Jonathan Edwards
Beautiful set! Layers well and easy to use. Not only for beginners!
My husband bought this for me, hence his account, as I wanted to enter a show that had a fantasy theme. I was looking for metallic or glitter/shiny watercolors to use. I read a good review regarding this from Doodlewash, so I ventured to trying it as the price points is great for the number of colors I can use. The colors were beautiful when I opened the box and I was quite excited to use them. I swatched the paint and I was happy that there were many options on the gold/yellow as that is what I really needed and what I use often. I realized that they were easy to use as the paint loaded on the paint brush quickly. Some colors were separating that made a beautiful granulation effect. Which is so pretty as backgrounds for mystical or fantasy painting. The image I painted which I included here, the base is painted with Sennelier watercolor and to add the magical effects, I added the metallic and glitter paints on top of it. There are no names for each color, but there are numbers on it to identify the colors, which was mentioned in the review I read from Doodlewash. I used regular watercolor again on top of the Paul Reubens metallic watercolor, to create shadows. These paints are so good for layering! I have tried some handmade watercolors that when you layered with it, all the shimmer gets lost. The effects are hard to take on photos, that is why I am including a video, so you can see it. My artwork has some gilding too, but you can tell the difference of gilding from the watercolor. I mostly used dry brush except when I applied the final layer of the glitter white/silver, where I used the wet on wet technique, so the shine can flow thinly, you can see how sheer it can get. Some paints are staining, similar to those colors on regular watercolor, staining means the color stays on the paper even after lifting with tissue or a dry brush, which creates a beautiful base when you are trying to adjust the light and darkness of your work. I hope this will be helpful!