The Bottom Line
Supersized. That's definitely the word for Winsor & Newton's Large Pans in their artists' watercolor range.
W&N has taken a 'normal' pan of watercolor paint, made it six times bigger (or 12 times if you're accustomed to a travel watercolor set with half pans), and upgraded from a plastic container to a ceramic dish. The result is a watercolor pan that's supersized for big brushes so you can pick up plenty of paint.
Pros
- Extra large pan size, ideal for large brushes or big quantities of a color
- Being ceramic, the pan is heavy enough not to move around when you put a brush into the paint
- Available in 30 colors, giving a good selection
Cons
- Suitable mostly for studio work, not easily portable for plein air or workshop painting
- Ceramic dish will break if dropped (though you could likely rescue the paint)
Description
- W&N's Large Pans are 60x40mm (about 3 1/3 x 2 1/2").
- Surface area is about 12 times that of a half pan (what you usually find in a travel watercolor set).
- Available in 30 colors.
- Label gives color name, series number, lightfastness rating, and pigment name and number.
- Label also indicates if pigment is transparent or opaque, granulating or staining.
- Wooden tray accessory that holds five of the large pans available; it has a space to rest a brush in front of it.
Guide Review - Winsor & Newton Artist's Water Colour Large Pans
The generous proportions of W&N's Large Pans make them ideal for watercolor painting with large brushes or for when you want lots of paint. Because each pan is free standing, you can separate them out to minimize the risk of contamination with another color. The Large Pans contain W&N's artist's watercolor paints (their student brand is Cotman).
Being ceramic, the pans do have a notable weight, but this also means they won't shift around when you're using them (unless you're very rough with a brush). The edges of the dish are gently sloped, so paint will pool around the cake of paint. It also creates an edge for wiping excess paint out of a brush.
You can buy a wooden that'll hold five W&N Large Pans, but I wouldn't bother unless you know you'll want to move them around a lot rather than have them sit on a table in your studio. The bottom of the ceramic dish is shaped so that they are stackable on top of one another (if you tilted the stack while there was still liquid paint in them, you'll make a horrible mess!).
When you eventually finish a pan, you can squeeze out tube watercolor into the ceramic dish to continue using it. Or buy a replacement and use the empty dish for mixing.
