I've long enjoyed painting with watercolors and I've got quite a large collection of various types and brands of watercolors. A few months ago I got a 12 color set of the KOI Watercolors from Sakura, which are the tube variety of watercolors, and I finally decided to sit down and use them.

I don't know what I was expecting, probably not anything different from what I see with my other watercolors, but I was pleasantly surprised. I found that these watercolors are incredibly smooth in appearance, they look the way fine satin feels - soft, smooth and luxurious. They mix together to form custom colors very easily and also blend on watercolor paper beautifully, almost without effort. As I played with them and fell under their hypnotic spell, I found myself thinking..."Wow, this is how watercolors are supposed to work!" They are not grainy at all. I have used the Lyra Watercolor Crayons for several years and have been happy with them. But when I compared the watercolor crayons side-by-side to the KOI watercolors, there was a slightly grainy appearance to the watercolor crayons (which can be useful under certain circumstances). Its sort of like the difference between Godiva Chocolate and Hershe's Chocolate - both are good, one is better.