Sepia Watercolor Comparison - Daniel Smith - Schmincke - Mijello - Cotman

[@VickyFlint]

Love sepia - I have the Cotman and the DS, and both are great. I use them to tone down loads of colours, and also on their own in my work (I do abstract stuff). Cotman paints are better than a lot of people give them credit for I think!I put them in a palette with a drop of glycerine in each, they rewet beautifully :)

[@markdonovan1540]

Sepia, the cuttlefish pigment that characterises many historic photographs. It's great for sketching as well as value studies. I use it more for mixing browns. I quite like the W&N Cotman version and I have a sticky, slightly intense version in a set called Ladoja - which is a cheaper range of the White Nights paints. I also had a sad version by Van Gogh, which thankfully I managed to use up about a year ago. Sepia sits there waiting to be used, when you might go for the darker browns of Van Dyke or Burnt Umber. Sepia is a staple addition to any palette of Earth colours.

[@wulfseig1864]

Absolutely love Sepia. However, I mix my own with M. Graham neutral tint and PBr7, plop it in a full pan un-mixed so I can change the temperature as needed. TFS ❤❤❤

[@OldeLeshi]

I love earths and neutrals so I definitely have Holbein's sepia on a palette. One interesting use I recently found was to mix it into cobalt green (Holbein) to make what looks to be a really good substitute for things like terre verte from W&N. Because I'm allergic to high chroma colors lol.

[@Renilou2]

The only Sepia I use is from Holbein because it matches the brown color from the cuttlefish more than the rest. None you have here is really a good match in my estimation. They are either too warm or too cool. Try the Holbein. It’s just like the old sepia toned photos. I used it as the base tone values for a baby bathing in an old canning wash tub. Barely hinted at color. It has that old antique look.

[@JestemGlonojadem]

I believe that the darker, blacker sepias are more akin to the genuine pigment. The brown ones remind me of Van Dyke Brown. Overall I like this colour and its many variations! I find myself reaching for it more and more frequently & I use it to darken other earths or greens.

[@bonnierosendale]

Ooooo, nice! I like sepia. I have a sepia in Renesans watercolors that I really like. I use it for all sorts of botanicals in the stems of plants and tree trunks, and also for dirt.

[@b.lab.__blab_colors]

Sepia is very often compound pigments but Maimeri Blu’s Sepia is single pigment, PY164. It’s muddy but very deep and warm sepia. Thank you for your comparison video 🙏

[@jennw6809]

Hm. I'm kind of meh about Sepia too. I appreciate you showing how light they go but for value studies' sakes it'd be nice to see how dark they go as well. I think you might be swatching from dots on some of these so you might not have the pigment. I did a test of a bunch of my brushes to see which ones were best for swatching. I found flat sables the best for just a flat wash of masstone, but quills by far made the best gradients. Real squirrel is the best but the synthetics did well too, there seems to be something about the quill shape that makes smooth gradients easy. I didn't test a Perla (which is what I think you are using) but I had a lot of trouble getting even swatches with stiffer synthetics like that. When I tested I used Payne's Gray and tried to go from deep masstone to the lightest tint I could.

[@DAYbreaking_Ideas]

I use M. Graham’s Sepia. A little goes a long way. It is nice for landscape shadows. I don’t like to use black that much but this one slips into the spot where I have a limited pallet and mix my own gray. 😊

[@brigitteitg]

I love Sepia but I prefer the cooler versions (and I think they are more like the original Sepia ink colour). I have W&N professional and Lukas, both cooler, and Warm Sepia by Sennelier, which is warmer and I think you would like it. To me the warmer ones are very close to Van Dyke Brown, while the cooler versions are a bit more their own colour.

[@lmac_z]

I quite like Holbein’s version of Sepia and find it useful when painting rocks, touches of it in landscapes, weathered wood, etc. It is cooler than the two versions that you prefer. Incredibly interesting how the colour varies between brands. Thank you again.

[@EugeniaLoli]

I love sepia, because you can do whole monochromatic paintings with just sepia, and it will still look normal (most vintage illustrations were just sepia). I'd say the most accurate is Holbein's from all the ones I've seen. In this set, probably Daniel Smith's.

[@greekveteran2715]

If you also like pencil monochromatic sketching, and you haven't already discovered Kohinoor Dark Sepia and and Red Chalk, you have to get both and try them! They only cost 1 euro each and the also make it in 5.6mm leads, for their 5.6mm lead holders, where both the performance and the value, is unbelievable!! (The only pencils, that are better than any Faber Castell, or any other brand or kind of pencil I know of) PS In their 5.6mm version, they sell the Red Chalk as "Russet Sepia" and the other Dark Sepia, which is exactly the same color, as the Daniel Smith Sepia. (They;re also water soluble!!!)

[@AlexYorim]

I like the Cotman one. Makes me think of old photographs.

[@MatzeMaulwurf]

I love sepia and indigo for monochromatic pictures. I use mainly White Nights.

[@awatercolourist]

I never used Sepia, neither the genuine pigment nor any of the hues. I do, however, use Burnt Umber by van Gogh, which is not too dissimilar to the more orangey Sepias in your video. I use it to tone down paints and create blacks together with PB29.

[@WatercolorElisabetta]

I use Sepia quite often, and my favourite is Warm Sepia by Sennelier…the Cotman you swatched is surprisingly beautiful! Very interesting video, thanks.

[@janechin76]

The lovely cotman sepia is very much like my Holbein’s burnt umber, except the latter granulated more. The sepia I’m using is from sennelier. I love it 😻. It’s a shade between the warmer and cooler shades you’ve tested out here. Thanks for swatching 😊

[@lzal9204]

The Mission one leans more towards a Van Dyke brown. I like the DS one. I have painted several landscapes using just Sepia. It gives it a vintage vibe.

[@starr-starr]

For someone who has never used sepia, somehow I have ended up with 6 tubes or pans. Sigh. Rosa Gallery, Holbein, Winsor Newton, Schmincke ( the cool dark one), Sennelier and Maimeriblu. As others have said, the Sennelier Warm Sepia is quite nice. The Maimeriblu is a single pigment, PY164, a very opaque, matte, velvety brown between dark chocolate and milk chocolate. It’s very nice, but I’m terrible at painting with opaque paints, so I haven’t gotten far with it.

[@LowKey_izildura]

I have that cooler Schmincke sepia that came with the set, maybe even a White Nights one, non of which I used much. I always just go for a dark brown mixed with something. The only dark brown I`m kinda curious about is DS Van Dyke brown from Pbr7. Although, now that I see it, I like the Cotman one, which didn`t get my attention in the store. I too wish I`d seen a wider colour value in the swatch, but by now I`m used to your kind of swatching with less water, `cause I guess you like to swatch with the same brush you like painting with)) Thanks for sharing!

[@kuraicraft]

I think the daniel smith is the one most like the photoshop sepia filters, but grainy, the cotman is the next closest but smooth finish. And the schmincke sepia brown is more like actual old photos hmmm such a hard choice

[@jenneke9763]

I have both w&n professional sepia and van Dyke brown, bought after seeing what artist Hazel Soan does with them in her animal paintings. Her efforts are amazing. Mine…not so much 🤭

[@patti3d]

From your swatching I like DS Sepia. I have W&N prof. Sepia but it’s made with PR 101. So the color is very different than the cotmon brand. It’s more like the mission gold sepia!

[@aeli999]

I have one sepia that is closer to the Schmincke Sepia Brown than the DS and Cotman. I don't ever use it, only have it because it came in a set. According to Kim, the Sepia pigment NBr9 is not lightfast and difficult to harvest. If I were going to use one, I'd probably pick the DS.

[@jillhumphreys632]

I would love to see one on burnt sienna! Also what’s the difference between burnt sienna and burnt sienna 2 in the mission gold brand?

[@JayNathanWatercolor]

I think I did a burnt sienna comparison last year. I'll have to go back and check. I have so many new ones now that maybe it's time for another? 🤣 Mijello mission gold burnt sienna is a strange, but very pretty, 3 pigment mix. The burnt sienna no2 is a single pigment PR102 I think.

[@jillhumphreys632]

@@JayNathanWatercolor great thank you!!! I’ll go back and look! 🤩

[@dupinion]

I go for Holbein 🤗👌

[@goat8477]

As a beginner I am total confused about Sepia versus Van dyke Brown. They look alike to my untrained eye. Don't know which one to use and i don't want to crowd my palette with doubles. So may colors - so little space...

[@AnimalArtbyTerraCotta]

Oh yes, I shall stay loyal to Daniel Smith! The color is fabulous and how odd that the Schminke isn't presenting itself very well. It's usually a very rich watercolor! 🥰

[@ΔεαΚ]

Its rich but he didnt put the full colour on the swatches, he says do too in the video so thats why

[@awatercolourist]

First!