Favourite Watercolours

I know I've talked about this before, but I'm often asked for my favourite watercolours and, after using them fairly steadily for a few years, especially during my 2-month residency at the ASA Gallery, I definitely lean toward certain varieties. 

1. Daniel Smith (Altoids tin): this is my favourite set to travel with as it contains primary colours, I'm not that particular about which yellow, red and blue I use, it rewets & dries easily and, since I've used large pans, the mini Altoids tin carries a lot of colour in a very small container.
2. M.Graham (Art Toolkit Pocket Palette): I love, love, love using M.Graham but they can be a bit challenging to travel with as they have a honey base and never totally dry which means they are a bit tacky/sticky so humid climates are a challenge. In this palette I currently have primary & secondary colours (red, yellow, blue & orange, green, purple) but I sometimes switch it up to include warm & cool primaries. There's lots of mixing space on this business card sized palette which is a bonus.
3. Rosa Watercolors (largest palette): I primarily use this palette in my studio and love how easily the colours reactivate. No matter which colours I've used in this brand, they all re-wet easily and are very vibrant plus I love the full pans.
4. Beam Paints: I really love Beam gouache paints. This is a wonderful product, Canadian made (east coast) by an Indigenous woman using only fully natural/organic materials. The gouache and watercolour does require a spray of water and a little time to sit for the paint to reactive before working with them.
5. Joan of Art (center bottom): Another Canadian woman-owned business (west coast). They offer the cutest little travel tin that holds a small pencil, sharpener, erasor, brush and 3 1/2 pans of watercolour but I love so many of their colours that I created a 12-pan set for myself. If they offered full pans & re-fill tubes, I think this would be my brand of choice.

A couple of things I always have to consider are whether they are vibrant as I love colour & am impatient so I don't like to spray and wait for the paint to wet (and dry), especially on the go, and whether my husband reacts to them when they are wet (allergies).