The Daler Rowney Aquafine Watercolor Pocket Set is a very portable set for artists who like to draw outdoors. Aquafine is the student grade watercolour series from Daler Rowney. I haven't quite figure out the difference between student and artist grade though, besides the price.

I bought this in Singapore. It's the only portable watercolour set selling here - I see it a lot during sketchwalks with local sketchers.

The box is made of hard and sturdy plastic, and beneath it is a thumb ring. It's small enough to slip into a pocket, or tied with rubber band to a sketchbook. On the lid are three partitions for mixing colours.

A size 4 brush is included but to make the set truly portable, a waterbrush with reservoir is recommended. Waterbrushes (Amazon UK | CA | DE) are very popular and there are too many to choose from.

There are 12 colours included: Lemon Yellow, Gamboge (Hue), Vermilion (Hue), Alizarin Crimson, Sap Green, Viridian (Hue), Yellow Ochre, Light Red, Burnt Sienna, Cobalt Blue (Hue), Prussian Blue and Ivory Black. The choice of colours is not very different from other watercolour pocket sets.

The colours look nice. Each has slightly different pigment properties. You can check out the specific characteristics in the chart below (click to enlarge)

Even though they are half pans, they can last a long while unless you're painting every day. And the pans are detachable so they can be replaced when empty, or you can buy some watercolour tubes and squeeze paint into them - might be more economical this way.

Here's the Daler Rowney set together with the Winsor Newton 12 half pan pocket set. The pans in the Winsor Newton are arranged vertically which is why the box is shorter in width. The Winsor Newton set doesn't come with a thumb ring and the brush included is a bit small for practical use.

Here are some sketches I did and coloured.

That's my modified palette. I added a few more colours. The 12 default colours provided are enough for mixing all the other colours from the secondary and tertiary colour schemes.

Mine was bought at around US$20 equivalent. The price's not bad. It's a good value set.

You should be able find this watercolour set at art stores, if not online at Amazon UK (Listing 1 | Listing 2) | Amazon.de or Dick Blick