Dr. Ph. Martin's Hydrus Fine Art Watercolor (Set 2) Watercolor Set, 0.5 oz, Set 2 Colors, 1 Set of 12 Bottles

Shake before using. Apply to a pan or drop a small amount directly on the painting. Vibrant colors. Versatile. Didn’t expect to like. I love them. Highly recommend

I purchased these several months ago but waited until have used them for a few months to write a review. I use 140 lb cold press paper and mostly round sable brushes. I really liked them from day one but now just love them. I put a few drops on a porcelain tray and mixing is so easy. I use a limited palette, heavy on the primaries. The intensity of colors is so flexible—from the lightest transparent wash to intensely opaque. They are permanent once dry so layering is so easy with no bleeding. They are also lovely using wet-in-wet. I use mixed media and they do well with acrylics, ink, and Ink powders.

I want to state specifically at the beginning that I ordered this on Amazon but made sure the seller was the Dr. Ph Martin store, as I, too, was worried about the quality of the watercolors, the consistency of them, and receiving the right colors in the pack (I saw people were getting duplicate colors and missing one, chunky product, etc.) I contacted the seller prior and they explained what was going on, and that if I had any issues with them that I could contact them and they would take care of it with free replacements that would be checked prior to shipment for quality. Hard to find service like that these days, so I went ahead and placed my order. I received my order today (December 24th, 2020) of the Hydrus Set 2 and everything appears to be as it should. It was double-wrapped in bubble wrap. I have all the right colors and no duplicates in my set. These were recommended to me by my friend, and I get frustrated using my cheap tube watercolors since I end up wasting more than I use. These have droppers and are liquid, so it is far easier to use just enough. Even though they are 0.5ml bottles I wholeheartedly expect them to last a long, long time. I will update my review soon with more details and some photos of examples. I just wanted to post my experience so far so the item would have a more recent review regarding what is received.

Fantastic watercolors! The colors are very intense!

Love these liquid water colors‼️ My second order.

I love these. The color is so rich and easy to blend. This set has a great choice of colors.

These watercolors are interesting. They don't seem to behave like other watercolor paints I have used. I think the pigments might be heavier or something? They don't blend or mix with water very well, specifically using the wet-on-dry graded wash technique. I feel like these paints probably have some specific purpose when using them for watercolor, but I'll need to work with them more before I understand what they are best for. So far, I think these would be best for calligraphy. However, if you are just looking for colorful inks, there are much less expensive inks out there. One issue I encountered: If you look at my photos, you will see that the Hydrus watercolors can sometimes turn out glossy. There is also a large spot on the Titanium White that didn't ever fully dry and instead just became sticky. Though I shook the containers for a long time and ensured the pigment was fully dissolved, I believe both issues are probably related to the binding agent used. I suspect this is the case because the glossy and sticky areas happened in spots where the paint pigment pooled after the paint bead was diluted with a drop of water to grade the wash. Still, the amount of color packed into these paints is amazing. They are very bright and cheerful, and the color variety is great. I included Set 1 (1H-12H) and Set 2 (13H-24H) in my swatch photo, but you still get a nice color variety with one or the other. I feel they will be great for illustrations and lettering. I'm excited to use them more!

Beautiful color