A slim black tin with the count in gold across the top — 12, 18, 24 or 36 WATERCOLORS — the KeepSmiling hexagonal badge beside it and a window cut into the face so the colours show through before it is opened. Down one side, in gold, run the lines HIGH QUALITY SET and KEEP SMILING IS THE ART OF LIVING! The twelve is a long horizontal tin with its pans in a single row; the three larger sizes stand upright with the pans in two columns.

This is the one range on our watercolour shelf where buying the bigger box genuinely saves money, and it is worth spelling the ladder out. The twelve is Rs. 56.25 a colour, the eighteen Rs. 54.17, the twenty-four Rs. 46.46 and the thirty-six Rs. 42.08. Every step up lowers the price of every colour in the tin.

That is the opposite of what usually happens. Our Marie's acrylic boxes get dearer per tube as they get bigger, and the Sakura Koi 36 sketch box costs more per pan than the Koi 24. Here the thirty-six is both the widest and the cheapest per colour, so if the money is there it is simply the better buy.

The pans are square rather than round, packed edge to edge behind the window, which is how a tin this slim carries thirty-six colours and still shuts flat enough for a pencil case. The tin is metal, not moulded plastic, so it takes being carried about rather than cracking at the hinge.

What the four sizes share is the format: a flat tin, a window, square pans and a lid that opens back. What they do not share is width of palette — twelve gives you the primaries and a black; thirty-six gives you the greens, greys and earths that stop a landscape being mixed out of three colours.

We list this range from 8 years up. Prices are Rs. 675 for twelve, Rs. 975 for eighteen, Rs. 1,115 for twenty-four and Rs. 1,515 for thirty-six, with Cash on Delivery across Pakistan. Tell us which size you want on WhatsApp and we will confirm stock, your city and delivery charges before dispatch.

Why this product is worth considering