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 48 Colours is the fullest of the standard Gansai Tambi sets: everything in the thirty-six, plus the softer, quieter shades wisteria, cherry blossom, lapis, forget-me-not, chestnut and azuki bean alongside gold, blue-gold and white-gold metallics. 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. Open the lid and forty-eight colours look back at you like a seed catalogue for an entire year of painting.

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.
• A palette you won’t outgrow: With subtle pastels, deep earths and three metallics in one box, you always have the exact shade to hand rather than mixing your way towards it.

Details

• Brand: Kuretake
• Product Line: Gansai Tambi
• Type: Japanese watercolour (gansai) paint set
• Colours: 48, including gold, blue-gold and white-gold metallics
• Format: Solid pans in a lidded box
• Safety: Non-toxic, AP certified
• Model Number: MC20/48V
• Country of Origin: Japan