Long time no see! I’ve been away on a business trip for two weeks but now that I’m back, it’s back to the painting board! (Ha! See what I did there? Um…nevermind…)
It’s time to review some paints I saw on a random Youtube review ages ago. I’ve been staring and fondling the idea of getting the monthly subscription to the SketchBox monthly art subscription service but after much debate decided against it. The idea here is to get rid of stuff…or at least use the product until I’ve used it all up. But I did enjoy the idea of actually being introduced to new art products. So, instead of paying the monthly fee and adding more beautiful crap to my life, I decided to watch a few videos on some on the monthly boxes on Youtube. I came across one particular one where someone was reviewing the Gansai Tambi Kuretake Starry Colors watercolor paints. I’ve never heard of this Japaense based art company before and I was mesmerized. Ok, I am a whore for anything glittery, but there was much more to this paint than the fact it was gold and had a metallic sheen to it. Just by watching the one video, you could tell immediatly that this watercolor paint was high in quality and created a depth of color that watercolor sometimes do not exhibit. Needlessly, the little magpie on my shoulder told me I needed to buy it.
One thing about these paints though, they are not cheap. I reserached several different online art stores that sold them and finally set on purchasing them from Blitsy.com for $17.99. I died a little though when I realized I was purchasing this set of paint for this amount for only 6 colors, but in the end, I decided that it was a good investment and I went for it.
The Gansai Tambi Kuretake paints are sold in various sets. You can purchase a set of 36 paints for $50 and smaller sets for smaller amounts. They have another “mettalic” set of pearescents pastels but this particular set seems to be more popular.
Using Strathmore Watercolor cold press paper, I drew 2″ squares. Looking at other watercolor reviews, many people like to create a long line of paint from concentrated to the lightest shade with mostly water to test and show the different aspects of the paint but I prefer to test my colors out in one bold square to get the richness of the paint. Why? Dunno, just do.
The paint pans come in a small rectangular box with a slide out tray. The back details the numbers of the colors in the paint series and gives some instructions in several languages. The coolest part of this box is the fact you can pull out the tray and pull out the little plastic paint trays.
The inside of the tray and the back of the smaller trays have the number listed so you can’t loose or misplace the colors.
One thing one reviewer mentioned about this particular paint is that it is easy to use, which I completely agree on. You still maintain the quality that you need to be successful in using watercolors but it still is easy to use to get the color you want.
The paints do have the usual qualities of watercolor and the transparency so if you want a more intense shade then you want to paint several layers to achieve that. If you want to achieve that lighter shade, the paints will definitely allow you to do that.
Another positive quality that I particularly enjoy is that the paint dries quickly and with a nice sheen. You normally don’t have a nice soft sheen on the finish of watercolors when they dry but this paint does have that.
Colors included in this set are the following; No. 901 Blue Gold, No. 902 Red Gold, No. 903 Yellow Gold, No. 904 Champagne Gold, No. 905 Light Gold, and No. 906 White Gold.
Overall, I recommend this brand of paint. It’s easy to use, the quality of the paint is high, and the colors are beautiful. I’m looking forward to purchasing more colors of paint in the future.
If you are interested in this particular brand, I recommend looking at their website, www.kuretake.co.jp. If you have any comments, positive or negative, please let me know. I am very interested in learning more about this paint as I have never heard about this watercolor before while in Art school; I would have like to use this particular paint when I was rendering on a regular basis.
This is where I purchased my set of Starry Color watercolor; https://blitsy.com/product/935257/kuretake-gansai-tambi-watercolor-starry-colors-set-of-6-2417/935257
Enjoy painting!
Disclaimer: I have not received any money or any other payment for recommending this brand of watercolor. It’s just really neat and I wanted to share with the world!
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