We are excited to be one of the first exclusive partners with our good friends at Federal Color in St Louis, MO! 

TONIC WATERCOLOR, GLOBETROTTER SET OF 8

This micro-sized travel set of Tonic Watercolor is designed for artists who paint boldly and move freely. This palette was selected specifically for travel sketching, including eight single-pigment colors that start out saturated and maintain their intensity when mixed.

Two new Tonic colors are included in this box for the first time: Pyrrole Orange #025 and Phthalo Blue Reddish #235. Federal Color waited to release the Globetrotter set until they had these new pigments in stock, because they're so useful for urban sketching. A bright orange, in particular, is not easy to mix on the go. Our Pyrrole Orange is unbelievably intense and it's ready to go in just seconds.

These travel-friendly colors are packed into a travel-ready steel box, made in Italy by a long-established metalworking company. They've made enameled cases for many of the world's best watercolor brands, and these shiny, angular steel boxes are extra special compared with the usual lightweight tins.

The Globetrotter is thickly lacquered in black on the outside, and enameled in satin white on the inside for optimum mixing visibility and minimal beading-up of paint. Two flexible white rails hold the pans in place; they won't fall out or move around while you travel. There's a finger loop on the back, so it's easy to hold your Globetrotter while you paint.

The colors included are #325 Quinacridone Magenta, #002 Federal Red, #012 Oxide Red, #025 Pyrrole Orange, #047 Permanent Yellow, #130 Phthalo Evergreen, #235 Phthalo Blue Reddish, and #245 Ultramarine.

Packed in a sturdy kraft storage box with magnetic closure. Made right here in St. Louis, MO.

Made with incredibly concentrated pigments. Hand-poured into each half pan. Tonic is a deluxe new line of artist-grade watercolors, with a unique formula that emphasizes flow and intensity. Tonic moves freely on wet or dry paper; it lifts readily with a wet brush; it dilutes smoothly and without coaxing. Perfect for expressive, quick-moving painting sessions with large brushes.

INTENSE COLOR, EFFORTLESS FLOW

Tonic Watercolor is made in Federal Color St. Louis HQ, with a unique formula that was developed over two years of experimentation and research. Tonic Watercolor was designed for maximum pigmentation, and you'll notice that a pan of Tonic is more concentrated than many other artist-grade watercolors.

With just a few drops of water, you can make bold, saturated marks on wet or dry paper. To make typical, translucent watercolor washes, you'll need to add more water than you might expect. Most Tonic colors start out semi-opaque because of their high pigment load, but they open up with water, becoming light and subtle as they're diluted.

At any concentration, Tonic is free-flowing. It's easy to load onto a wet brush, easy to lift from its pan or from paper, and easy to move the brush across watercolor paper. Some brands of watercolor are too sticky or slow-moving to allow painting on dry paper, but with Tonic, you don't need to pre-wet the page for most techniques.

MADE WITH FINE ACACIA GUM

One element of the Tonic recipe is highly traditional: it uses specially sourced and carefully tested gum arabic as the binder for Tonic watercolors. Gum arabic, which is the plant-based medium of virtually all watercolors, varies wildly in quality and consistency. After dozens of materials tests, some grades and species of gum arabic are totally unsuitable for watercolor. Some are merely acceptable. The best-quality gum arabic (which is used in Tonic) offers incredible transparency, flexibility, and handling. That's why Tonic Watercolor Medium is noticeably clearer than many of the other brands on the market.

LIGHTFAST, MODERN PIGMENTS

All Tonic colors are lightfast, with ratings of 7 or 8 on the eight-point Blue Wool Scale. Paintings made with Tonic colors are suitable for commissioned work and for long-term display under appropriate gallery conditions.

TRIPLE-MILLED FOR PERFECT DISPERSION

Each Tonic color is put through extensive testing to ensure that the consistency of each dispersion is perfect. That means that each tiny particle of pigment is surrounded by the watercolor medium. Tonic Watercolor is completely free of clumps and inconsistent pigment dispersion—unlike handmade watercolors, which can't achieve the same consistency, and even some cheaper factory-made colors.

The process for achieving these professional-grade results involves several stages of mixing, milling, and quality checking. First, a dispersing blade is used to pre-mix each color with medium. The pre-mix can take quite some time, because of the high concentrations of pigment. But when it's done, the paint is a smooth paste without major clumps.

After the pre-mix, a three-roll mill is used to fully disperse the pigment and break up any clumps that are invisible to the naked eye. Each time the paint passes through the mill, it is pushed with incredible force through a tiny gap, generally measuring less than 50 microns (0.05 mm). The shearing force breaks the bonds between nearby pigment particles and turns the paste into a luxuriously smooth, free-flowing watercolor paint.Three passes through the mill are required to make Tonic silky smooth. This labor-intensive process requires considerable skill from their mill operators, who ensure that each batch meets their exacting standards.

NO ANIMAL PRODUCTS

Tonic contains no animal-derived products. Unlike many watercolors, Tonic does not contain ox gall — instead, modern surfactants are used to achieve the same effects as the traditional animal-derived recipe.