Boku-Undo Sumi Ink Watercolor Paints — Pastel Colors (6 Colors)

Boku-Undo Sumi Ink Watercolor Paints in Pastel Colors is a six-pan Japanese watercolor set built on traditional sumi ink, made in Nara by a sumi manufacturer founded in 1805. This is the lightest palette in the line, with pale, washed-out tones that look as if they have already been diluted in the pan.

The set holds six dry pans: Pale Red, Pale Yellow, Pale Green, Pale Blue, Pale Purple, and Pale Brown. The Japanese names (ko-ume / small plum, ki-yuzu / yellow yuzu, yomogi / mugwort, asagi / pale onion blue, shobu / iris, and azuki / red bean) reach into traditional Japanese color vocabulary, naming each tone after a familiar plant or food rather than its hue.

In this set the sumi backbone has been stepped down to its softest level: even straight from the pan, the colors read as gentle pastels rather than near-black or moody color. The pans combine traditional sumi soot with colored pigments and gum arabic, but in proportions that let the colored pigments dominate. Diluted with water, the tones thin into transparent veils ideal for layered washes.

Boku-Undo has been making sumi in Nara since 1805. The Pastel Colors set is the line's lightest variant, intended for work where the sumi character should sit in the background as atmosphere rather than as a dominant feature: light watercolor sketches, color washes over ink drawings, and layered work where each pass needs to stay transparent.

For a darker and a brighter take on the same idea, see the Shadow Black and Bright Colors sets in this series. The pans pair naturally with the Akashiya Sai Water Brush Pen for travel sketching, or browse more Japanese arts & crafts supplies.

How to Use

1. Wet a brush with clean water.
2. Touch the brush to a pan to load color. A quick dip gives a transparent veil; a longer touch builds toward a soft pastel.
3. Paint directly on paper, or mix two pans in a separate dish for in-between tones.
4. Rinse the brush between colors. The pans rewet cleanly even after months of sitting closed.

Details

• Set contents: 6 dry watercolor pans (Pale Red, Pale Yellow, Pale Green, Pale Blue, Pale Purple, Pale Brown)
• Size: 7" × 2.6" × 0.6" (17.8 cm × 6.6 cm × 1.5 cm)
• Weight: 2.9 oz (82 g)
• Materials: pigments, sumi soot
• Origin: Made in Nara, Japan
• Brand: Boku-Undo

The Story of Boku-Undo

Founded in 1805 in Nara, a city that has produced Japanese ink for roughly thirteen hundred years, Boku-Undo has spent more than two centuries refining sumi for calligraphers, painters, and schools. The workshop still produces traditional ink sticks that are ground by hand on inkstones, but it also experiments steadily at the edges of that tradition: liquid sumi for brush painting, gansai-style watercolors, and these pan watercolors that translate the depth of soot into a format closer to a sketchbook.

What stays constant across every Boku-Undo product is the company's relationship with carbon. Sumi at its best is not simply black; it carries temperature, weight, and a settled quality that lets a single brushstroke read as both shadow and atmosphere. The Sumi Ink Watercolor line is Boku-Undo's modern attempt to carry that quality into a portable, color-aware format.