The Watercolor Artist Gift Guide: What to Buy for the Painter in Your Life
By Dalton Scolman
Buying a gift for a watercolor artist feels harder than it is. You worry about getting the wrong brand, duplicating something they already own, or picking something that looks thoughtful but ends up sitting in a drawer. Most gift guides for artists do not help because they just list the same ten products with Amazon affiliate links attached.
This guide is different. It is organized by what kind of painter you are buying for, what price range you are working with, and what will actually feel special rather than generic. And it includes one type of watercolor paint that almost no painter owns yet, which makes it one of the few genuinely original gifts you can give someone who has been painting for years.
First: The One Gift Most Watercolor Artists Have Never Tried
Before getting into the full guide, this is worth knowing upfront.
Most watercolor artists work with pans or tubes. Both are excellent. Both are also things your painter almost certainly already owns. If you give someone another pan set or another set of tubes, you are giving them something they already have in a slightly different configuration.
Peerless DryColor sheets are different in a way that is easy to understand even if you have never painted anything in your life. The paint is dry. It lives on a small sheet of paper roughly the size of a business card. When a painter touches it with a wet brush, the pigment activates instantly into rich, vibrant, concentrated watercolor. No palette needed. No tubes to squeeze. No lids to open. Just the sheet and a brush.
Nicholson's Peerless Watercolors has been making these sheets since 1885, which makes them one of the oldest watercolor brands in existence. They come in over 80 colors, each one handmade and highly pigmented. And because the format is so different from anything else on the market, the person you are buying for almost definitely does not have them.
That combination of deep history, unusual format, and genuinely beautiful color makes Peerless one of the few watercolor gifts that will feel truly surprising to someone who has been painting for years.
More on the specific products below.
For the Artist Who Has Everything: Something They Have Never Used
If the painter in your life has been at it for years and their studio is already well-stocked, the usual gift options feel risky. Another brush, another pan set, another sketchbook — you are one wrong choice away from duplicating something they already have a preference for.
The safest move in this situation is giving them something in a format they do not own at all.
The Peerless Prism Pack contains all 80 DryColor sheets, representing the full range of colors Peerless makes. For a painter who has never used dry sheet watercolor, this is a complete revelation: 80 highly concentrated, transparent colors in a format that takes up almost no space and requires no setup. For a painter who already loves Peerless, it is the ultimate full-collection gift. Either way, it is not something they already have.
For the Beginner: Something That Makes Starting Easy
Buying for someone who is just getting into watercolor is actually the most forgiving gift situation. They do not have strong preferences yet, they do not own much, and almost anything good quality will make their experience better.
The single most important thing for a beginner is paint that is easy to use and produces genuinely good results from the first session. Student-grade paints that go chalky or flat quickly are discouraging. Paint that is vibrant, transparent, and responsive from the start makes a person want to keep going.
The Peerless Sidekick is the ideal beginner gift because it removes almost all the friction from starting. Eight colors, a flip-tab format that makes each color immediately accessible, and a built-in mixing surface. There is nothing to set up and nothing to figure out before picking up a brush. The concentration of the pigment means that even a first painting will have real color depth and transparency, which is encouraging in a way that thin, faded results are not.
For a beginner who travels, or who you picture painting in cafes or parks rather than at a dedicated desk, the Sidekick is especially good. It fits in a jacket pocket. It requires no water jar. It goes through airport security without any complications. It is genuinely the most portable professional-quality watercolor format that exists.
If you want to give a beginner the full getting-started package, pair the Sidekick with a small watercolor sketchbook (look for 140lb or 300gsm paper) and a simple round brush in a size 8. That is everything they need.
For the Traveler or Urban Sketcher: Something That Goes Anywhere
There is a specific kind of watercolor painter who is not primarily a studio artist. They paint on hiking trails and train platforms and cafe terraces. They carry everything in a small bag. They care deeply about how much space their kit takes up and how fast they can get it out and working.
For this person, format is everything. A beautiful but bulky set is not a gift — it is an imposition.
The Peerless Sidekick fits in a passport holder. It weighs almost nothing. It does not require an open palette, a water jar, or any setup time. For a painter who sketches on the go, it is the lightest, most packable, most airport-friendly watercolor kit available. Nothing else on the market combines that level of portability with genuine paint quality.
Individual DryColor Sheets are also a great gift for this kind of painter because they can build a custom travel palette, choosing only the specific colors that match where they paint most. Warm earth tones for a city sketcher. Blues and greens for someone who paints coastlines. Each sheet is tiny, the whole set takes up no space, and the painter can tuck them directly into their sketchbook.
For the Experimenter: Something to Play With
Some painters are happiest when they are trying something new. They are drawn to unusual pigments, unexpected color relationships, and paint that does something surprising. For this person, the gift is not comfort — it is discovery.
Individual DryColor Sheets are also perfect for an experimenter. Let them pick their own colors, or pick a handful for them based on colors you notice in their work. Because each sheet is sold individually, you can give them a small, curated selection that feels considered rather than generic. Ten sheets in colors that work beautifully together is a more personal gift than a pre-packaged set of twelve, and it costs less.
By Price Point
If you already know your painter and just need to know what fits your budget, here is a quick reference:
Under $20: A selection of Individual DryColor Sheets — pick five to ten colors based on what you know they paint, or choose a range that spans warm, cool, and neutral. Personal, original, and immediately useful.
$20 to $50: The Peerless Sidekick. Eight colors, complete kit, the most portable professional watercolor format available. Works equally well for beginners and experienced painters.
$100 and up: The Prism Pack. All 80 colors. The gift that covers everything and says you took it seriously.
What Most Gift Guides Get Wrong
Most watercolor gift guides recommend the same things because they are written to earn affiliate commissions on Amazon, not to give real advice. A generic Winsor & Newton set or a stack of Moleskine sketchbooks is fine, but it is also exactly what a painter might have already bought themselves last month.
The best watercolor gifts share a few qualities. They are high enough quality that the painter will actually use them. They are something the painter would not automatically buy for themselves, either because the format is unusual or because the price point puts it in treat territory. And they feel like the giver actually thought about the recipient, not just the category.
Peerless hits all three. The format is genuinely different from what most painters own. The quality has been proven over 130 years of use. And because most people outside the watercolor community have never heard of dry sheet watercolors, giving Peerless to a painter tells them that you did more than a two-minute search for "best watercolor set."
FAQ
What is a good gift for a watercolor artist who already has lots of supplies? The safest choice is something in a format they do not already own. Peerless DryColor sheets are a highly concentrated dry watercolor format that most painters have never used, even experienced ones. They are completely different from pans or tubes in how they work, they come in over 80 colors, and they have over 130 years of history behind them. The Prism Pack, which contains all 80 colors, is a genuinely original gift for a painter who seems to have everything.
Are Peerless DryColor sheets hard to use for a beginner? No. The format is actually one of the most beginner-friendly available. You touch a wet brush to the sheet, the pigment activates immediately, and you paint. There is no palette to set up, no tubes to squeeze, and no lids to manage. The highly concentrated pigment means results look rich and vibrant from the very first session, which is encouraging for someone still learning. The Sidekick, with eight colors and a built-in mixing surface, is the easiest complete starting kit available.
What watercolor supplies do artists actually want as gifts? Most watercolor artists want things that are either consumable (paint, paper, sketchbooks they will use up) or genuinely different from what they already own. Paper is always welcome but hard to get right without knowing exactly what weight and texture the painter prefers. Paint is the safest category because even if they already have some, good paint is always useful. A format they have never tried — like Peerless DryColor sheets — is the best of both worlds: consumable and completely original.
What is the Peerless Sidekick and is it a good gift? The Sidekick is a travel watercolor palette containing eight Peerless DryColor sheets in a flip-tab format with a built-in mixing surface. It is smaller than a deck of cards, requires no water jar or open palette to use, and fits in a jacket pocket. It is one of the most thoughtful watercolor gifts available because it is immediately useful, it works for painters at any skill level, and it is the kind of thing most painters would love but might not buy for themselves. It is particularly good for painters who travel or sketch outdoors.
Still Not Sure?
If you are not certain which product fits the painter in your life, Individual DryColor Sheets are always a good call. You can pick a small selection of colors, they are priced accessibly, and any painter who has never used dry sheet watercolor will find them genuinely exciting to try.
If you want to go bigger, the Prism Pack is the most complete Peerless gift available. All 80 colors, the full range, the complete picture of what DryColor can do.
And if you want something perfectly sized for travel, in the kind of format that makes a painter's face light up when they realize how small and light and ready-to-go it is, the Sidekick is what you are looking for.
All three are the kind of gift that makes a painter think: I would never have bought this for myself. Which is exactly what a great gift should do.