliant colour. This colour is so useful, giving depth to darks but retaining a warmth. I just love so many of the the Daniel Smith colours.

  2. This site has so mesmerized me that dinner is now a Burnt Sienna crisp, and will be discarded. Nothing in
    my world is as fascinating as a layout of ALL the Daniel Smith colors, and I could live happily for days on end with just the Dots selections! I’m about to place an order with Cheap Joe’s, and wish I was more content with mixing to obtain great greens — but I get HAPPY laying out all my green tubes and starting new sheets of sample colors (which I label in my best calligraphy). Love Daniel Smith and all it affords my watercolor talents.
    And now for another attempt at dinner…..

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