Pretty Excellent is still a lovely set for learning watercolor techniques. I love that it's so affordable I can practice in a sketchbook without feeling like I'm wasting my more expensive paints. However, I was really disappointed to see the company mislead artists with incorrect lightfast ratings. They added fluorescent dyes to some colors, which are always fugitive, yet gave those colors max lightfast ratings :(
Pigment databases are the unsung heroes in the watercolor world keep up the good work! I’m lowkey jealous of all the beginner options ppl have now compared to when I started. I might get this for journaling once I run through my other student grade paints
I bought this set in March and as a beginner I'm happy with it. I work in a sketchbook and these paints have been good for learning how to mix color. Color theory works as expected, thank goodness. The lack of pigment information on the paints did irk me at first but my skill level and budget moved me towards it after looking into other sets in the price range. I figured if painting wasn't my thing I wouldn't be out too much. I don't expect to do anything nearing display level. It's just for my personal enrichment. At least in the Amazon listing it does say the set is for beginners. I appreciated this after seeing a lot of lofty claims. It's wise not to expect the world for cheap 😁 But these paints can definitely get a person started! I'm already working out a stable single pigment palette for the future. I hope people see this video and take in the information you're sharing. Your reviews are probably the most measured and evidence-driven I've seen. I appreciate the time and effort you take to help people out. Thank you 😊
As a professional artist who is obsessed with lightfastness, your videos are a godsend. I'll be conducting my own lightfast tests, even though I've bought permanent pigments. You never know....batch to batch can be different! Ps. Your website is just incredible. Thank you for doing such comprehensive testing and information. Subscribed!
Thank you for this! I love my Mei Liang (Pretty Excellent) paints and finally gave in and ordered a 24 set of Paul Rubens. They arrive tomorrow and I can't wait to try them.
Thanks for this review. Four years later, I still love my Pretty Excellent (Mei Liang) set. Nowadays it comes with the paint poured into actual separate pans, a nice improvement! I just bought my first set of Paul Rubens, the original 24 pan set. Can't wait for it to arrive.
Thank you so much for this very thorough and honest review. These are some interesting findings. You really busted some myths and urban legends that have been swirling around in the internet. Great work!
I was just about to fall asleep but had somehow turned on notifications on my phone (it's almost always in set to do not disturb). Prepare yourself from some severely sleep deprived ramblings - I've had three hours of sleep in the last 48+ hours 😅 I'm not super surprised that the very cheap paints aren't lightfast. I'm mostly doing drills, exercises, and sketchbook work, so I really don't need that quality in my paints at this stage of my watercolor journey. Lightfastness really isn't an issue for me. My big pet peeve is, as always, the inaccurate labelling - I'd rather have no stated lightfastness rating than an inaccurate one. That's just setting people up for disappointment. I'm quite happy to keep using the paints for my current applications. By the time I start running out of paint I'll be ready to start using my 24 pan Paul Rubens set, and White Nights pans and tube are very affordable and easy to come by here in Sweden. I don't expect to be painting masterpieces I'll want to hang in my living room anytime soon, and I think the biggest value in Pretty Excellent is their affordability and working qualities. They're affordable enough that I don't feel like I'm "wasting" paint with all the exercises and completely unskilled works I produce, yet their handling is close enough to higher quality paints that I'm not training myself to use them in a way that will be completely inapplicable to higher quality paints later on. And, of course, they're still perfectly fine for anything sketchbook and journalling related.
You're right they are totally lovely for sketchbooks and practice, I love that I can play without feeling like I'm wasting expensive paint. I was really sad about the colors that said they were lightfast being so fugitive though... Even more so by the fact that the company knew they put fluorescent dye in some of them, which are always fugitive. Thank you so much for your late night ramble, I always enjoy your comments :)
@@KimberlyCrick yeah, I wish they'd just not used the fluorescent dyes. I'd rather just not have the colors in the set at all, if the dyes were used for some cost-cutting purposes - a 24 set of at least mostly lightfast paints would've still been amazing even at the same price, and would've eliminated this unnecessary disappointment. I now there actually is a 24 set of these paints, but I can't remember the color selection right now... I don't think they have the same selection criteria as I do, though, so I won't be getting my hopes up 😅
Thank you for this!! I've been usuing the Pretty Excellent pallet for about a year now whilst learning different water colour techniques, and I really enjoy it. But I always questioned wheather or not I should have invested in the "proper" Rubens set. Thank you for your insight!
I bought this set .on Temu a couple weeks ago. So far, I've only swatched them. Right after, I broke my wrist with my dominant hand and haven't been able to paint at all! 😥
I recently bought the Mei Liang 36 color palette to use with my sketchbook and found out its been updated. The paints now sit in individual half pans which are nested within a piece of molded plastic. While the 36 color set doesn't include pigment info, the new 48 color set has pigments listed in the color chart available on its Amazon listing (in the product images). The color names between the two sets vary but the codes are exactly the same so I was able match the pigments used in my smaller palette which was great. I don't know why they only included pigment info for the larger set but I was just happy to have the info at all.
Wow, I never knew you could shine an UV light onto colours to see if they added fluorescent dyes into them. That's so cool for future art ideas, hahahah! Thankyou so much for this very in-depth update of this palette! I have both the paul rubens and pretty excellent sets and I can absolutely agree with everything that has been said (in fact a video of the two have been on my to do list for a year or two now, eek!).
i'd been reading your blogs for lightfastness references since forever, but i never knew u actually have a youtube channel! thankyou for all your efforts in doing this very time-consuming process to provide us these invaluable pigment database from variety of brands your post on mijello lightfast test was really a deciding factor for me to buy it (as older reviews 5-6 years ago wasnt very positive), and im happy with my purchase. thankyou again =D
Thank you, I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah, I remember some of those initial poor reviews for Mission Gold. Some of that had to do with a couple less lightfast colors that got swapped out early on, but also with expectations about certain color names always being a certain pigment too. It's one of my very favorite watercolor sets now and is so amazingly priced for the intense color, pigment load and quantity you get. After 5 years in a dry pan they still re-wet like new, paint that will last a lifetime for sure! I appreciate you taking the time to comment, happy painting :)
Really helpful information, and so much information! I frequently stopped the video so I could read the info, and then played it to listen to what you were saying. Thanks so much! I'm a cat lover also. 👍😄😻💕
I'm glad you found it helpful :) I really debate on how much information is too much to include... I start to try to simplify things, but honestly once I get going I think of too many things I want to share. I'll probably always err on the side of too much lol. Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you so much. I have this set and enjoy painting with them. However, I have hesitated to recommend them since the pigment and light-fast info were not provided. I will continue to play with these paints in my sketchbook. Edit: I did not think to use a black light to check for florescent additives.
I really like the Drigatoni’s and Miya Watercolor sets… I am hopeful they are mostly stable for their price range… Any plans to test this out Kimberly? Thank you for doing this we all really appreciate it!
About half of the colors have started to fade in Dugato's set. I'm actually really happy with Miya's new 36 set and it's super promising that none of the colors appear to be dye based. I lightfast test every single paint I buy, but this takes a minimum of 3 months for the first check and about 6 months to 1 year for a full evaluation. Eventually all of the results will be loaded onto my website's lightfast testing and art supply review page, where I keep track of all my reviews organized by brand. I don't believe I'll have time to make videos about every brand's LF results, but in case you're curious you could check www.KimCrick.com in the future to see if I've updated info about a specific brand. Happy painting :)
This set looks pretty nice! Even though, I believe I would like to go directly to the Paul Rubens' one because of the lightfastness and pigment info about them. Thank you for this review!
I had to pause to comment they must have changed the box since you bought yours or I lucked out idk. My set has Prussian blue & mentions Payne's grey not the permanent green light yours has I also have the turkey blue & it is listed on the box as well. I however do not have indigo. The yellow green is also in the correct spot. I bought mine last summer I want to say July or August maybe I don't remember off hand but I did cut the back of the box & kept the color chart along w/ the part of the pamphlet that showed the 36 colors stuck in my tin with my swatch chart.
Hmm I’ve heard that this set is different now from how it used to be. Have you heard anything about that? Not sure why them decided to change something that worked well to begin with. Oh well, for the price, they are quite nice! I just recently bought this set and the Miya set of 36 and I am so pleased with them. So thanks for your review, it helped me a lot! Also I ended up wresting with the pretty excellent palette and managed to get the paints out of the and then just plopped then in an empty half pan. It was hard tho because they had glued the actual paint to the plastic insert.
I've heard they made a couple minor color changes and fixed the chart. I did hear a couple people complain lately that they received a defective set, a white that was turning brown, cracked or unusual pans etc. I bought my set over a year ago though so I don't know first hand. The new Miya 36 set is so beautiful though!
Yesterday I had this 36 Pretty Excellent set delivered. Unlike yours, it contains individually wrapped pans, rather than being set into an 'ice cube' tray. Strange. Have they changed their packaging, or could I have got the Paul Rubens in a Pretty Excellent tin (it has a pic of a parrot on the front) ?
Thanks very much for this indepth investigation. There's so much information here, I need to watch it again on a slower speed! What's the rubber swatch stamp that you use at 6:40? Thanks again. :)
Hey! This video is really darn helpful and now I'm torn if I should buy this in the 24 set for around 17 dollars here or the van gogh half pans set which is at 35 dollars. I've heard that van gogh is quite lightfast so I guess the higher price would be justified since I can use it more for commisions as well in that case. I'm just worried about splurging too much money since I've never had a decent set before. What are you thoughts?? And may I know if you've done a lightfastness test on van gogh's?? If you have, how did it go? If not please do make one bc it would really be helpful!
I do recommend Van Gogh watercolors, especially if you're doing art for sale. They are very lightfast (I own almost all of the colors and none of them have faded). Van Gogh are of such good quality that I often use them side by side with my most expensive brands. Though of course you can compare the colors between the Van Gogh and Pretty Excellent sets and decide which ones you would use more often for the art you like to create. There is also the option that you could mark the ones that are the most fugitive in the pretty excellent set, so you know not to use those certain colors in art for sale. Specifically avoid the Pretty Excellent colors called cadmium orange hue, vermilion and mauve. Since the Pretty Excellent set has so many colors, it could still leave you with a good selection to work with at such a reasonable price. In general as long as your customers do not store their artwork in too much sun light, like across from a window, most of the other colors will be stable a long time. Hope that helps you make your decision, happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick Thanks for the response! Van gogh really really is my dream set since the palette really stole my heart right of the bat (pretty af) and the 15 pans set has quite a versatile range as well so I can practice color mixing. But what if l try the pretty excellent first so I can still have room in my (lol non-existant) budget for brushes and paper then upgrade to van gogh after more time? I just feel like it's too ambitious to have such expensive(for me lol🤣) as my first set though. But I guess it would be nice to know that my first paintings wouldn't fade as easily after time. Btw do you think the 24 colors would be enough to start knowing that some colors aren't quite lightfast? Gosh sorry for all the questions being broke ain't easy at all😖
@@weeiii.93 Technically all you need are 3 good primary colors to get started, a cool red (magenta or "rose") a yellow (such as hansa or lemon) and a blue (ideally a smooth phthalo blue unless you prefer the granulation texture of ultramarine). With those 3 colors and patience you can mix anything from near-black grays, browns and skintones and all secondary colors like purples orange and greens. For ease of use, I like to have a set that also includes burnt umber - one of the easiest to use skin tone colors because it can be very dark or diluted with water to be very light brown. A black or paynes gray is optional but really makes things easier for mixing dark colors. Having a small selection with the right colors can work really well, especially if you take the time to play around with color mixing and look at color wheels. Paper is definitely important, but there are some cheap papers out there like Canson XL that are budget friendly. Same with brushes, even the water brushes that come for free, or the mini brushes in some van gogh sets can take you really far!
I never checked out your channel before. Thank you so much for doing this. I just recently bought a 24 half pan set from Paul Ruben it's in a pink box. I love the colors but they didn't send me a list of the names of the colors. It's all in a different language and I only read English. So very disappointed about that. Otherwise I got the paints and a block cold press 7.6 by 10.6 300g/m Paul Rubens and it's supposed to be 50 percent cotton? I do love the paper it does really well. You could tell that it wasn't 💯 percent cotton but it did good, I was very surprised. It was the same price as other 💯 percent cotton paper. That was kinda disappointing. Had to try Paul Rubens though. I heard so much about them. I like tube paints better though with my own palette. You have a great day. 😎🇺🇸🌴 FLORIDA.
What a fantastic video idea, testing the colour fastness of watercolours. Need to know what paints dont fade for pictures to put up in my room, give to friends or sell ....any ideas?
Van Gogh makes very lightfast student grade paints and most brands of pro grade paints have catalogs with about 90% or more being lightfast. On a budget you could even just buy the 3 primary mixing colors, such as magenta pr122, ultramarine blue pb29 and a yellow like hansa py3 from any company who has individual pans or tubes. That way you can mix any color you want and know it would be lightfast. Happy painting :)
If you are careful to keep away from the light that comes in from a window it would help, like having a painting only on the wall that the window is on so that no beams of light hit it. Since a window only gets light for a small part of the day as the sun moves, the tests do not get "direct" light all the time either. I have not had any luck with uv spray, but some people have had better success with thicker light distortion resin or glass in frames. You run the risk of damaging a watercolor painting with uv spray, and it's expensive for not being very effective. It would be better to avoid the use of fugitive colors if it's a concern, since there are so many lightfast options.
@@KimberlyCrick omg you replied so fast! Thank you so much for your detailed reply, really appreciate it. Just started receiving commissions and I use Paul Rubens, I was thinking to advise my customer to not display the artwork in front of a window.
@@edhelespyn Paul Rubens is much more lightfast than Pretty Excellent, but it's always a good idea to remind non-artists that artwork should never be stored where it will get sunlight. Happy painting :)
Fugitive means it will fade from UV light. They are not lightfast, so if you hang artwork on a wall near a window, the sun light that comes in will make the artwork disappear over time.
hello!! I'm thinking about buying a watercolor paint set, but I'm not sure which to purchase yet. I have two options; the Arteza one & the Pretty Excellent one. Which one is a better pick??
I personally like the way Pretty Excellent paints perform better than Arteza. P.E. is less chalky, flow better in water and is usually more affordable. Both sets contain some fugitive colors, but also have a lot of stable colors that will last you through serious projects if there's something you do that you want to hang on a wall. I think Pretty Excellent will take you quite far in your watercolor journey. Happy painting :)
So if these are used on acid free paper within a journal, and the journal remains closed 99% of the time, how long would the colors stay put approximately. You may know, or, I may be asking you your best guess, but I specifically wanted these for practicing, and mostly I use my daily bullet-style journal/todo list/anything interesting that happened, etc journal and want them to last for at least two years until I get ready to toss them. Do you think the colors would last that long in a closed book?
These colors should be very stable in a closed book, I doubt any of these colors would fade in the next decade when not receiving daily uv light from a nearby window.
You could encase the finished painting with resin, many coats of a UV spray sealer or get expensive museum quality uv protection glass frames. Many sealers will eventually yellow or make the paints run and if applied too thinly won't properly bend the light to avoid UV damage. In the end it would be a lot cheaper to just use a set of lightfast paints like Paul Rubens, or just avoid the 7 or so worst fading colors in this set while painting things meant for sale/wall art.
Thank you so much for your lightfastness updates, kim! :D I still think this set is incredibly awesome for its price tag, and if i ever need to make art on good paper for reproduction purposes, why not use this set? It's deliciously high quality and close to professional paints in the way they handle. (PS i do have a small tin filled with professional yet non lightfast paints I've picked up from the sets (white nights) or just ordered the individuals for myself (alizarin crimsons) exactly for this purpose)
It's a beautiful set for it's price, the best I think there is for beginner practice and sketchbooks! There's definitely value in having low cost paints that allow you to experiment without feeling like you're using up expensive paints. Lots of brands have fugitive colors, but many of them better warn you when they will fade. For me, the question about "why not" has to do with freedom to not know what the art is "for" before I paint it. If I can find a similar color that is lightfast, I feel more free to put as much work as I want to into a piece and make that choice at the end if the art turned out good enough to sell/gift/hang on a wall, in addition to those digital/print items. I have a hard time feeling motivated to put forth a lot of effort out if I know it will fade. There's also color scanning accuracy problems with fluorescent dyes, where colors like this mauve or any brands opera pink won't show up well in photos/scanned art. Not everyone feels that way, but I hoped to help people make an informed decision, since the ratings on the box are misleading. Thank you for chiming in, I appreciate hearing your thoughts :)
@@KimberlyCrick that's exactly how I feel, you never really know especially with watercolour how well something will turn out. But it's a brilliant set for journaling and practice. I'm very tempted at this pocket money price. I really enjoy all of your reviews, and honestly you could read the telephone directory, (oops! showing my age!) it would still sound amazing! You have a great voice for tutorials, so don't worry about saying too much. :-)
No, at this point all of my current tests are for both masstone and diluted. Some tests that i started more than one year ago did not have both, but are currently being expanded on in secondary tests. Any further results will continue to be added to my brand review pages as they become available.
Hello Kimberly. I've just bought the Pretty Excellent Set of 36. The mistakes on the box that you show above don't appear on this one. They appear to have been corrected (?). Indigo doesn't appear in this set at all. The third row now reads: Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine, Turkey Blue, prussian Blue, Payne's Grey, Yellow Green, Sap Green, Hooker's Green Light, Hooker's Green Deep. Rows 1,2 and 4 are the same as you have above. There is no "Yellowish Brown"!!!! Lol. I note that you say here that you tested Pretty Excellent for a year for lightfastness. On your site you say that you tested Paul Rubens for only 6 months. This isn't comparing like to like - one paint has been in the light for twice as long as the other. Light levels vary enormously during the seasons. So if the 6 months test of Paul Rubens was proportionately more during the autumn and winter, the levels of light received by them may have been considerably less than Pretty Excellent - much less than half. It's a shame that you didn't leave the Paul Rubens up for a year too. In the same place of course! Best wishes, Mel
They have made changes since the set came out and in addition to the color changes I've heard reports of quality inconsistency as well. All of my tests run for one full year, because the sunlight is stronger in the summer months. Website in general is really hard to keep up with, so results don't get posted for many months, but rest assured they all get done for a year.
Most modern pigments are synthetic man made versions of organic materials. For example, black iron oxide can be dug up from the ground, a natural source but it can also be made in a lab to be chemically identical then being called synthetic. Many of the colors in the Pretty Excellent set are normal compared to other brands, a mixture of natural earth browns and synthetically mass produced colors. There are about 3 to 4 colors that also contain some dyes, a thin particle bright color usually extracted from a plant, or made chemically to be fluorescent. Hope that helps :)
I got this set and I love it. I think the lightfastness is a bunch of crap. Who in the heck is going to leave their painting in direct sunlight for who knows how long. As long as you keep it out of direct sunlight the painting will last for decades.
I do not test in direct sunlight, just general daylight conditions from a window - quite common in any brightly lit room. Many people hang artwork in spaces with large windows, such as a livingroom with sliding glass doors. Dyes start fading in these conditions within months, not decades. This is even more important if you will sell your work, or have it shown in a place such as an office building, business, restaurant or gallery where the windows are large. Almost everyone of these types of places, or even peoples homes, have a room that receives direct sunlight for part of the day (beams of bright light during sunrise or sunset for instance). As someone who has lost several paintings to situations like these, I can tell you that it's generally not common knowledge for non-art professionals that light from a nearby window can be a problem.
Kimberly Crick Art I got nine paintings hang up in my living room, some watercolor, Inktense, color pencils water soluble crayons. Some of them been hanging on the wall for about seven maybe eight years. The biggest window in my living room is 8 feet wide by 4 1/2 feet tall and none of the art stuff had faded at all.
@@hamerray There are more variables there than I could begin to elaborate on. Several important things to note is that not all areas of the world have the same UV intensity, for instance those in Michigan get less light hours and less strength of UV than those closer to the equator such as in Florida. If your livingroom has a window to the west where you get more evening hours of sun, or your paintings are next to vs across from the window all make differences. Maybe most importantly is how many fugitive colors were used in your work, if all of them are LFI to LFII ASTM rated none of them would have faded regardless of light. LFIII TO LFV or dyes would fade quickly. I'm not sure you can base the worthlessness of all lightfast ratings for art materials on your sole experience in one lighting condition.
@@hamerray If you are using major brand artist quality materials, like Inktense, the manufacturers are already using mostly lightfast pigments. Of the 72 Intense colors, for example, only 7 of them have a BWS (ASTM II) rating below 5 (Good). As Derwent says: "Any result above Blue Wool 6 (ASTM II) is considered to be VERY GOOD and will not fade for over 100 years in gallery conditions." Your living room will get more sunlight than "gallery conditions", but I'm sure that's still good enough for decades for you. But buying the cheapest stuff from China, especially with no pigment information, you are more likely to run into problems. For myself, I think it's worth the extra $ to go for either Rubens over Pretty Excellent, or likewise, White Nights over Sonnet (some roughly equivalent pro vs. student grade offerings from a Russian manufacturer). But that's something everyone has to decide for themselves based on their own budget and usage. And having this kind of information from Kimberly Crick really makes that easier for me!
It's not nonsense...fine if you just make art for yourself, paint with whatever you like, but many of us paint for gifts and for sale. It's important then to know you've created something with longevity.
Pretty Excellent is still a lovely set for learning watercolor techniques. I love that it's so affordable I can practice in a sketchbook without feeling like I'm wasting my more expensive paints. However, I was really disappointed to see the company mislead artists with incorrect lightfast ratings. They added fluorescent dyes to some colors, which are always fugitive, yet gave those colors max lightfast ratings :(
You're a true gem to the watercolor art community! Thank you for your database!
Pigment databases are the unsung heroes in the watercolor world keep up the good work! I’m lowkey jealous of all the beginner options ppl have now compared to when I started. I might get this for journaling once I run through my other student grade paints
Do you think is that Paul RUbens a good choice? Is better than Sakura KOI?
@@themateus unfortunately I haven’t used either Paul rubens or Sakura koi paints yet, however I would pick Paul rubens.
You are an unsung hero of the watercolour 'community' if there ever was one 😀 Truly appreciate all your efforts!
I bought this set in March and as a beginner I'm happy with it. I work in a sketchbook and these paints have been good for learning how to mix color. Color theory works as expected, thank goodness.
The lack of pigment information on the paints did irk me at first but my skill level and budget moved me towards it after looking into other sets in the price range. I figured if painting wasn't my thing I wouldn't be out too much. I don't expect to do anything nearing display level. It's just for my personal enrichment.
At least in the Amazon listing it does say the set is for beginners. I appreciated this after seeing a lot of lofty claims. It's wise not to expect the world for cheap 😁 But these paints can definitely get a person started! I'm already working out a stable single pigment palette for the future.
I hope people see this video and take in the information you're sharing. Your reviews are probably the most measured and evidence-driven I've seen. I appreciate the time and effort you take to help people out. Thank you 😊
As a professional artist who is obsessed with lightfastness, your videos are a godsend. I'll be conducting my own lightfast tests, even though I've bought permanent pigments. You never know....batch to batch can be different!
Ps. Your website is just incredible. Thank you for doing such comprehensive testing and information. Subscribed!
Thank you for this! I love my Mei Liang (Pretty Excellent) paints and finally gave in and ordered a 24 set of Paul Rubens. They arrive tomorrow and I can't wait to try them.
Thanks for this review. Four years later, I still love my Pretty Excellent (Mei Liang) set. Nowadays it comes with the paint poured into actual separate pans, a nice improvement! I just bought my first set of Paul Rubens, the original 24 pan set. Can't wait for it to arrive.
Please disregard the comment I just left and deleted. It was for another video and my phone is acting weird.
Thank you so much for this very thorough and honest review. These are some interesting findings. You really busted some myths and urban legends that have been swirling around in the internet. Great work!
I was just about to fall asleep but had somehow turned on notifications on my phone (it's almost always in set to do not disturb). Prepare yourself from some severely sleep deprived ramblings - I've had three hours of sleep in the last 48+ hours 😅
I'm not super surprised that the very cheap paints aren't lightfast. I'm mostly doing drills, exercises, and sketchbook work, so I really don't need that quality in my paints at this stage of my watercolor journey. Lightfastness really isn't an issue for me.
My big pet peeve is, as always, the inaccurate labelling - I'd rather have no stated lightfastness rating than an inaccurate one. That's just setting people up for disappointment.
I'm quite happy to keep using the paints for my current applications. By the time I start running out of paint I'll be ready to start using my 24 pan Paul Rubens set, and White Nights pans and tube are very affordable and easy to come by here in Sweden.
I don't expect to be painting masterpieces I'll want to hang in my living room anytime soon, and I think the biggest value in Pretty Excellent is their affordability and working qualities. They're affordable enough that I don't feel like I'm "wasting" paint with all the exercises and completely unskilled works I produce, yet their handling is close enough to higher quality paints that I'm not training myself to use them in a way that will be completely inapplicable to higher quality paints later on. And, of course, they're still perfectly fine for anything sketchbook and journalling related.
You're right they are totally lovely for sketchbooks and practice, I love that I can play without feeling like I'm wasting expensive paint. I was really sad about the colors that said they were lightfast being so fugitive though... Even more so by the fact that the company knew they put fluorescent dye in some of them, which are always fugitive. Thank you so much for your late night ramble, I always enjoy your comments :)
@@KimberlyCrick yeah, I wish they'd just not used the fluorescent dyes. I'd rather just not have the colors in the set at all, if the dyes were used for some cost-cutting purposes - a 24 set of at least mostly lightfast paints would've still been amazing even at the same price, and would've eliminated this unnecessary disappointment. I now there actually is a 24 set of these paints, but I can't remember the color selection right now... I don't think they have the same selection criteria as I do, though, so I won't be getting my hopes up 😅
FaerieDust: Great ramble! Hope you can get some quality sleep soon. God bless you! 😊
Thank you for this!! I've been usuing the Pretty Excellent pallet for about a year now whilst learning different water colour techniques, and I really enjoy it. But I always questioned wheather or not I should have invested in the "proper" Rubens set. Thank you for your insight!
I bought this set .on Temu a couple weeks ago. So far, I've only swatched them. Right after, I broke my wrist with my dominant hand and haven't been able to paint at all! 😥
I recently bought the Mei Liang 36 color palette to use with my sketchbook and found out its been updated. The paints now sit in individual half pans which are nested within a piece of molded plastic. While the 36 color set doesn't include pigment info, the new 48 color set has pigments listed in the color chart available on its Amazon listing (in the product images). The color names between the two sets vary but the codes are exactly the same so I was able match the pigments used in my smaller palette which was great. I don't know why they only included pigment info for the larger set but I was just happy to have the info at all.
Been looking for this review forever. Best one I've seen comparing these 2 pallets.
I'm so glad to hear that! Thank you :)
Wow, I never knew you could shine an UV light onto colours to see if they added fluorescent dyes into them. That's so cool for future art ideas, hahahah!
Thankyou so much for this very in-depth update of this palette! I have both the paul rubens and pretty excellent sets and I can absolutely agree with everything that has been said (in fact a video of the two have been on my to do list for a year or two now, eek!).
As always, great information. I'll be passing on these for myself, but might consider them as gifts for my teenager.
i'd been reading your blogs for lightfastness references since forever, but i never knew u actually have a youtube channel!
thankyou for all your efforts in doing this very time-consuming process to provide us these invaluable pigment database from variety of brands
your post on mijello lightfast test was really a deciding factor for me to buy it (as older reviews 5-6 years ago wasnt very positive), and im happy with my purchase.
thankyou again =D
Thank you, I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah, I remember some of those initial poor reviews for Mission Gold. Some of that had to do with a couple less lightfast colors that got swapped out early on, but also with expectations about certain color names always being a certain pigment too. It's one of my very favorite watercolor sets now and is so amazingly priced for the intense color, pigment load and quantity you get. After 5 years in a dry pan they still re-wet like new, paint that will last a lifetime for sure! I appreciate you taking the time to comment, happy painting :)
Thank you for this, this was very informative and helpful. I still might get this but only for my sketchbook.
Really helpful information, and so much information! I frequently stopped the video so I could read the info, and then played it to listen to what you were saying. Thanks so much! I'm a cat lover also. 👍😄😻💕
I'm glad you found it helpful :) I really debate on how much information is too much to include... I start to try to simplify things, but honestly once I get going I think of too many things I want to share. I'll probably always err on the side of too much lol. Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you so much. I have this set and enjoy painting with them. However, I have hesitated to recommend them since the pigment and light-fast info were not provided. I will continue to play with these paints in my sketchbook. Edit: I did not think to use a black light to check for florescent additives.
Yeah that was a great tip that I hadn't thought of either!
Thank you for the extensive work you have done.
I really like the Drigatoni’s and Miya Watercolor sets… I am hopeful they are mostly stable for their price range… Any plans to test this out Kimberly? Thank you for doing this we all really appreciate it!
About half of the colors have started to fade in Dugato's set. I'm actually really happy with Miya's new 36 set and it's super promising that none of the colors appear to be dye based. I lightfast test every single paint I buy, but this takes a minimum of 3 months for the first check and about 6 months to 1 year for a full evaluation. Eventually all of the results will be loaded onto my website's lightfast testing and art supply review page, where I keep track of all my reviews organized by brand. I don't believe I'll have time to make videos about every brand's LF results, but in case you're curious you could check www.KimCrick.com in the future to see if I've updated info about a specific brand. Happy painting :)
This set looks pretty nice! Even though, I believe I would like to go directly to the Paul Rubens' one because of the lightfastness and pigment info about them. Thank you for this review!
I had to pause to comment they must have changed the box since you bought yours or I lucked out idk. My set has Prussian blue & mentions Payne's grey not the permanent green light yours has I also have the turkey blue & it is listed on the box as well. I however do not have indigo. The yellow green is also in the correct spot. I bought mine last summer I want to say July or August maybe I don't remember off hand but I did cut the back of the box & kept the color chart along w/ the part of the pamphlet that showed the 36 colors stuck in my tin with my swatch chart.
Hmm I’ve heard that this set is different now from how it used to be. Have you heard anything about that? Not sure why them decided to change something that worked well to begin with. Oh well, for the price, they are quite nice! I just recently bought this set and the Miya set of 36 and I am so pleased with them. So thanks for your review, it helped me a lot! Also I ended up wresting with the pretty excellent palette and managed to get the paints out of the and then just plopped then in an empty half pan. It was hard tho because they had glued the actual paint to the plastic insert.
I've heard they made a couple minor color changes and fixed the chart. I did hear a couple people complain lately that they received a defective set, a white that was turning brown, cracked or unusual pans etc. I bought my set over a year ago though so I don't know first hand. The new Miya 36 set is so beautiful though!
Yesterday I had this 36 Pretty Excellent set delivered. Unlike yours, it contains individually wrapped pans, rather than being set into an 'ice cube' tray. Strange.
Have they changed their packaging, or could I have got the Paul Rubens in a Pretty Excellent tin (it has a pic of a parrot on the front) ?
Aw… this was my first ever set! I still feel nostalgic for it. $20 bucks Amazon! 🧑🏻🎨👍😇
Have you heard Mungyo Watercolor from Korea? They also have the 48set and in a same range price with paulrubens.
Yes, I have tried them, but I did not think they were the same quality.
@@KimberlyCrick thank you for the quick reply, i think i'll go with paul ruben
Thanks very much for this indepth investigation. There's so much information here, I need to watch it again on a slower speed! What's the rubber swatch stamp that you use at 6:40? Thanks again. :)
Yeah, I tend to be a bit info packed lol :) Thank you, you can find my rubber stamps at www.kimcrick.com/collections/rubber-stamps
@@KimberlyCrick Thanks very much. Sadly, I won't be able to buy one because I'm in the UK. But thanks again for your speedy response. :)
Hey! This video is really darn helpful and now I'm torn if I should buy this in the 24 set for around 17 dollars here or the van gogh half pans set which is at 35 dollars. I've heard that van gogh is quite lightfast so I guess the higher price would be justified since I can use it more for commisions as well in that case. I'm just worried about splurging too much money since I've never had a decent set before. What are you thoughts?? And may I know if you've done a lightfastness test on van gogh's?? If you have, how did it go? If not please do make one bc it would really be helpful!
I do recommend Van Gogh watercolors, especially if you're doing art for sale. They are very lightfast (I own almost all of the colors and none of them have faded). Van Gogh are of such good quality that I often use them side by side with my most expensive brands. Though of course you can compare the colors between the Van Gogh and Pretty Excellent sets and decide which ones you would use more often for the art you like to create. There is also the option that you could mark the ones that are the most fugitive in the pretty excellent set, so you know not to use those certain colors in art for sale. Specifically avoid the Pretty Excellent colors called cadmium orange hue, vermilion and mauve. Since the Pretty Excellent set has so many colors, it could still leave you with a good selection to work with at such a reasonable price. In general as long as your customers do not store their artwork in too much sun light, like across from a window, most of the other colors will be stable a long time. Hope that helps you make your decision, happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick Thanks for the response! Van gogh really really is my dream set since the palette really stole my heart right of the bat (pretty af) and the 15 pans set has quite a versatile range as well so I can practice color mixing. But what if l try the pretty excellent first so I can still have room in my (lol non-existant) budget for brushes and paper then upgrade to van gogh after more time? I just feel like it's too ambitious to have such expensive(for me lol🤣) as my first set though. But I guess it would be nice to know that my first paintings wouldn't fade as easily after time. Btw do you think the 24 colors would be enough to start knowing that some colors aren't quite lightfast? Gosh sorry for all the questions being broke ain't easy at all😖
@@weeiii.93 Technically all you need are 3 good primary colors to get started, a cool red (magenta or "rose") a yellow (such as hansa or lemon) and a blue (ideally a smooth phthalo blue unless you prefer the granulation texture of ultramarine). With those 3 colors and patience you can mix anything from near-black grays, browns and skintones and all secondary colors like purples orange and greens. For ease of use, I like to have a set that also includes burnt umber - one of the easiest to use skin tone colors because it can be very dark or diluted with water to be very light brown. A black or paynes gray is optional but really makes things easier for mixing dark colors. Having a small selection with the right colors can work really well, especially if you take the time to play around with color mixing and look at color wheels. Paper is definitely important, but there are some cheap papers out there like Canson XL that are budget friendly. Same with brushes, even the water brushes that come for free, or the mini brushes in some van gogh sets can take you really far!
I never checked out your channel before. Thank you so much for doing this. I just recently bought a 24 half pan set from Paul Ruben it's in a pink box. I love the colors but they didn't send me a list of the names of the colors. It's all in a different language and I only read English. So very disappointed about that. Otherwise I got the paints and a block cold press 7.6 by 10.6 300g/m Paul Rubens and it's supposed to be 50 percent cotton? I do love the paper it does really well. You could tell that it wasn't 💯 percent cotton but it did good, I was very surprised. It was the same price as other 💯 percent cotton paper. That was kinda disappointing. Had to try Paul Rubens though. I heard so much about them. I like tube paints better though with my own palette. You have a great day. 😎🇺🇸🌴 FLORIDA.
What a fantastic video idea, testing the colour fastness of watercolours. Need to know what paints dont fade for pictures to put up in my room, give to friends or sell ....any ideas?
Van Gogh makes very lightfast student grade paints and most brands of pro grade paints have catalogs with about 90% or more being lightfast. On a budget you could even just buy the 3 primary mixing colors, such as magenta pr122, ultramarine blue pb29 and a yellow like hansa py3 from any company who has individual pans or tubes. That way you can mix any color you want and know it would be lightfast. Happy painting :)
If not displayed in direct sunlight, would it help? What about using fixative spray with UV protection, would that help?
If you are careful to keep away from the light that comes in from a window it would help, like having a painting only on the wall that the window is on so that no beams of light hit it. Since a window only gets light for a small part of the day as the sun moves, the tests do not get "direct" light all the time either. I have not had any luck with uv spray, but some people have had better success with thicker light distortion resin or glass in frames. You run the risk of damaging a watercolor painting with uv spray, and it's expensive for not being very effective. It would be better to avoid the use of fugitive colors if it's a concern, since there are so many lightfast options.
@@KimberlyCrick omg you replied so fast! Thank you so much for your detailed reply, really appreciate it. Just started receiving commissions and I use Paul Rubens, I was thinking to advise my customer to not display the artwork in front of a window.
@@edhelespyn Paul Rubens is much more lightfast than Pretty Excellent, but it's always a good idea to remind non-artists that artwork should never be stored where it will get sunlight. Happy painting :)
What exactly does fugitive figment mean
Fugitive means it will fade from UV light. They are not lightfast, so if you hang artwork on a wall near a window, the sun light that comes in will make the artwork disappear over time.
hello!! I'm thinking about buying a watercolor paint set, but I'm not sure which to purchase yet. I have two options; the Arteza one & the Pretty Excellent one. Which one is a better pick??
I personally like the way Pretty Excellent paints perform better than Arteza. P.E. is less chalky, flow better in water and is usually more affordable. Both sets contain some fugitive colors, but also have a lot of stable colors that will last you through serious projects if there's something you do that you want to hang on a wall. I think Pretty Excellent will take you quite far in your watercolor journey. Happy painting :)
Kimberly Crick Art thank you so much!!! I'll buy that instead🥰❤️
So if these are used on acid free paper within a journal, and the journal remains closed 99% of the time, how long would the colors stay put approximately. You may know, or, I may be asking you your best guess, but I specifically wanted these for practicing, and mostly I use my daily bullet-style journal/todo list/anything interesting that happened, etc journal and want them to last for at least two years until I get ready to toss them. Do you think the colors would last that long in a closed book?
These colors should be very stable in a closed book, I doubt any of these colors would fade in the next decade when not receiving daily uv light from a nearby window.
Is it possible to treat the paper with something before or after the painting is done, so it won't fade?
You could encase the finished painting with resin, many coats of a UV spray sealer or get expensive museum quality uv protection glass frames. Many sealers will eventually yellow or make the paints run and if applied too thinly won't properly bend the light to avoid UV damage. In the end it would be a lot cheaper to just use a set of lightfast paints like Paul Rubens, or just avoid the 7 or so worst fading colors in this set while painting things meant for sale/wall art.
Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for your lightfastness updates, kim! :D I still think this set is incredibly awesome for its price tag, and if i ever need to make art on good paper for reproduction purposes, why not use this set? It's deliciously high quality and close to professional paints in the way they handle. (PS i do have a small tin filled with professional yet non lightfast paints I've picked up from the sets (white nights) or just ordered the individuals for myself (alizarin crimsons) exactly for this purpose)
It's a beautiful set for it's price, the best I think there is for beginner practice and sketchbooks! There's definitely value in having low cost paints that allow you to experiment without feeling like you're using up expensive paints. Lots of brands have fugitive colors, but many of them better warn you when they will fade. For me, the question about "why not" has to do with freedom to not know what the art is "for" before I paint it. If I can find a similar color that is lightfast, I feel more free to put as much work as I want to into a piece and make that choice at the end if the art turned out good enough to sell/gift/hang on a wall, in addition to those digital/print items. I have a hard time feeling motivated to put forth a lot of effort out if I know it will fade. There's also color scanning accuracy problems with fluorescent dyes, where colors like this mauve or any brands opera pink won't show up well in photos/scanned art. Not everyone feels that way, but I hoped to help people make an informed decision, since the ratings on the box are misleading. Thank you for chiming in, I appreciate hearing your thoughts :)
@@KimberlyCrick that's exactly how I feel, you never really know especially with watercolour how well something will turn out. But it's a brilliant set for journaling and practice. I'm very tempted at this pocket money price. I really enjoy all of your reviews, and honestly you could read the telephone directory, (oops! showing my age!) it would still sound amazing! You have a great voice for tutorials, so don't worry about saying too much. :-)
Do your check lightfastness only in masstone swatches?
No, at this point all of my current tests are for both masstone and diluted. Some tests that i started more than one year ago did not have both, but are currently being expanded on in secondary tests. Any further results will continue to be added to my brand review pages as they become available.
Hello Kimberly. I've just bought the Pretty Excellent Set of 36. The mistakes on the box that you show above don't appear on this one. They appear to have been corrected (?). Indigo doesn't appear in this set at all. The third row now reads: Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine, Turkey Blue, prussian Blue, Payne's Grey, Yellow Green, Sap Green, Hooker's Green Light, Hooker's Green Deep. Rows 1,2 and 4 are the same as you have above. There is no "Yellowish Brown"!!!! Lol.
I note that you say here that you tested Pretty Excellent for a year for lightfastness. On your site you say that you tested Paul Rubens for only 6 months. This isn't comparing like to like - one paint has been in the light for twice as long as the other. Light levels vary enormously during the seasons. So if the 6 months test of Paul Rubens was proportionately more during the autumn and winter, the levels of light received by them may have been considerably less than Pretty Excellent - much less than half.
It's a shame that you didn't leave the Paul Rubens up for a year too. In the same place of course! Best wishes, Mel
They have made changes since the set came out and in addition to the color changes I've heard reports of quality inconsistency as well. All of my tests run for one full year, because the sunlight is stronger in the summer months. Website in general is really hard to keep up with, so results don't get posted for many months, but rest assured they all get done for a year.
@@KimberlyCrick Good to hear that. Thanks for the update. :)
Oops, got a watch that auto correct! I meant it to have said Dugato
These are synthetic pigments then aren't they
Most modern pigments are synthetic man made versions of organic materials. For example, black iron oxide can be dug up from the ground, a natural source but it can also be made in a lab to be chemically identical then being called synthetic. Many of the colors in the Pretty Excellent set are normal compared to other brands, a mixture of natural earth browns and synthetically mass produced colors. There are about 3 to 4 colors that also contain some dyes, a thin particle bright color usually extracted from a plant, or made chemically to be fluorescent. Hope that helps :)
First comment
I got this set and I love it. I think the lightfastness is a bunch of crap. Who in the heck is going to leave their painting in direct sunlight for who knows how long. As long as you keep it out of direct sunlight the painting will last for decades.
I do not test in direct sunlight, just general daylight conditions from a window - quite common in any brightly lit room. Many people hang artwork in spaces with large windows, such as a livingroom with sliding glass doors. Dyes start fading in these conditions within months, not decades. This is even more important if you will sell your work, or have it shown in a place such as an office building, business, restaurant or gallery where the windows are large. Almost everyone of these types of places, or even peoples homes, have a room that receives direct sunlight for part of the day (beams of bright light during sunrise or sunset for instance). As someone who has lost several paintings to situations like these, I can tell you that it's generally not common knowledge for non-art professionals that light from a nearby window can be a problem.
Kimberly Crick Art
I got nine paintings hang up in my living room, some watercolor, Inktense, color pencils water soluble crayons. Some of them been hanging on the wall for about seven maybe eight years. The biggest window in my living room is 8 feet wide by 4 1/2 feet tall and none of the art stuff had faded at all.
@@hamerray There are more variables there than I could begin to elaborate on. Several important things to note is that not all areas of the world have the same UV intensity, for instance those in Michigan get less light hours and less strength of UV than those closer to the equator such as in Florida. If your livingroom has a window to the west where you get more evening hours of sun, or your paintings are next to vs across from the window all make differences. Maybe most importantly is how many fugitive colors were used in your work, if all of them are LFI to LFII ASTM rated none of them would have faded regardless of light. LFIII TO LFV or dyes would fade quickly. I'm not sure you can base the worthlessness of all lightfast ratings for art materials on your sole experience in one lighting condition.
@@hamerray If you are using major brand artist quality materials, like Inktense, the manufacturers are already using mostly lightfast pigments. Of the 72 Intense colors, for example, only 7 of them have a BWS (ASTM II) rating below 5 (Good). As Derwent says: "Any result above Blue Wool 6 (ASTM II) is considered to be VERY GOOD and will not fade for over 100 years in gallery conditions." Your living room will get more sunlight than "gallery conditions", but I'm sure that's still good enough for decades for you.
But buying the cheapest stuff from China, especially with no pigment information, you are more likely to run into problems. For myself, I think it's worth the extra $ to go for either Rubens over Pretty Excellent, or likewise, White Nights over Sonnet (some roughly equivalent pro vs. student grade offerings from a Russian manufacturer).
But that's something everyone has to decide for themselves based on their own budget and usage. And having this kind of information from Kimberly Crick really makes that easier for me!
It's not nonsense...fine if you just make art for yourself, paint with whatever you like, but many of us paint for gifts and for sale. It's important then to know you've created something with longevity.