There's a particular excitement that comes with opening a box you've waited a long time for. When the Michael Harding watercolours arrived at Callender Street, I'll confess I had a tube open and a wash down on paper before I'd finished the stocktake. They're worth the fuss, so let me tell you why.
A man who knows his pigment
Michael Harding spent more than thirty years building one of the most respected oil paint ranges in the world before he turned his hand to watercolour. That matters. This isn't a brand bolting a new line onto a logo. It's a colourman who understands pigment at a level most never reach, applying that knowledge to a completely different medium and getting it right.
136 colours, and most of them are single-pigment
The range runs to 136 shades, and 92 of those are made from a single pigment. If you mix your own colours, that's the detail to circle. Single-pigment paints mix clean and predictable, where multi-pigment blends turn muddy the moment you combine them. With a palette like this you get clarity in your mixes instead of a slow slide toward grey. It's the difference between a colour you chose and a colour you settled for.
Colour that behaves
Artists keep saying the same things about these paints, and they're saying them unprompted. The pigment load is high, so the colours come out intense and saturated rather than weak and chalky. They're lightfast, so your work holds its colour rather than fading on the wall. And here's the quiet one that earns loyalty: they don't go rock-hard in the pan the way some premium watercolours do. You come back to them weeks later and they lift straight off, ready to work. People are switching from brands they'd used for years on the strength of that alone.
From oils to washes, under one roof
We've stocked Michael Harding oils for a long time, and they've a devoted following among the serious painters who come through our doors. Adding the watercolours means you can now build a full Michael Harding palette with us, whether you work thick and slow in oil or loose and luminous in watercolour. Same pedigree, same obsession with pigment, two very different ways of painting.
Why buy them here
You can find Michael Harding watercolours online, of course. But a single tube shipped from across the water means postage, a wait, and no chance to see the colour in your hand first. We're here on Callender Street in Belfast, we hold the range on the shelf, and you can walk in, talk it through, and walk out painting the same afternoon. That's the bit the internet can't post to you.
The launch offer
To mark the range arriving in Belfast, we're running a launch offer for a limited time: 20% off the full Michael Harding watercolour range, and a free Elements A5 watercolour pad with every purchase, so you've something proper to put that colour onto. The offer runs until Sunday 13 July 2026, after which it's back to our standard pricing, so now's the moment if you've been curious.
Come and have a look.
