Gansai is the traditional watercolour of Japanese painting and etegami, the illustrated postcard: pigment pressed into generous solid pans that wake the moment a damp brush arrives. The Kuretake Gansai Tambi Japanese Watercolour Paint Set 24 Colours gathers twenty-four of them into a single lidded box, from vermilion and plum-blossom pink to mugwort green, yellow ochre, indigo and a proper, unapologetic black. Kuretake have been making ink in Nara since 1902, and it shows in every wash.

You don’t coax these colours out; they simply arrive. Touch your brush to a pan and the paint is ready, smooth and creamy, so you spend your time painting rather than scrubbing. Use it thickly and it sits on the page with an almost gouache-like confidence; add water and it softens into translucent washes that bleed into one another with a quiet, inky grace. Twenty-four colours is the sweet spot: enough to paint a whole season, few enough to fit on a caf table.

Why You’ll Love It

• Colour the instant you want it: The pans dissolve quickly, so you never lose a passing idea to a stubborn paint box. Brush, water, colour, done.
• Washes that bloom beautifully: More than a century of ink-making lies behind the way these colours spread and soften on damp paper, so your blends always look intended, never muddy.
• Bold or delicate, from the same pan: Paint it rich and opaque for lettering and illustration, or let it down with water for the palest sky. One set, every mood.

Details

• Brand: Kuretake
• Product Line: Gansai Tambi
• Type: Japanese watercolour (gansai) paint set
• Colours: 24
• Format: Solid pans in a lidded box
• Box Size: 220 201 17mm
• Safety: Non-toxic, AP certified
• Model Number: MC20/24V
• Country of Origin: Japan