Art Supplies and some Watercolor Paintings

Purchased a set of Winsor Newton (W&N) Artists Watercolors a few weeks ago. Is it just me but a lot of these watercolor sets seem to have a similar packaging? This one looks exactly like the Sennelier set I was looking at prior to my purchase, and I swear I saw a Schminke set that looked similar in a rectangular black metal box. Anyway, I'm seriously loving the rich vibrancy of these colors. I love my Daler Rowney Artist box but the W&N are a lot richer. And they're a lot more transparent than my Holbeins.

The only issue that I had with the set (aside from the watercolor pans sliding out of the slots!) was that the Prussian Blue I got was defective. It was incredibly pale and it took me 15 tries to get any hint of color.

 Defective Prussian Blue

When I checked the color chart and saw swatches of it online, the Prussian Blue was a deep blue that just popped out in the first wash- so there was something obviously wrong with the one in my set. Good thing the people at the store were willing to refill my half pan with the liquid version. The return policy just isn't as good here where I come from. I was hoping to be able to get the full tube since the price of the 15 (or was it the 5) ml is equivalent to that of the half pan.

The Real Prussian Blue

So I decided to practice with a few pieces I sourced from the Paint My Picture site; it's really a great site where people want to practice painting without any copyright issues. There's something very relaxing about doing still life and landscapes.

Painted this with my old Daler Rowney Watercolors. My old set has lasted me for more than 15 years, though the colors are not as vibrant as my W&N. Really love the way the scan turned out, although the red in the bird is a lot more orange than it should be.

Painted these with my old Holbeins. This is another set that has lasted me for awhile- I got them the same time as the Daler Rowneys. The Holbeins are a lot more opaque than the other watercolors I've tried- which can be either a hit or miss depending on what painting style you have or prefer. I know Miyazaki uses this brand and his stuff looks great.

The Viridian green isn't as strong as I would like (that's why the water lilies in the foreground appear more pale than the water) but this isn't a problem with the brand as it also appears to be pretty weak in the Daler Rowney and the W&N set. I think the W&N has the strongest of the Viridians but it's still a pretty weak color compared to other greens.

This one is my favorite of the bunch. I used the W&Ns for these. I used the cheapest paper for this. It's a miracle it could withstand all those washes. But I probably wouldn't use this paper again as it has a texture that can only work with still life. I think painting a person or a character could look ugly with this texture.