Jane Davenport "Petite Palettes" in "Neutrals" Review

Firstly, while I remember, follow me on Twitter!

I did a breakdown of the pigments used to make this set a short time ago and my views on those, as I could not get hold of this set in the UK to be able to review it. One of my community - Paula from Florida - dropped me an email to tell me she'd seen it at a great price in a bigbox art store in her local area and had picked up a spare set for me, which is an incredibly kind thing to do - thanks Paula! As soon as it arrived, I set about reviewing it the same day! She also sent me some other goodies, which I will review very soon!

If you want to get this set for yourself, your best bet is Jane Davenport's website (which has no affiliate scheme so I don't get any commission on sales through that link), but I have seen it on Amazon USA as well. Jane told me that she's hoping to have it on sale from a UK vendor in the next couple of weeks, so I hope that will make it easier for me to get the "Brights" set and that it will make life easier for those of you out there in Europe who want to get them and who don't want to pay the huge postage from Australia.

My video review of this product is my first in my new format! I am now doing all reviews of watercolours, at least, in this new format of a Part A and Part B pair of videos. Part A will cover the unboxing, the background, the pigment information, the swatching etc, and then a few weeks later when I've really had time to play with a product, a Part B video will show what I've done with it, tips and tricks for getting the most out of it, how it plays with other supplies and so on. I'm hoping this new format will be more useful to you, and it will be two videos each of 30-60 minutes in length, so absolutely packed with even more information on getting the most from your new products!

Mijello Mission Gold - Pure Pigments set - a warning

DISCLAIMER: I have not used this set, I do not own this set, I have not even seen it in the flesh. I do not work for, nor am I affiliated to any paint manufacturers. These are my personal opinions and I have not been paid or given anything in return for this analysis. 

My primary concerns with this set relate to cheap dye-based pigments being used in lieu of mineral pigments such as Viridian, without them being clearly labelled with 'Hue'. When marketed as a 'pure pigments' set, most customers would assume they are actually getting the pigment-proper, not a hue. My secondary concern is that very cheap dye-based paints in this set are retailed for $20 per tube in open stock - they do have a high pigment-load but that doesn't justify the open stock prices when such cheap pigments are used. I'm not concerned by their performance, other than how many of the dyes used are light sensitive.

The Mijello Mission Gold Pure Pigments Set has been very popular recently, with a lot of artists and crafters buying it. The paints are not cheap - in open stock, some tubes are over $25 in the USA - they are not as easy to get hold of in the UK so I can't give UK prices. The incomparable Lindsay The Frugal Crafter has done a video review of this set recently and prior to doing so she asked me if I knew anything about it. I had a quick look at the composition at the time and the "Viridian" and "Cerulean Blue" both being Phthalocyanine dyes stuck out, but I didn't look at it much more. 

Since I watched Lindsay's review, I noticed some of the other colours had odd names or just looked a little unusual on the page. I've since been through all of the colours that Mijello list as being in the set. I have looked up their pigments in the Colour Index and here is a breakdown of what this set really contains. 

I am very concerned that it is mostly made up of very cheap dyes, yet the tubes retail in open stock in the USA at a very high price-point - some tubes are over $25. Mijello advertise "the finest pigments available", but they're not, by any means - they're cheap dyes in many cases, and not the typical pigments one would expect to find in a paint of that name - take a look a Viridian, Rose Madder, Cerulean Blue below, for example. I know "Viridian" is in Series C, as is "Cerulean Blue" - these are pretty expensive paints, yet contain nothing different from a cheap student line's Phthalocyanine dyes - this dye family are amongst the cheapest out there, so they're normally in the lowest priced series in any watercolour range. The ones that do use mineral pigments use cheaper ones like iron oxides etc. Some of the names are misleading - the Chinese White is a weak Titanium White, not a proper Chinese White.

What's worse is how many of the dyes are fugitive - I've noted this below. Now that is not to say that the paints are fugitive, as they may contain UV-resistant binders etc to protect the pigments, but as naked dyes, they are most certainly not lightfast. 

"Lemon Yellow" is not a typical lemon - it's Hansa Yellow 10G (PY3), which is fugitive when used very dilute, like in a thin wash. "Primary Yellow" is Benzimidazolone Yellow 154 (PY154) - this is as close to Process Yellow as you can get. "Permanent Yellow Deep" is Hansa yellow 65 (PY65) - usually in "Hansa Yellow Deep" type colours. "Red Orange" is your typical Pyrrol Orange (PO73) - nothing wrong with this. "Scarlet Lake" is Naphthol Red AS-D (PR112) - this is fugitive and will dull and go muddy. "Permanent Red" is Naphthol Red AS-D (PR112) - this is fugitive and will dull and go muddy over time - not very "permanent" is it?! [note the above are quite same-y on the page in Lindsay's review video - makes sense, same pigment] "Perm Red Deep" is Pyrolle Red (PR254) - again, fugitive - it darkens and blues over time. "Cherry Red" is Quinacridone Red (PR209 - there are two Quin Reds) - again, fugitive - it blues over time with exposure to light "Indian Red" is PR101 (Red Iron Oxide) as it should be. "Crimson Lake" is Quinacridone Crimson (PR202) - not a lake but not fugitive at least. "Permanent Rose" is Quinacridone Rose (PV19) as one would expect it to be - but this also blues with time - most Quinacridones are fugitive! "Perylene Maroon" is indeed Perylene Maroon (PR179) - this does fade a bit but it's not too bad. "Rose Madder" is made of PR176 Benzimidazolone Carmine (should be NR8 or NR9 if it's genuine or can be PR83 (Alizarin Crimson - synthetic rose madder, basically) or PR122 (Quinacridone Red) is sometimes used - PR176 is, as such, an odd choice) - this is fugitive and turns more blue as it fades so keep an eye on this one. "Permanent Magenta" is PR122 (Quinacridone Red) - this fades and neutralises - becomes less of a magenta and more of a red as it fades. "Cerulean Blue" is Phthalocyanine Blue BGS (PB15:3) - this is the blue-green Phthalo Blue - Cerulean Blue should by rights be a Cobalt Chromate mineral pigment, not a dye. "Prussian Blue" is indeed Prussian Blue (PB27) - this can brown in bright sunlight but it is totally reversible in the dark. "Cobalt Blue No. 2" is indeed Cobalt Blue (PB28) - cobalt aluminate/blue spinel - lovely granulating pigment. "Ultramarine Light" is Ultramarine Blue (PB29), as it should be. "Viridian" should be chromic hydroxide (PG18) but they have used Phthalocyanine Green BS (PG7). "Bamboo Green" is Phthalocyanine Green YS (PG36), hence why they look very same-y, they're the same pigment molecule, with slight modifications. "Yellow Ochre No. 2" is Hydrated Ferric Oxide (PY43), as it normally is. "Green Gold" - now this one is weird, they've used Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150), which is one of those grey-ish lemons - it's also a bit prone to fading but not much. Green Gold proper is Irgazin Yellow (PY129), which doesn't fade. "Red Brown" is Benzimidazolone Brown (PBr25) - this is quite nice as it's a synthetic dye brown - you should get good luminosity through it. "Vandyke Brown" is Brown Iron Oxide (PBr7) - this is usually used in Burnt Sienna, true Van Dyke Brown (NBr8) is Lignite, but Manganese Brown (PBr8) is often used instead. "Chinese White" is Titanium White (PW6) - Chinese White is usually either Zinc White (PW4) alone or mixed with Titanium White - the latter is the cheaper option, hence why I guess they have used it? Why not just call it Titanium White? Unless they made it so dilute that it is translucent and looks like Chinese White? "Ivory Black" is made from Lamp Black (PBk7) - this is not usual. PBk9 (Bone Black) is usually used for Ivory Blacks - note they are obviously all carbon but the impurities are different which impacts tone, granulation etc etc.