QoR Watercolours by Golden - 24-colour set

I've recently obtained the 24-colour set of 5-mL QoR watercolour tube paints by Golden. Golden sells a number of paints and mediums under the QoR branding and they sell a number of sets - to be honest, I'm not convinced by some of the sets - who wants a "high chroma set" that doesn't have a proper blue? At least sell warm and cool triads, for example. You can also buy the loose paints, but they're not cheap. This 24-colour set cost me about US$80.00, which is about £60.00 or so - that's not THAT bad at £2.50 per tube, I guess, but I'm aware buying them as open stock or buying them in a lot of European countries is VERY costly. The 6-tube sets on Amazon UK sell for an equivalent of over £4 (US$5.20) per tube, which is a LOT. I got this set from Amazon USA where the price was more economical - I've not seen the 24-set for sale in the UK but on the basis of the 6-sets, I would estimate a sale price in the UK of somewhere near to £100 (US$130) for the set. You can get them fairly economically from Jackson's Art Supplies though:



Golden formulated QoR with a different binder to all other watercolours on the market. The conventional binders in most watercolours are usually gum arabic (from Vachellia seyal Delile (P.J.Hunter)) or gum senegal (from Acacia senegal L. (Willd.)). Gum arabic and gum senegal are both mostly composed of arabinogalactan, a gum polymer made up long chains that alternate between the pentose sugar arabinose and the hexose sugar galactose - so a bit like starch or glycogen, but they're both made up of the hexose sugar glucose. QoR watercolours use the binder Aquazol®, which is entirely synthetic.

Aquazols® (plural) are a range of polymers owned by Polymer Chemistry Innovations Inc. (PIC Inc.), which license the use of Aquazol® in watercolour to Golden. Instead of a mix of two sugars as the monomers of the polymer, Aquazols® use a single monomer - a derivative of the heterocycle 2-oxazoline, which is a 5-membered ring containing 3 carbons, an oxygen and a nitrogen. 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline (2E2O) is the monomer, so it has an ethyl group attached to the carbon in between the N and the O. On its own, 2E2O is a liquid at room temperature and boils at over 125° C (over 250° F or almost 400 K), where as the polymerised form is very different. Firstly, Aquazol® doesn't quite exist - it's a product family. The long chains of 2E2O molecules joined together aren't always the same length, so PIC Inc. separates the mixes into different average sizes and sells them under different names - e.g. Aquazol® 5 has a mean size of 5 kDa (kilodaltons, one Dalton is the atomic mass unit, the atomic mass of carbon-12 being 12 Da), Aquazol® 50, Aquazol® 200 and Aquazol® 500 are also sold, with mean masses of 50 kDa, 200 kDa and 500 kDa. Aquazols® are solid at room temperature and dissolve in water, making clear solutions, and this is why Golden promotes them as being "better" than gum arabic and gum senegal because those polymers are slightly yellow and thus slightly mask some pigments - specifically purples can in theory look slightly duller owing to neutralisation of the colour BUT in practice, I'm not convinced it's really an issue given how microspically thin the layer of polymer is over the pigments when painting watercolour! Aquazols® mostly find their uses for adhering metal gilt and for use as general adhesives in fine art restoration as they don't produce acid over time - and have been used this way for well over 10 years - long before Golden got hold of them.

Whilst I've not yet done a side-by-side road test for this, I have done a "first look" video of the QoR watercolours and swatched out this set:

Schmincke Horadam 12-half-pan Palette Review (Part 1)

Coming tonight (for me anyway - Wed 15th February 2017, 2100h GMT, 1600h EST, 1500h CST, 1300h PST; Thu 16th February 2017, 0500h AWST, 0800h AEDT), is the first instalment of my review of the Schmincke Horadam 12-half-pan set - once it goes live I'll link it from this post. This set is BEAUTIFUL and has exceptional flow and wets SO easily. They are poured pans, not extruded, and look so pretty once they are all unwrapped - well, you'll see for yourself in the video I guess! Schmincke are a high-end German watercolour house and make stunning products with an exceptional range of colours. Whilst I normally prefer tube paints, I was pleased to try these in half-pans because The Frugal Crafter has recently reviewed the tube versions, so we each got to experience something a little different. This set has already migrated into my work bag with some watercolour postcards in case I catch a good sunset on my way home, so I can really road-test them before my Part 2 review in a few weeks, which will explore how they stand-up next to other brands and little tricks I've learned with them and so on.

The 12-half-pan set contains the basic colours you really need for en plein air in most any location - a cool and a warm of each yellow, red, blue and green, a yellow earth, a red earth, a brown and a black - and they are: Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Light, Permanent Carmine, Cadmium Red Light, Prussian Blue, Finest Ultramarine, Phthalo Green, Permanent Green Olive, Yellow Ochre, English-Venetian Red, Sepia and Ivory Black. All are single-pigment pace the Permanent Green Olive (2 pigments) and the Sepia (3 pigments). You also get a Size 5 Round Da Vinci travel brush, which is pretty decent.

If you want to buy this set, you can do so from:
Amazon USA: US$191.31
Amazon UK: £59.76 £54.01 
Amazon Canada: CDN$170.92 CND$142.96
DickBlick.com: U$227.55 US$155.59 [NB: this is the set of full pans, not half pans, which means this is one KILLER deal - not only 31% off of the list-price but even cheaper than the half pan set usually is and TWICE the amount of paint!]
Jackson's Art Supplies: £63.19 £55.00 £49.50 [as well as their normal amazing rate, they have an extra 15% off of Schmincke Horadam products right now!]

If the above is a little out of your price range, they have a near-identical student set (Schmincke Akademie) with a lower pigment load, effectively, which is much more economical. I have not tried this set, but if you want me to, please leave a comment and I'll look into it, but I thought I would link in here for those who like the paints but want a more economical option:
Amazon USA: US$69.99
Amazon UK: £30.86
Amazon Canada: N/A
DickBlick.com: N/A
Jackson's Art Supplies: N/A

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!

Prima Watercolor Confections: Shimmering Lights set

I've finally uploaded my review of this set! As I say in the video, if you want to know the names for the colours in the whole series now that they all have a name and a number - you can find out here.

If you want to buy these sets in the USA, Canada or UK you can do so using these links and I'll get back a small fraction of Amazon's proceeds (but you don't pay a penny more than you would normally). All these proceeds get reinvested in my channel and I don't take a person profit at the moment. 

BUY SHIMMERING LIGHTS FROM AMAZON UK for £25.98.

BUY SHIMMERING LIGHTS FROM AMAZON USA for US$23.98 - this is where I got mine as they delivered to the UK. The raw price IS cheaper than from Amazon UK, BUT the delivery and customs fee could easily be $10 to the UK, but it was more economical for me as there were other items in the same order.

BUY SHIMMERING LIGHTS FROM AMAZON CANADA for Can$45.54.

If you're interested in the PASTEL DREAMS, TROPICALS or DECADENT PIES sets, you can find the information on the former in this post, which links to information on the latter two sets.

Jane Davenport Petite Palettes watercolours

I've expanded on my reviews of the BRIGHTS and NEUTRALS sets with a video over on my youtube channel - this waxes lyrical a bit more and cross references other videos by myself and other youtubers that you may find useful if you're interested in these paint sets.

Jane Davenport Petite Palette Watercolours - a pigment analysis - PART TWO

This is the second part of my analysis - Part One covers the "BRIGHTS" set, this covers the "NEUTRALS" set. It also explains the lightfastness ratings and so on that I am using here.

NEUTRALS
This set...


"MANGO"
PY83 Diarylide Yellow HR - this pigment has several subforms which can be of varying degrees of opacity but a lightfastness of II to III (poor). It's a very warm yellow but can darken in bright light, especially when applied thickly. It's most commonly found in mid-range watercolours, in "Cadmium Yellow" hues, and in Old Holland paints as Scheveningen Yellow Deep.

"APPLE"
PR112 Naphthol Red AS-D - this is found in various hues of Cadmium Red used in student paints, and in various Naphthol Red paints. It is fairly opaque and a very intense, very warm red with a strong yellow tinge. Whilst it has a lightfastness of "I" (Excellent), it can dull with age, which is why, presumably, it doesn't appear in that many professional watercolours.
PR170 Naphthol  Red AS - this is very similarly named to the above and not as lightfast - a rating of II or III (moderate to poor), with it darkening on exposure to light, longer term. There are a few subforms, ranging from yellow-ish reds to blue-ish reds and looking at the warm tone of "APPLE", I would suspect this is one of the former. It is moderately opaque and found in Cadmium Red hues in student watercolours and in Naphthol Red acrylic paints. It's not that commonly found in watercolours of the professional manner.

"BLUEBERRY"
PB29 Ultramarine - ah, old faithful. You know where you are with this lightfast ("I", excellent), granulating, opaque blue pigment, found in everything from student to professional paints. This paint is quite simply the same as Ultramarine Blue in any other line really - but from the limited use I've seen of "BLUEBERRY", it may have extenders as it looks a bit impure - they are added to bulk it out and make it go further - very common practice in student watercolours.

"DOVE"
This is a convenience mix of a white (the same white as in "UNICORN", below), a black (the same black as in "RAVEN", below) and a blue (the same blue as in "BLUEBERRY", above) - so a redundant convenience mix. If you're new to watercolour you should really avoid such mixes and learn to mix for yourself until you really feel confident, but this paint is probably really intended for art journallers and so on who don't want to mix paints, they want to slap them on the page directly, and for that, this is probably going to give a beautiful soft grey with an interesting granulation.
PW6 Titanium White - this is a strongly opaque, lightfast (Rated "I", Excellent) and pure white, which will cover most surfaces well. You will find a Titanium White in pretty much every professional paint line on the market, it's such a standard colour, especially in oils and acrylics - obviously in watercolour we don't tend to use white paint.
PBk9 Bone Black - this is one of several blacks found in all professional paint lines (along with Lamp Black and Mars Black), each of which is a little bit different. Bone Black is opaque and has a lightfastness of "I" (Excellent) and has a useful brown undertone. The pigment particles are quite heavy and it will granulate which can make it useful in mixtures. 
PB29 Ultramarine - ah, old faithful. You know where you are with this lightfast ("I", excellent), granulating, opaque blue pigment, found in everything from student to professional paints. This paint is quite simply the same as Ultramarine Blue in any other line really - but from the limited use I've seen of "BLUEBERRY", it may have extenders as it looks a bit impure - they are added to bulk it out and make it go further - very common practice in student watercolours.

"UNICORN"
PW6 Titanium White - this is a strongly opaque, lightfast (Rated "I", Excellent) and pure white, which will cover most surfaces well. You will find a Titanium White in pretty much every professional paint line on the market, it's such a standard colour, especially in oils and acrylics - obviously in watercolour we don't tend to use white paint.

"RAVEN"
PBk9 Bone Black - this is one of several blacks found in all professional paint lines (along with Lamp Black and Mars Black), each of which is a little bit different. Bone Black is opaque and has a lightfastness of "I" (Excellent) and has a useful brown undertone. The pigment particles are quite heavy and it will granulate which can make it useful in mixtures.

"VITAMIN C"
PO13 Benzidine Orange - ok this one is a slightly more unusual pigment used mostly in gouaches, not watercolours etc. The lightfastness is "II" (ok to moderate), but more like "III" if used very thinly, which is common in watercolour painting, hence why it is not found in professional watercolour paints. The opacity is pretty low. It is a bright and vivid reddish orange. Mostly used to tint plastics and rubbers rather than in art media. Sometimes used as a fabric dye or for printing on fabrics, more exactly.

"SAND"
This is duel pigment colour that is kind of a "poor man's Naples Yellow" in terms of how it looks.
PY6 Hansa Yellow 3G - this is a really, really cheap yellow dye that is a bright and clean yellow. It has a lightfastness of "III" (poor) and is not very opaque. Found in some gouaches as Permanent Yellow Deep but rarely used as the opacity is so low and the lightfastness not good, which means it's not suitable for gouache (for the former reason) and watercolour for the latter reason.
PY42 Yellow Iron Oxide - this is an old friend to all painters and colourists of any kind - this is Yellow Ochre and you will have seen it many times. It is an opaque and lightfast (rating "I", Excellent) pigment that gives good coverage and is cheap to produce so is not usually "cut" with too much of an extender.

"BUFF"
PY42 Yellow Iron Oxide - this is an old friend to all painters and colourists of any kind - this is Yellow Ochre and you will have seen it many times. It is an opaque and lightfast (rating "I", Excellent) pigment that gives good coverage and is cheap to produce so is not usually "cut" with too much of an extender.
PO13 Benzidine Orange - ok this one is a slightly more unusual pigment used mostly in gouaches, not watercolours etc. The lightfastness is "II" (ok to moderate), but more like "III" if used very thinly, which is common in watercolour painting, hence why it is not found in professional watercolour paints. The opacity is pretty low. It is a bright and vivid reddish orange. Mostly used to tint plastics and rubbers rather than in art media. Sometimes used as a fabric dye or for printing on fabrics, more exactly.
PW6 Titanium White - this is a strongly opaque, lightfast (Rated "I", Excellent) and pure white, which will cover most surfaces well. You will find a Titanium White in pretty much every professional paint line on the market, it's such a standard colour, especially in oils and acrylics - obviously in watercolour we don't tend to use white paint.

"SPICE"
PY42 Yellow Iron Oxide - this is an old friend to all painters and colourists of any kind - this is Yellow Ochre and you will have seen it many times. It is an opaque and lightfast (rating "I", Excellent) pigment that gives good coverage and is cheap to produce so is not usually "cut" with too much of an extender.
PB27 Prussian Blue - this is often thought to be fugitive but technically isn't - it will go brown in bright light but restores in the dark. It is a cool blue with a green undertone and granulates beautifully if a course grind. Very opaque. Lightfastness is usually rated I-III but note it does restore in the dark! Very commonly used in paints with names like Prussian Blue or mixed with alumina in Antwerp Blue.
PR101 Synthetic Red Iron Oxide - this is a very common pigment found in all manner of watercolour paints from cheap to professional and you will know it from paints like English Red, Indian Red, Venetian Red, Caput Mortuum, Burnt Sienna and so on (which differ in purity and grain size). It is fairly opaque and not fugitive at all - lightfastness rating is "I". Very common and low cost iron oxide pigment, nothing wrong with this being here.

"KISS KISS"
PR101 Synthetic Red Iron Oxide - this is a very common pigment found in all manner of watercolour paints from cheap to professional and you will know it from paints like English Red, Indian Red, Venetian Red, Caput Mortuum, Burnt Sienna and so on (which differ in purity and grain size). It is fairly opaque and not fugitive at all - lightfastness rating is "I". Very common and low cost iron oxide pigment, nothing wrong with this being here. This particular paint is probably most like Indian Red or Venetian Red from the small amounts of use I have seen thus far.

"COCOA"
PBk9 Bone Black - this is one of several blacks found in all professional paint lines (along with Lamp Black and Mars Black), each of which is a little bit different. Bone Black is opaque and has a lightfastness of "I" (Excellent) and has a useful brown undertone. The pigment particles are quite heavy and it will granulate which can make it useful in mixtures.
PR101 Synthetic Red Iron Oxide - this is a very common pigment found in all manner of watercolour paints from cheap to professional and you will know it from paints like English Red, Indian Red, Venetian Red, Caput Mortuum, Burnt Sienna and so on (which differ in purity and grain size). It is fairly opaque and not fugitive at all - lightfastness rating is "I". Very common and low cost iron oxide pigment, nothing wrong with this being here.
PY14 Diarylide Yellow AAOT - this is a quite greenish yellow with a moderate to low lightfastness (II - III) and low opacity, most commonly used in inks rather than in paints. Holbein is  the only major paint line I can see that uses it, in their Transparent Yellow oil paint - not in watercolour. I would expect dyes similar to this are the ones used in Copic and other alcohol markers.

Jane Davenport Petite Palette Watercolours - a pigment analysis - PART ONE

It's only been days since people started getting hellishly excited about Jane Davenport's new watercolour paints and I've already been asked over and over if I'm going to review them and what I think the pigments are like and so on. The incomparable Mrs Weirich, The Frugal Crafter, has done a lovely and thorough review of these paints and I honestly could not top it in terms of the amount of information and detail she has provided already, but, as soon as I can get them in the UK without paying through the nose for shipping, I will be reviewing them I promise!

What I will do now though is talk about the pigments for each paint and tell you options for the exact same pigment in other lines so you can make a better and more informed choice as to whether these have enough "new" to warrant investing in more supplies. There are two sets called BRIGHTS  and NEUTRALS and I'll tackle them in that order. The pigment information I've provided is for the raw, naked pigments NOT the finished paint - I just find that a more convenient way of comparing different lines. Every brand uses different ingredients in their binders etc, some of which afford photoprotection, some don't - so the finished paint can be more or less photostable than the pigments themselves. I will tackle the NEUTRALS set in another post tomorrow!

Lightfastness I have used I = amazing to IV = fugitive as my scale.

BRIGHTS
This is a set of 12 half-pans. The first thing you'll notice is that there are really 8 unique things and 4 you can mix from the other 8 or by diluting one of them. Nothing wrong with having 4 convenience-mixes in the set but worth thinking about if those 8 add much new to your suite of supplies - e.g. if you have all 8 already - particularly in a professional fine-art line, you might want to spend a bit more time weighing up the pros and cons with yourself. I ain't gonna tell you not to buy something (have you SEEN my haul videos?!) but I do think you should always make an informed choice. Oh to Hell with it - the packaging is just too cute - BUY IT!

REMEMBER the point of these (and any!) paints is to have fun! They are aimed at the mixed media market for art journaling, not for fin art. They are going to be used in paintings kept shut away in art journals or used in ephemeral items like cards - thus their lightfastness doesn't really matter all that much to many users.

"Buzzy" 
PY14 Diarylide Yellow AAOT - this is a cool yellow (greenish) oftentimes found in inks rather than paints. No professional watercolours use this pigment that I can find. Lightfastness is II to III, so pretty fugitive. It is fairly transparent. 

"Ladybug"
PR57:1 Lithol Rubine - this is a common dye used in lipsticks and in foodstuffs and thus appears in paints intended to be childsafe - it's not common in fine art supplies, however. Maimeri Red Devil (oil) is one of few paints to use it that is widely available. It is a magenta-ish mid-red with a violet undertone - so a very cool red overall, and fairly transparent. It has a lightfastness rating of III, so pretty fugitive. No mainstream professional watercolours use this pigment.

"Butterfly" 
PB15:3 Phthalocyanine Blue BGS - this is a cool blue with a greenish tone that is more obvious when applied more dilute. Very common in blue paints of all grades. Very transparent and lightfastness rating of I (Excellent). You will know it from professional paints with names like Phthalo Blue Green Shade or Winsor Blue (Green Shade). Strongly staining.

"70s Eye Shadow" 
A duel-pigment paint you could get by mixing "Butterfly" and "Mermaid" together:
PB15:3 Phthalocyanine Blue BGS - this is a cool blue with a greenish tone that is more obvious when applied more dilute. Very common in blue paints of all grades. Very transparent and lightfastness rating of I (Excellent). You will know it from professional paints with names like Phthalo Blue Green Shade or Winsor Blue (Green Shade). Strongly staining.
PG7 Phthalocyanine Green BS - a very standard blueish green that is very strongly tinting. Strongly staining. Very common in green paints of all grades. Very transparent and lightfastness rating of I (Excellent). You will know it from professional paints with names like Phthalo Green Blue Shade or Winsor Green (Blue Shade). Strongly staining. 

"Mermaid" 
PG7 Phthalocyanine Green BS - a very standard blueish green that is very strongly tinting. Strongly staining. Very common in green paints of all grades. Very transparent and lightfastness rating of I (Excellent). You will know it from professional paints with names like Phthalo Green Blue Shade or Winsor Green (Blue Shade). Strongly staining. 

"Jimminy" 
A duel-pigment paint you could get from mixing "Buzzy" and "Mermaid" together:
PY14 Diarylide Yellow AAOT - this is a cool yellow (greenish) oftentimes found in inks rather than paints. No professional watercolours use this pigment that I can find. Lightfastness is II to III, so pretty fugitive. It is fairly transparent. 
PG7 Phthalocyanine Green BS - a very standard blueish green that is very strongly tinting. Strongly staining. Very common in green paints of all grades. Very transparent and lightfastness rating of I (Excellent). You will know it from professional paints with names like Phthalo Green Blue Shade or Winsor Green (Blue Shade). Strongly staining.

"Best Friend" 
PR81 Rhodamine 6G - this is a fluorescent cool red that is part of the Rhodamine dye family, one of which - Rhodamine B aka BV10 - is added to Opera Rose to give it the neon pink undertone. Rhodamine 6G is not commonly used in paints and has a lightfastness of III so pretty fugitive and it is also pretty transparent too. No mainstream professional watercolours use this pigment.

"Fairytale" 
PR81 Rhodamine 6G - this is a fluorescent cool red that is part of the Rhodamine dye family, one of which - Rhodamine B aka BV10 - is added to Opera Rose to give it the neon pink undertone. Rhodamine 6G is not commonly used in paints and has a lightfastness of III so pretty fugitive and it is also pretty transparent too. No mainstream professional watercolours use this pigment.

"Frida" 
PR170 Naphthol Red AS - this is a warm red that fades to a cool red with exposure to light. It has a lightfastness of III so pretty fugitive. It is most commonly found in student paints as a "Cadmium Red (Hue)" but mostly in acrylic and not that common in watercolours. You won't find any mainstream professional watercolours that uses this pigment. It is moderately opaque when applied in an acrylic base - I suspect it would be more transparent in watercolour which is why it is not used widely.

"Mystic" 
PB81 Cobalt Tin Alumina Blue Spinel - this is similar but not the same as Cobalt Blue (PB28). It is rarely used and not found in any professional watercolour that I can find. It is probably intended as a cheaper alternative to PB28. There is no information on lightfastness but I would estimate II based on the chemistry of it and would suspect strong opacity.
PV23 Dioxazine Violet - this is a very common deep purple pigment found in many watercolours like Dioxazine Violet or Winsor Purple for example. It is not a cheap pigment to produce so in cheaper paints is often "cut" with cheaper pigments like quinacridones (which would be declared, if present). Lightfastness is III or IV - it does fade in strong light. It is moderately transparent and very strongly staining.

"Royal" 
PV23 Dioxazine Violet - this is a very common deep purple pigment found in many watercolours like Dioxazine Violet or Winsor Purple for example. It is not a cheap pigment to produce so in cheaper paints is often "cut" with cheaper pigments like quinacridones (which would be declared, if present). Lightfastness is III or IV - it does fade in strong light. It is moderately transparent and very strongly staining.

"Ink" 
This is a triple pigment paint and many Indigo paints have similar compositions.
PB27 Prussian Blue - this is often thought to be fugitive but technically isn't - it will go brown in bright light but restores in the dark. It is a cool blue with a green undertone and granulates beautifully if a course grind. Very opaque. Lightfastness is usually rated I-III but note it does restore in the dark! Very commonly used in paints with names like Prussian Blue or mixed with alumina in Antwerp Blue.
PBk9 Bone Black - this is a fairly transparent, lightfastness "I" (Excellent) black pigment found in all manner of black paints, usually named Bone Black or Ivory Black (Hue). Granulates beautifully and has often got a brown undertone.
PR101 Synthetic Red Iron Oxide - this is a very common pigment found in all manner of watercolour paints from cheap to professional and you will know it from paints like English Red, Indian Red, Venetian Red, Caput Mortuum, Burnt Sienna and so on (which differ in purity and grain size). It is fairly opaque and not fugitive at all - lightfastness rating is "I". Very common and low cost iron oxide pigment, nothing wrong with this being here.

Prima Watercolours - Haul-To-Come-Soon!

I have just seen that the Prima Watercolor Confections are on some amazing deals at the moment and I've subsequently ordered the "Tropicals" and the "Decadent Pies" palettes! They are reduced on Amazon UK from £48.60 (which seems a lot, given the quality) to £14.13 - which is probably less than the price of the metal palettes, so well worth it for that alone. Lindsay The Frugal Crafter has done pretty cool reviews of these paints and I'll be reviewing them once here too - I'm mostly curious about the quality but I really just wanted a couple of cheap palettes!

You can buy them online if you want to take advantage of the current discounts!
From Amazon UK
(discounted from £48.60 to £14.13 per palette at the time of writing!)
From Amazon USA
(discounted from $25.00 to $23.34 per palette at the moment)

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.

Product Review: Sennelier Abstract Acrylic Paints

My local art stores only stock Daler and Rowney (which I like CRYLA and System 3 ranges of) and Pip Seymour (which I dislike - they have a nice range of earth colours but I dislike the almost jelly-like texture some of the colours have) acrylic paints - so when the local big-box store started selling Sennelier Abstract Acrylic Paints, I was intrigued. None of the colours were ones I really needed, but I don't have a neutral gold so I picked up a pack of 028 Iridescent Gold for a mere £2.00 - it was on sale and is normally £4.00 there, and on Amazon UK it is £7.63, so this was a pretty good saving! When I got to the checkout, I was given a tiny pack of 385 Primary Blue for free as a sample. When I did my test comparisons below, I had assumed this would be either a Process Blue (i.e. Cyan) or a neutral blue, like a Cobalt Blue (Hue) - so I used the latter (System 3) for comparison. When I read the package and realised it was a Phthalo Blue (PB15:3 Phthalocyanine Blue BGS), I thought that calling it "Primary Blue" was a bit stupid - every painter the world over knows Phthalo Blue would be called Phthalo Blue, right? I don't get why they didn't use the normal name. I used System 3 707 Rich Gold as the comparison for the Iridescent Gold as it was the only gold I had to hand.

Sennelier Abstract are sold in pouches rather than tubes and come in at 120mL (4 US fl. oz.; 4.2 UK fl. oz.) - so let's normalise that to a current Amazon UK price of £6.36/100mL. In comparison, System 3 707 Rich Gold is £5.52 for 150mL (5 US fl. oz.; 5.3 UK fl. oz.), which normalises to £4.60/100mL. CRYLA 707 Rich Gold is £9.25/75mL (2.5 US fl. oz.; 2.2 UK fl. oz.), which normalises to £12.33/100mL:

Normalised prices:
Sennelier Abstract 028 Iridescent Gold = £6.36/100mL.
Daler & Rowney System 3 707 Rich Gold = £4.60/100mL.
Daler & Rowney CRYLA 707 Rich Gold = £12.33/100mL.

That puts Sennelier Absract halfway between the two in terms of price. The paint coming in pouches intrigued me - not as easy to store as tubes I guess. The paint is marketed as a "heavy body" paint but to be honest, even just feeling it through the packaging, it's really not - it's a little heavier than System 3 Standard Body but nowhere near as thick as the Heavy Body or CRYLA versions.

So how do they look? I painted them onto Daler & Rowney System 3 Acrylic Paper with a dry Simply Golden Taklon 1" flat wash (one of my favourite ranges of acrylic brushes even though they are the cheapest things around!) to see how they came out. The advertised properties of the four paints are:

Sennelier Abstract 028 Iridescent Gold - PY3 + PBk7 (Hansa Yellow 10G + Lamp Black) on mica, lightfastness n.r. (not listed), transparent.
Daler & Rowney System 3 707 Rich Gold - PW6 + PR101 (Titanium White + Synthetic Iron Oxide Red) on mica, lightfastness ***, transparent.

Sennelier Abstract 385 Primary Blue - PB15:3 (Phthalocyanine Blue BGS). Lightfastness ***, semi-transparent.
Daler & Rowney System 3 110 Cobalt Blue (Hue) - PW6 + PB29 (Titanium White + Ultramarine Blue), lightfastness ***, opaque.

Top to bottom: Sennelier Abstract in Primary Blue and Iridescent Gold then Daler & Rowney System 3 in Cobalt Blue and Rich Gold.

So, my verdict on them. Firstly, the body really is not heavy body - they're very liquid and actually reminded me of Daler & Rowney Graduate Acrylic in that regard. The colour intensity is quite good and in the image above, I applied roughly equal blobs of each of the 4 paints - you can see the two blues have a similar pigment load, but the golds are a bit different - the Sennelier gold has clear patches of paper showing through - but the Daler & Rowney gold doesn't.

A close-up of Sennelier 028 Iridescent Gold - you can see clear patchiness where the pigment load just isn't as good and the tooth of the paper really shows through. It's advertised as being a transparent colour, so I would expect that to some degree, but not patchiness - that's not acceptable. The sparkle was pretty much as one would expect and the colour a nice neutral gold - I have no negatives I can say in those regards.

And now Sennelier 385 Primary Blue - the coverage is better here but it does seem thin in a few places - for a semi-transparent colour, that's kind of usual but I did feel it just didn't want to go as far on the page as the System 3 colours did.

Here is the Daler & Rowney System 3 707 Rich Gold (Imitation) for comparison - you can see much better coverage and even in a standard-body paint, there are clear brushmarks - a heavy-body paint should show those, which shows how totally not a heavy-body paint the Sennelier ones are. The coverage is good and even - there is no patchiness and whilst the texture of the tooth shows through, you can't physically see bare tooth.

And Daler & Rowney System 3 110 Cobalt Blue (Hue) - this still shows brush-marks like the above even though it's standard-body - there's a bit of thin, patchiness at the top left - where the tooth does show through - this is an opaque colour so it does fall down a bit on that regard but I think this is more a symptom of my brushwork as I threw this one down last of the 4 before getting something to eat!

Sennelier Abstract Heavy-Body Acrylic Paints

Packaging:

Looks: *******--- 7/10
Recyclableness: Not Known
Readability: ********** 10/10
Ease of use: ********** 10/10

Product:
Quality: ******---- 6/10 (it was pretty good in terms of the colours themselves and the pigments used, but as it wasn't heavy-body, I felt this was totally misleading - the patchy nature of the application compared to System 3 really let this paint down, too)
Value for Money: *****----- 5/10 There are better quality, true heavy-body acrylic paints with similar grade pigments available at a lower price - therefore I cannot consider this good value and the outright lie re: being heavy-body is not good at all.

OVERALL RATING: 4/10

Product Review: IK Multimedia iKlip Grip 4-in-1

I've gotten SO sick of having to record wonky review videos and so on where I just can't get a good overhead angle. My current set-up is a pretty amateur one - ok the hardware and software a good - an iPhone 6 Plus with FiLMiC Pro, with editing in post done using Adobe Premiere Elements 14 - but the accessories suck - a Gorilla Pod tripod with a ShoulderPod S1 clip to hold the phone. It's just not enough to get a good overhead view. So, today I went tripod hunting and I picked up an IK Multimedia iKlip Grip 4-in-1 from my local Apple store. It's one of those god-awful selfie-sticks monopods, which can also act as a mini tripod and a tall tripod some manner of extension for a traditional tripod. Whatever, it's the tall skinny tripod option I'm out for!

As always with these silly trendy products, it comes in stupidly over-engineered packaging, with hipster-friendly instructions, the obligatory pointless mini-catalogue of the rest of the product range and a daft bit of paper with QR codes on. Said bits of paper were useful in that they gave me a registration code to register my device or a QR code to use that would enter the aforementioned code into the registration website for me - that's a really nice feature and is really helpful to disabled people who struggle to type or can't remember numbers. There was a link to download "free apps" or similar too, but the only actually free one was for a microphone product they also sell - all the rest were very costly and none relevant to this item.

The instructions were illustrative and it was very easy to put together - in fact, no instructions were needed, no way, no how. It wasn't that good in practice - in that I wanted it solely for the "tall thing tripod" mode of operation, and that, when combined with the camera/phone clip supplied and an iPhone 6 Plus is very, very top-heavy. A clear design flaw in that the legs of the tripod part should be weighted! Any camera could easily topple this when used on the highest setting if you're trying to angle it downwards, to view the desktop, as I plan to.

There is a BlueTooth remote supplied with button "A" for iPhone and "B" for Android (each button does other stuff too) - reminded me of very old telephone boxes - this was very easy to use and I had no issues with it whatsoever. It operates the shutter when your iPhone is in "Camera" mode and operates "Record On/Off" when it is in "Video" mode - it has no functionality within apps such as FiLMiC Pro, however, which is a shame as they're probably more commonly used that the default apps nowadays.

Packaging:
Looks: *******--- 7/10
Recyclableness: ********** 10/10
Readability: ********** 10/10

Instructions:
Clear English: n/a - entirely illustrated
Ease of use: ********-- 8/10

Product:
Usefulness: ****------ 4/10 (as only half the functionality is what I need, the rest is daft and wasted and weighted legs would really help)
Robustness: ********-- 8/10 It's mostly plastic, but pretty strong.
Value for Money: ****------ 4/10 No way does 2 feet of plastic cost £50.

OVERALL RATING: 6/10