Hi everybody!
Here's my review of the Arteza Premium Watercolours (60) which I mentioned in my previous blog. As you may or may not know Arteza were generous enough to send me some of their products to review and included the 60-piece watercolour set from their premium range. This is basically all the colours they have, available in one box. Each tube contains 12 ml of paint, which I can say is quite generous for a price of $38.99/£39.99, working to about $0.65/£0.67 per tube. Looking at the colour range, I feel it is broad enough but I would love to see more shades of grey and black.
Using the watercolours, I made a colour chart (using their own watercolour paper) and I have to say I was impressed. Aside from some of the brown shades, most of the colours were smooth and vibrant. The brown shades I had issues with were Burnt Umber, Raw Umber and Sepia which felt muted and chalky. A general observation of the colours is that they are more opaque than I expected them to be, especially for a student-grade paint.
I also made a couple of illustrations using the watercolours. In the first illustration, I used Cassart's hot pressed 140 lb (300 gsm) paper and on the second one I used Arteza's own watercolour paper which they also provided.
In the first illustration, most of the paint I used was from the palette which had dried from when I made the colour swatches the previous day. I noticed that most of the dried paint looked grainy and some had formed cracks and separations on the palette. However, once reactivated with water, most have worked quite well, maintaining their vibrancy and smoothness. Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber and Crimson Red, in particular, were quite difficult to reactivate as they had become less smooth. I found them hard to mix with other colours as well. I also noticed that most of the colours are easily lifted from the paper when dry.
For the second illustration, I used Arteza’s own paper, with most of the paint fresh from the tube. I found it smoother and easier to use and I didn't encounter any mixing issues. I used Apricot for the background and Peach for the pig. They were quite lovely to paint with, they were smooth and vibrant. I also love their range of green shades which I used on the grassy and leafy areas of the illustration. For the leaves on either side of the pig I wanted to use a very pale shade of green (Sage Green) but I wasn't sure if it would show nicely when painted over the Apricot background, but it worked out quite well.
In conclusion, I think that these paints are a good value for the price and quantity they offer. Here are my pros and cons for the watercolours:
Pros
- They are very vibrant and pigmented, except for a few brown shades.
- They are good value.
- A little goes a long way.
- They reactivate well when dried.
- I love that they have a lot of green and blue shades included in the set.
- They have lots of pastel colours in the set.
Cons
- The colours are quite opaque.
- Most colours are easily lifted when dry.
- The paints are currently only available in a set and cannot be purchased individually.
- Paints crack and separate when dry.
- Some browns are chalky and not as vibrant as I would like them to be.
- I would like to see more shades of black and greys in the set.
I hope you find this review helpful and if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to send me a message or comment below! Thanks for dropping by!
Have a lovely day!
Abbey
Interested in my other Arteza product reviews?
- click here for Arteza's Expert Watercolour Pad
- click here for Arteza's Expert Coloured pencils
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