{"id":990,"date":"2015-03-25T01:19:23","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T17:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/?p=990"},"modified":"2015-03-25T18:06:34","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T10:06:34","slug":"comparing-watercolors-gansai-tambi-van-gogh-prang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/comparing-watercolors-gansai-tambi-van-gogh-prang\/","title":{"rendered":"Watercolor Tests: Gansai Tambi, Van Gogh and Prang"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last time<\/a>, I promised I would share\u00a0test watercolor illustrations I’ve done using my Kuretake Gansai Tambi paint set. Well it turns out I’ll be showing more than that because Arnold<\/a> surprised me with a\u00a024 half-pan set of Van Gogh watercolors which of course I couldn’t wait to try out too. <3 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

For consistency (and because I didn’t want to waste expensive paper \ud83d\ude25 )\u00a0I used an P88.00\u00a0Daiso \/ Saizen children’s waterolor pad for the studies. They turned out nicer than I expected but the paints will surely\u00a0look much\u00a0better on Canson, Arches and other artist-grade watercolor paper.<\/p>\n

1) Sample watercolor portrait rendered\u00a0using the \"\"Gansai Tambi – 36 half-pan set<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"kuretake-gansai-tambi-watercolors-test\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This set is\u00a0supposedly artist-grade. It\u00a0comes with metallic colors, are semi-moist, and can be used for both transparent and opaque (like gouache) executions.<\/p>\n

Some notes: I’m so used to Prang’s transparency that using this for the first time was a bit of a challenge because the colors are dense and rich\u00a0so\u00a0half the amount of layering I’m used to was necessary.\u00a0It also took me a while to figure out a\u00a0good\u00a0flesh tone\u00a0mix\u00a0because there were so many options for red, yellow, and orange. I guess these are all happy problems, ‘no? The variety of colors provides endless possibilities and I can imagine that these paints will last a long time since a little goes a long way. I also noticed that the colors remained vibrant even after the paint dried.<\/p>\n

The set is really big by the way which means it probably won’t be leaving the house with me. Or I could take individual pans I need\u00a0and put them\u00a0in a little tin to make a portable version… but that’s too much trouble,\u00a0and that’s what the next paint set is for.<\/p>\n

2) Sample watercolor portrait rendered\u00a0using a Van Gogh 24 half-pan set<\/a>\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"van-gogh-watercolors-test\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some sites like DickBlick have listed these paints as artist grade since they are\u00a0said to be\u00a0lightfast and archival but others have bunched it up with Cotman as high-quality student grade. (Apparently\u00a0Royal Talens uses the same pigments for these as they do in their artists range.) Since\u00a0I usually digitize my artworks I’m not sure if that matters. However, I was surprised with the brilliance of these paints, again compared to Prang and even the Gansai Tambi. The cakes aren’t as dense\u00a0as Gansai but the\u00a0colors are\u00a0just as intense and a little swipe with the brush goes a long way, \u00a0Transparent washes are easy to achieve and the colors remain vibrant even after the paint has dried. I also love how\u00a0watery\u00a0color puddles\u00a0form little pigment outlines once\u00a0dry.\u00a0\u00a0Oh! And if you draw people a lot, this palette already comes with “Naples Yellow Red” which is a perfect flesh tone base.\u00a0Love, love, love Van Gogh. <3<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0 Sample watercolor portrait rendered\u00a0using\u00a0a 16-color Prang watercolor set<\/p>\n

Ahh but I still do love Prang. It’s very affordable, it produces beautifully\u00a0transparent washes, and is\u00a0fantastic\u00a0for layering. I’ve been using the brand since high school and this one below is already my third set. They last a long time with me since I tend to use a lot of water. \ud83d\ude09\u00a0Just to compare, here are recent watercolor portraits I’ve made with Prang.<\/p>\n

\"prang-watercolors-test\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These illustrations were drawn on high quality 180 gsm Arches paper just last week but here’s where we can see the difference\u00a0between\u00a0student and artist grade paints. Obviously Prang’s colors don’t retain their brightness as well as Gansai Tambi and Van Gogh. If I’m going to scan the\u00a0artworks\u00a0anyway, Prang should be okay, but for\u00a0portraits that will be displayed in brightly-lit conditions, it seems I’ll have to go with the more fade-resistant paints.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

…Wait, there’s\u00a0more! Actually, Arnold also gave me this Bienfang Watercolor Brush Pens<\/a>\"\"\u00a0set\u00a0(he really<\/em> wants me to keep painting, doesn’t he? \ud83d\ude06 ) which I’m having a hard time getting used to because of the intensity of the inks. I think it’s best for more comicky-looking illustrations, like below.<\/p>\n

\"bienfang-waterbrush-markers-test\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Not sure if you can tell but I had a difficult time rendering her blouse\u00a0and neck.\u00a0\ud83d\ude33 I’ll post more work using these pens soon.<\/p>\n

Hope you enjoyed this watercolor comparison and review of sorts. What are your favorite watercolor brands? Do leave a comment to share your faves!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last time, I promised I would share\u00a0test watercolor illustrations I’ve done using my Kuretake Gansai Tambi paint set. Well it turns out I’ll be showing more than that because Arnold surprised me with a\u00a024 half-pan set of Van Gogh watercolors which of course I couldn’t wait to try out too. <3 \ud83d\ude42 For consistency (and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[60,33,65],"class_list":["post-990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-and-design","tag-custom-portraits","tag-watercolor","tag-watercolors"],"views":13797,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":997,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions\/997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bauzon.ph\/cynthia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}