The Best Yellow
Testing All The Acrylic Colors I could find on Amazon
I want to get back into painting but the one thing that always bothered me with my old acrylic paints is that they never really covered each other well. So I set out to test which is the best yellow I can find on Amazon.
How good colors are at covering older dry paint is important to me. Especially when trying to use a bright tone like yellow or white over some darker color, the darker color usually bleeds through. Then you need to apply multiple coatings to get the results you want. Annoying. Sometimes the tone of the color changes too, and it's hard to get a consistent look. Yellow and black often make a sort of green.
Either way... this... sucks!
I always thought to myself that this is just the case with cheap colors and that if I only were to buy higher quality ones, this sort of thing wouldn't happen anymore.
But I never went out and tested it. And then a thought occured to me: I can just test this. Just order all the different colors Amazon has, and then see which ones I like best. The quest of finding the best yellow was born!
The Colors
In total I tested 11 different brands, ranging in price from anywhere between 3€ and 20€. The results of the test genuinely surprised me => There was only a single brand that I liked.
The test was simple, I drew a black line on a piece of paper and then applied the yellow color over it. I tried to apply the color as thickly as possible first and then thinner and thinner towards the end.
Here's the full list of colors I tested:
| Brand | Price Per Liter | Price Per Tube | Tube Quantity | Test Strip Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpina | 22.47€ | 16.85€ | 750ml |  |
| Amsterdam | 74.25€ | 8.91€ | 120ml |  |
| Artecho | 53.08€ | 6.37€ | 120ml |  |
| Feel My Paint | 58.25€ | 6.99€ | 120ml |  |
| Goya | 27.16€ | 6.79€ | 250ml |  |
| Le Franc Bourgeois | 13.00€ | 6.50€ | 500ml |  |
| Marabu | 81.36€ | 1.79€ | 22ml |  |
| Pebeo | 26.96€ | 13.48€ | 500ml |  |
| Rayher | 84.58€ | 4.99€ | 59ml |  |
| Schmincke | 44.94€ | 22.47€ | 500ml |  |
| Winsor and Newton | 65.83€ | 7.90€ | 120ml |  |
Results
Overall I was rather disappointed with most of the colors, because they were suffering from the same problem that I had with my old colors. For many colors, they only worked well when I applied huge amounts of them, and some colors didn't cover at all.
However one of the colors felt different. Can you see it in the test strips too?
The Winner
The yellow color from "Feel My Paint" was the only color that I was happy with in the end. It just covered extremely well.
I had already started losing hope around the middle of the test because none of the other colors were working as I had hoped or expected.
But the "Feel My Paint" Yellow was different. Even while applying the color it felt... heavier? Like there was more pigment in the color and less water or other solvent. It just felt dense for lack of a better word. And the result speaks for itself: there was not even a trace of black shining through from the test strip when I applied a thick even coating. And even with very thin layers "Feel My Paint" covered better than any of the other colors.
In the end I bought a whole set of the brand "Feel My Paint" and I am super happy with it. I even like the cute design of the little box that the colors came in.
I hope this article was helpful to you. If you have any questions or want to know more about the testing process, feel free to reach out to me.
Also feel free to buy the best yellow from Amazon via my affiliate link.
Until then, cheers and happy painting!