Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Since I descend from a long line of artists over two hundred years, I grew up learning about paint, pigments and art. When studying in art schools (1978-1983 and again in 1990-1992) I either mixed my own colors with raw pigments and mediums, or bought premium artist's-quality paints by respected brand names, most notably Sennelier. You might think that qualifies me as an art snob who would hate these cheap paints. On the contrary, I think they are just fine for students and hobbyists who wish to discover the fun of painting. Last year, my daughter attended art school and we got this for her classes. My thinking was that these are good enough for student experimentation since permanence and pigment density are not big issues for students. So, I helped her try out these pigments by making color-wheels, paint mixtures, value-hue-tint-and shade charts. Here's what we discovered... The blues, particularly Pthalocyanines, are nearly as strong as professional pigments. That is a characteristic of all pthalo- pigments, not the manufacture. So, you can count on the blue-green families of colors to be vibrant, strong and powerful. Students and hobbyists alike will quickly learn they do not need much of those pigments when mixing colors. They will also learn it is difficult to mix neutral grays with any pthalocyanine pigments, regardless of hue-compliment. The alizarin crimson is a hue, which means it is a mixture of pigments, not a pure single pigment. Professionals might not prefer the "hues" but students will find them accurate enough for standard color-theory mixing. The yellows are a trifle on the weak side, so over a semester she ended up using more of the yellows than any other primary. That's normally the case with any yellow-family pigment, but more so with student-quality products like these. That's no big deal since you can always go to the local art-store to replace dwindling supplies of most-used colors. The case is actually pretty good for a stapled-together-mass-produced box. Although she hated it because it was too cumbersome to carry to classes. Hobbyists who work at home and prefer to keep their painting areas neat will probably enjoy the case more than students who must carry materials around campus. Painting supplies have a tendency toward explosive entropy, so this box is a boon to apartment and dorm dwellers or anyone with OCD issues. Even if YOU are not a "neat-freak, your roommates will appreciate you keeping your mess contained in the box! That can help prevent arguments in the dorm. Regardless of the cumbersome box size, this represents a great value and superb ease-of-shopping for anyone interested in beginning painting. Instead of laboring over myriad choices and spending a LOT more for individual colors, this set provides a nice range with all the standard colors a student could need. By itself, that makes it a good value since you save time and headaches selecting colors. Students want to experiment. They do not need every possible color-choice and are usually better off with few colors. In fact, most art teachers I've met insist students begin with a limited pallet to insure students learn color-mixing and values before going crazy with many expensive colors. The brushes are actually quite good... incredibly good for the price. Obviously the watercolor brushes are a trifle stiff and do not carry paint the way Kolinsky Sable will. But, that's OK too. Most students will get fine performance from the synthetic brushes for water-media and the bristle brushes for oils, which are just fine even for a pro. Overall, this is a great value on medium-quality paints; good enough for anyone in college and delightful for weekend painters who don't care to read volumes arcane scientific literature about chemical-pigment formulations, color-theory, fugitive pigments, transparency-vs-opacity, staining vs sedimentary, etc. A student (or student's parent) can save a LOT of time and money by simply buying this set, and possibly adding to it as paint runs out or brushes fail. Are these professional quality? No, of course not. Professional quality paints demand ten times more. Professional watercolor brushes cost fifty times more. The bristle oil-brushes are nearly pro-quality though, and it is a fairly complete set of decent colors in three mediums that most art-students will need; All in a nifty box that, although too big for a fashion-conscious coed to carry, is perfect for organization at home. The only complaint we can make is that some of the watercolors were hard in the tube and separated from the gum-arabic binder. That's not a huge problem if you know how to resurrect hardened colors. Just put sealed tubes in boiling water for ten minutes, then squeeze the tubes (with your oven mitts on!) to massage the gum-binder back into the pigment. You can also stick a toothpick inside the tubes and rotate it around to re-alloy pigment with medium. That works for oil-colors too, but do NOT try that with acrylics! Heat changes the polymer emulsion and makes acrylic paint clumpy. I suspect that very few hobbyists buy these complete kits because they balk at the initial cost, so the sets lay dormant in inventory for a long time. That's probably why the WC tubes were hard. If hobbyists were to add up the cost of all the individual items for comparison, they would undoubtedly change their minds. You can do some research for yourself! I did, and discovered that to buy similar ranges of products from my favorite online discount stores, I would pay one-and-a-half to three times more for all the same stuff! This set, combined with a couple of 140# watercolor pads and a few yards of cotton duck will get any beginner on the path. Compared to the cost of buying everything this kit contains separately, it is a fantastic value and HUGE time-saver. If you want to experiment with several mediums or have a fledgling art-student preparing for school, this is a great deal. That's why I recommend it.