Among these gorgeous Primatek colors, two stood out as so bright and clear that Daniel Smith included them in the ten-color Color Map set. Garnet, amethyst, tiger's eye, bloodstone, lapis lazuli (the original Ultramarine) and other gemstones wind up in the watercolor range with surprising and beautiful results. These are pure natural mineral pigments chosen for their lightfastness and often ground from semiprecious stones. One of the Daniel Smith specialty lines is their Primatek colors.

It might take a long time understanding how each of those colors performs though!

You can get the full range in a 'Grand Voyage' set for $1,433 if you treat watercolors the way some of us do colored pencils or pastels and love having everything there is. Daniel Smith also has a number of proprietary colors, some mixtures and others single pigment colors in their immense range of 239 colors. They're as rich and wonderful as Winsor & Newton Artists' Watercolours. Being able to use fewer single pigment colors and make the paint last longer because it's stronger makes these artist grade paints very cost effective. They aren't the most expensive or the cheapest, but they're artist grade at artist grade prices. For price comparisons, look at tubes of similar size. The prices look steep at first, but not compared to the quantity of paint you get in 15ml tubes.

They come in big generous 15ml tubes, there is no trial size like the 5ml tubes of Winsor & Newton Artist's watercolours. I haven't tried their oils and acrylics, but I got hooked on their watercolors several years ago. Available only in tubes, you can only get them at, which also carries proprietary oil and acrylic artist grade paints. Daniel Smith watercolors are strongly pigmented, easily soluble and easily reactivated artist grade watercolors.

Daniel smith watercolors chart