Thursday Art Walk

In Which I Review A Palette!

 Christmas saw me getting a lot (and I mean a lot) of pajamas, but also some other fun stuff, including a very cool blue sweater and a gift card to a local bookstore from my younger sibling! It has taken me until now to use that gift card, and here is what I got:

The Peter Pauper Press Studio Series Watercolor Field Kit
With 48 Brilliant Colors!

This kit fits in my purse, is easy to carry, is relatively strong plastic, opens easily, and does in fact contain everything advertised (mixing palette, 48 colors, aqua brush, sturdy case, and a sponge). It has a foldable loop on the bottom for easy balancing in one hand.

The mixing palette lifts out on pegs!

Those are some fresh paints lol

A clearer view of the paints

A Swatch using both paints & brush!

So let's talk contents. 

The palette is a palette. There's not a ton to talk about with it - it works and it's pretty decent!

The sponge is a tiny sponge, and I don't hold much hope for its long-term survival, nor am I 100% certain what the sponges are used for, since I usually travel with tissues that I use for cleanup.

The brush... the brush is weird. I've used water brushes before, but they're usually as easy to fill as "unscrew brush from handle, pour water into handle, screw back together, voila". This one is... weird. It has a little black thingy over the opening in the handle when you unscrew it, and that prevents you from just filling it from the tap like the other water brushes I have. It's also very short, so it doesn't hold very much water when you do fill it, which you do by holding it underwater, squeezing the air out of it, and letting the water fill it up. The whole time, you've got your hand underwater and cold and it feels like you're going to break the brush handle. All in all, the worst water brush I've ever used, filling-wise. Actually using it is great, though. It seems to have a more consistent flow than other brushes. I'd say it evens out, frustration in filling vs ease of use.

As for the paints, they're pretty! They're very nice, and they go on very smooth! They do smell... bandaid-y, though. That's odd, but not too unusual for watercolors lol. I think they just contain a lot of gum arabic. No idea about their lightfastness, but since this is a travel set, rather than a proper in-studio set of paints, I'm gonna say they'd be ideal for watercolor sketching rather than permanent art. I will also say that some of the colors are water-hogs. That second lavender on the 4th row down especially soaks up water when you dampen the pans and it ends up not looking like any of the paint reconstituted. Don't believe its lies, it's perfectly fine, it just doesn't swell lol.

The pans after the first wetting/use, also the brush.

One last note on that weird lil water brush: it stains just the same as all the other nylon-tipped water brushes I've used lol. Does anyone else have that problem? It doesn't spread the color, it just completely stains!

But as we all know, the real test of a watercolor kit isn't what it looks like or smells like in a box or on swatches, it's what it looks like when you use it! And here we see my first use of this kit:

"Sketching With Dedbert"; PPP watercolor on watercolor paper with Micron ink; 2022

I think that with a more robust brush, this paint will be fantastic even at home, and on the go I usually have at least 3 brushes on-hand at any given time just bc I'm paranoid about running out of water (a real concern with the weird filling-method on this new one!). I did forget to erase the pencil lines, so sorry about that! But this was a lot of fun, and it's given me ideas on what else to do with my future art!

And that about covers today's art adventure! My conclusion is this: this kit is worth the $20 I spent on it and I encourage anyone on the fence as to whether or not to pick up a Peter Pauper Press field kit to go for it!

Don't forget to Go Enjoy Something!!!