I really like these watercolors. I use different brands, everthing from high quality stuff like W&N pro and Horadam to budget brands like Superior and kid's paints, and I find that Van Gogh is the perfect middleground. Very inexpensive and readily available, but of good enough quality that they will not hold you back or interfere with your working progress. I think these are really a good option for anyone, whether they are new to watercolors or experienced.
This video just inspired me to buy 14 half pans of Van Gogh! A local art store here in Belgium has an August sale where they are a mere 1,7 euro for a half pan... Score 😃
I have quite a lot of good memories using the Van Gogh. Their tubes were my first upgrade from Cotman starter half pan set, almost a decade ago. Using the Van Gogh tube paint was like a breath of fresh air, it helped me paint in a more loose style and learned how to control their intense pigmentation (compared to my old Cotman at least). It just made me happy and want to paint more. I even made my first diy palette, squeezing blobs of Van Gogh paint in a small old tin box. While using them I also learned some things about pigments, since I realized that my Cobalt Blue Hue was in fact Ultramarine with white. So I learned to check the ingredients before buying new colors. Back to today..their Indigo is in a full pan in my main palette since then. Dusk colors are a recent edition in my granulating/specialty palette, absolutely love them. Oxide Black is great in mixes. After using artists quality for years I notice the opacity in most colors. For linework-based techniques I would be a bit careful with the color selection. Thanks for the swatches!
I hear a lot of people say that they loved Van Gogh watercolors after being frustrated with their Cotman paints. I'd definitely recommend beginners to start with Van Gogh if they can get them.
I had a Van Gogh 12 tube set when I first started painting in watercolor years ago. I really liked them. If I had to pick any student grade today to paint with exclusively, it would be Van Gogh. In fact, I would purchase the same 12 tube set again, as I loved the palette they came in.
I really like them. They're bright, happy, affordable, convenient. Great for my sketchbook and experimentation. I have the old clamshell style 18 half pan +2 tube set with the sponge and decent size 6 brush. Very reliable. Great when I want to paint and not have to think about color choices in my higher end sets. I recently got the smaller 12 +3 sketcher set which will go in my travel kit. Perfect size. I find Van Gogh gives a little more punch on the pigmentation than Cotman. I did pick up the dusk tubes and a few other colors. I love that they're available at my local Joann (big box) for less than $5/10 ml tube and I don't have to trek 15 miles to Blick for Winsor and Newton or Daniel Smith at 4x the price. I can also bling them up a bit with some of my Holbein gold or silver in abstracts. I really like the violet leaning Payne's Gray. I find it refreshing although I normally prefer a blue leaning Payne's Gray. I really like the richness of the Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber for some reason. There's definitely a place for Van Gogh, especially given the price.
My watercolour journey started about 3 years ago with my first art supply purchase of a 15-paint VG travel set. I then expanded with various VG tube paints. (Here in Spain, they cost between 2.20€ and 3.50€ for a 10ml tube, depending on where you buy them). I'd say I probably ended up with 75% of their standard range and tried a couple of their interference colours and dusk colours. Eventually, I started to notice how they didn't dry so well and seemed a bit "chalky". Mind you, it's still possible to have a lot of fun with them and produce some interesting paintings- at least from a beginner stage to a couple of years on. Later, with more experience I started trying a few Daniel Smith paints and the difference was like chalk and cheese! However, there is still a place for VG paints in my palettes, they have some good paints that can still be useful in any painting at my stage of learning about watercolour painting. They do have a few duff paints too, but maybe that's because I don't know how to use them properly.
I would choose VG every time for my small travel/practice palette. The slight opacity isn't a problem once you get used to it. Teaches you a lot about mixing washes for a start. Colours re-wet easily, are vibrant and are said to be fast, fast enough for what I use them for anyway. And at the price, about €3 where I am in Germany, much cheaper in sales, what's not to like. I would, and have, recommend them to any beginner. Just paint and fail until you begin to fail less and less, and don't worry about wasting expensive paint. Another great swatch btw.
I love the dusk colors. I'll have to see if they are available locally. My Hobby Lobby has or had a selection of Van Gogh paints. I haven't been in so long, who knows what they have now. lol I think all the colors are very nice.
Imma winser newton fan. There cottman half pan sets are perfect for a beginner as they made sure they all mix well togeather and you cant go wrong. And there pro line has the BEST transparent colorful/ bright colors there is. Now i will use any paint i can, student to pro if its a good paint. I go by what i can get a deal on unless there is a certain color i like from 1 brand....then i will get that brand.
I've tried both Van Gogh and Cotman and I wouldn't buy Cotmat any more whereas I like to buy Van Gogh from time to time. They are on the opaque side, that's true, but you can dilute them without loosing vibrancy. I would say that the Cotman watercolors are more chalky, opaque and less vibrant than Van Gogh, as well as far to highly priced in Poland in comparison to the Van Gogh watercolors. In my opinion the Van Gogh watercolors are the best student brand. You may find more transparency in Maimeri Venezia, but they're less pigmented and hard to find. I don't know if Maimeri is producing them still. I think it's a good idea to use Van Gogh and buy better paper and attend workshops. It would be far more profitable than buying for example Daniel Smith watercolors.
I had never seen Van Gogh paints but I really liked all the colors that contain Pbk 11. They’re very beautiful and granulating. I often do the same with my high end paints -mix them with pbk11 to create very granulating paints. I might get all the paints with pbk 11 from Van Gogh though as they’re very inexpensive here in the US. I checked today and they cost 3.33 each 10ml tube.
I've been really surprised at how much I like VG paints! I have a few of these but this video was definitely helpful, I want to check out that range of dusk pants. Thanks for the swatch video, they're always fun.
It would be interesting to see a mixing chart on these as there are a lot of single pigments and none with more than two. I do mixing charts for fun to hang up but if I really want to know how a paint mixes I do it differently and it wouldn't chart very well at all. I don't actually find charts too helpful, only slightly, but I do think they let you know a bit about if the paints will mix well and they are so nice to look at.
I have a van gogh 10 tube set and I rarely use them except the dusk colors...they dont really move in water so I almost always have to add ox gall to my paint mixes-which gets exhausting...I also have noticed how opaque they are; which is not necessarily a deal breaker for me...But I have like zero experience with student grade paint so I cant really compare Van Gogh with other student grade brands; so Ive come to the conclusion that brand is nice, not what I would consider professional but definitely not a paint that would hinder an artist while working...side note: Ive compared Van Gogh to White Nights and I actually found that I like the look of Van gogh a bit more than White Nights- tho I did not compare the 2 brands in an actual painting- i just compared swatches. Also Side note#2 I dont really consider White Nights professional in my studio- I often find myself regretting my choice when I pick a white nights color for a painting after the fact. Anyway great video and thanks for sharing- much love:)
You're very welcome. Thank you 🙏 You're right about them not being very active on the wet paper. I'm used to using Asian brands which are also not very active so it's not really a problem for me. That's interesting to hear your comparison to white nights. I know that many people consider white nights to be a step below the artist grade brands but I always thought they were above the student grades.
Me too. I had to check, double check and then triple check the Van Gogh website to make sure that was really what it said. And after reading your comment I checked for the fourth time 🤣
I’ve just seen a swatching out of the dot card and it says on there (on the card) that turquoise blue is made up of PB15 and PG7, and that turquoise green is made up of PB15 and PB29. I did wonder if they’d got them the wrong way round. If they were swapped round that would make the turquoise green OK but could turquoise blue be made from phthalo blue and ultramarine? Something has definitely gone wrong somewhere. They’re probably both made up of phthalo blue (PB15) and phthalo green (PG7).
I really like these paints! I started out with a set of them when I got into Watercolors but even after upgrading to better paints these still hold up fairly well. They have a really nice selection, great prices and while they can be a bit on the opaque side they're still really great for painting without having to worry about wasting expensive supplies :>
I think they're nicer than cotman. I seriously use these and Derivan Artist paints (which are an Australian brand that is pretty rich pigments but only 24 colours and are the same price as van gogh but more transparent and very vibrant). I use van gogh for colours that the Derivan doesn't have. The money I save goes to paper and brushes and frivolous stuff like food!
I love my Van Gogh's. They have some really gorgeous purples-I imagine not something you have a big need for. I really like the Cobalt Ultramarine hue. Much closer to the type of sky I see around here. I am always dumbfounded by pictures with bright blue skies.
i've seen them : ) grew up in florida and on certain days, there is ZERO cloud cover (including the thin cover you don't even really see, and it creates a crazy blue. i see it sometimes other places too but that's a consistent one. or sometimes out in desert areas like arizona or utah. so if you ever get a chance to travel those places you could see it.
Always liked these, they're my favourite student grade paints, I still like using them, even though they're a bit opaque. As someone who's main medium when being taught colour theory and basic painting in school were the infamous and cursed Deckfarben, which are a bit like gouache, aka opaque, but not really that opaque that you can layer.them all too well and not as flat like those, you always get bubbles and streaks in them, I don't really have much of a problem with their opaque ness, I had worse 🤣 And they're prices are really low here in Germany as well, the tubes cost roundabout 1,7 Euros or something like that for a 10ml tube 😅 I had my basic and muted pocket boxes for like 5 years or something and barely made a dent in those half pans, I don't think they could be too full of fillers (but not an expert on that here, either, just my experience 😘), maybe they're more opaque because the pigments aren't ground as finely as they might be in an artist grade paint 🤔?
I noticed that the amount of fillers really depends on the color with this brand. Some colors seem reasonably clean, while others very clearly contain white pigment or some other filler, and they dirty the paint water quite quickly and leave a bunch of white residue at the bottom. I'm also not an expert on this matter, but just from experience I don't think that the amount of filler always determines how long a paint lasts, I think it's mostly a matter of pigment density. If there is little pigment in the binder, then you'll end up using way more of that paint in order to get the right color. Whereas a paint with lots of fillers but a high pigment load could last a long time because you would not need much of it. But I think that in most cases the companies that include little pigment also tend to be the ones that add a lot of fillers, so those usually are the paints that go quickly just for that reason. Unless of course they are so horrible that noone wants to even use them, lol. Like Crelando watercolor tubes from Lidl... ewww. But the Van Goghs really do go quite a long way though, I find that their halfpans last noteably longer than those of comparable brands like Cotman, Aquafine or Sennelier l.p.A.
I've heard so many good things about these, and even in the US they are cheap, it's about $3.10 per tube. Great to see them up close! I suspect the Olive Green has a typo in it's pigment information, because I can't imagine that green is made with those two pigments! Does it have pigment info on the tube itself? I've had dusk pink in my cart at Blick for a while LOL.
I do have the tube any longer so I don't know what it says. I did check on UA-cam though to see other people swatching it out. I found a two year old Van Gogh video from Eve Bolt where she has the same two pigments for the olive green. So if it is a typo, they're definitely not in any hurry to correct it 🤣
Wow at that price, I might go that way too lol. My first paints were Grumbacher paints but then found Holbein. Later, I found Daniel Smith, Turner and Qor. And recently a few more brands but really I am happy with the paints I have. Most of the time I try out of curiosity. It used to be where I could go to my local art store and pay for studio time to try the paints but that option no longer exists. Oh well. I never tried Windsor Newton or Van Gogh. I had been curious about the purple/magenta Van Gogh pallet that was out a while ago, but guess that's long gone. Lol I love purples. I paint a lot of landscapes and wouldn't probably use - well only to look at. Tfs.
For all that I know that pink and purples pocket box is still being produced. They barely ever seem to kick one of them out of program ^^ They're also quite inexpensive, too. You can get the basic one with a whopping 15 colours for 15 Euros here in Germany, if you're lucky. The last one they added is one inspired by Van Gogh himself in a bright orange box which I got on my list (I just really rather hope that I can visit the museum they created that one with as a cooperation and get it there instead once the whole pandemic situation is over) along with and the one with the colours of nature, one that contains a lot of yellow through orange and earthy green shades. I already own the old basic colour one, the muted tones and the iridescent and metallic colour boxes and got their Titanium Buff, Oxide Black and Dusk colours on my Schmincke main palette, so I probably shouldn't be hoarding ^^' Oh, and for me and my climate here they seem to rewet quite well if you pour your own pans, if your interested :3
I have the purple and magentas palette. My girlfriend won it in a giveaway 😂 Like you though I paint landscapes and don't have any need for all those colours so it was never opened. It's still in its plastic wrapper somewhere.
@@JayNathanWatercolor yeah, that's what I thought what would happen to mine once I bought it. Still in packaging, buyer's remorse. It's great she won it, tho.
I really like that turquoise green! Do you think it has white in it? It reminds me of Holbein Cobalt green that has white. Also I’m eyeing that red violet! Wow it’s pretty
I like them. They go fast, though. A little doesn't seem to go as far as with professional brands for some colors, but for a dollar a tube? That's a crazy fantastic deal. There is a Quin Violet red shade, PV55, that is just gorgeous, luscious, for grape and amethyst colors. I also really like Light Oxide Red, very opaque but beautiful, and Oxide Black. Great line up. Thanks for swatching them out.
I'm not a watercolorist, so I will stop buying the expensive watercolors (I don't have that many;-) because I don't really need them. These look great and I have a pan set. Do you think there is a difference between the pan and the tube colors?
There's no difference as far as I can tell. I only have experience with a few Van Gogh pans though. The tubes are a much better deal I think as the pans are pretty small.
VG pans are good if you prefer pans or want a small travel palette, wet and start up really easily - not something you can say for Cotman in my experience. At the price I think they're a great paint for sketching and practice.
Not me thinking they are most affordable in Europe... ~4 euro a tube in my city in Italy (2.5€ online though). I still like van Gogh a lot, even if it's student grade paint it will always be amongst my favorites.
It must be a beginners mistake, because whatever I do, all the colors come out way more vibrant and opaque with zero transparency. The colors look way better, however the painting in the end, looks wrong!! I guess I have to add more water and only touch the paint once twice with the brush, so I won't take much color on it, right?
@@JayNathanWatercolor I did! It's the brushes that perform differently! I got a Quil, that holds way more water, than the cheap synthetics I was using, and now all the colors don't look opaque like Acrylics, but transparent like they should look!! Thank you very much!!!
price: weird, it's like.... $3.50 plus in the states. surprising it's so much cheaper where you are! thank you for this vid and commentary. i was wondering if ANY of the colors are transparent to augment my set but it seemed to me that most aren't. and VG lists most as transparent. crazy. especially one of their light blues which is SUPER OPAQUE. :/ i get that they're student grade but that feels like false advertising. why not just list them as semi? or actual opaque, when they are. i mean it can't be generating happy customers that way... g____g
I’ve only swatched out a dotcard from Van Gogh. Here in the states they’re about the same price as other student grades, so I’ve never seen any reason to get any. And good heavens I have enough professional grade to last me the rest of my life. But those prices in Thailand! Good grief, I would only be using those paints at that price. Paul Clark is another professional artist on YT that loves Van Gogh watercolors. I should take my dotcard and compare it side by side with my Cotman and Miya watercolors. I get along just fine with both of those.
No offense, but...I have all of these and Van Gogh are FAR superior to the other 2. Miya are bright and fun to play with in a journal or cartoons but they are made with dyes instead of true pigments. You can't really execute watercolor techniques with them. Cotman are ok but weak and full of fillers. Van Gogh makes real watercolors
The Aquafine from Daler-Rowney are way better than Cotman and Van Gogh. Bright, clear, transparent and vibrant. They have improved their whole range. Also the Daler-Rowney Artist Grade paints are amazing, better than W&N, Rembrandt and many others. Let's not forget that they have a tradition in making watercolours sincer 1783 and have been suppling Constable and Turner.
That's great to hear about the Aquafine. I've never used them but have been thinking about testing them for a while. I was actually about to pull the trigger yesterday on a 20 pan set that was on clearance at Jackson's but unfortunately it was sold out 😭 I'm sure I'll try them sometime. As for Daler Rowney artist grade. They're another brand I want to try in the future but I'm not sure when I'll get around to it. It's good to hear your views as I never really hear much about them. All I ever hear and see from Daler Rowney is their aquafine range. Either they want to keep their artist grade paints a secret or they have a terrible marketing team. 🤣
Yes, they are really weird in not promoting such great paints (the Artist grade). I only find them on Jackson's, and 2 weeks ago they were on sale, so "yey". As for the Aquafines, I use the tube version and they do their job excellent.
I absolutely agree, the Aquafine are really good and I would always recommend them if someone is looking for student grade paints. I used their travel palette for quite a while and then got some tubes in an art subscription box, which I use together with my artist grade paints. They are beautiful vibrant and highly pigmented colours that are lovely to work with.
Honestly though, *all* of the very traditional art supply companies have supplied a famous artist or two. They would obviously have to get their supplies from somewhere.
The PV19 is actually called Quinacridone Rose. Not Permanent Rose.
How does it compare to W&N’s Permanent Rose or Daniel Smith Quinacridone Rose or Schmincke’s Ruby Red?
I really like these watercolors. I use different brands, everthing from high quality stuff like W&N pro and Horadam to budget brands like Superior and kid's paints, and I find that Van Gogh is the perfect middleground. Very inexpensive and readily available, but of good enough quality that they will not hold you back or interfere with your working progress. I think these are really a good option for anyone, whether they are new to watercolors or experienced.
This video just inspired me to buy 14 half pans of Van Gogh! A local art store here in Belgium has an August sale where they are a mere 1,7 euro for a half pan... Score 😃
I have quite a lot of good memories using the Van Gogh. Their tubes were my first upgrade from Cotman starter half pan set, almost a decade ago. Using the Van Gogh tube paint was like a breath of fresh air, it helped me paint in a more loose style and learned how to control their intense pigmentation (compared to my old Cotman at least). It just made me happy and want to paint more. I even made my first diy palette, squeezing blobs of Van Gogh paint in a small old tin box. While using them I also learned some things about pigments, since I realized that my Cobalt Blue Hue was in fact Ultramarine with white. So I learned to check the ingredients before buying new colors.
Back to today..their Indigo is in a full pan in my main palette since then. Dusk colors are a recent edition in my granulating/specialty palette, absolutely love them. Oxide Black is great in mixes. After using artists quality for years I notice the opacity in most colors. For linework-based techniques I would be a bit careful with the color selection. Thanks for the swatches!
I hear a lot of people say that they loved Van Gogh watercolors after being frustrated with their Cotman paints. I'd definitely recommend beginners to start with Van Gogh if they can get them.
Since 30 years I draw with these wunderfull colors, best wishes from Cologne Germany
I had a Van Gogh 12 tube set when I first started painting in watercolor years ago. I really liked them. If I had to pick any student grade today to paint with exclusively, it would be Van Gogh. In fact, I would purchase the same 12 tube set again, as I loved the palette they came in.
What palette did they come in? The one that's still available today?
Van gogh is easily my favourite! Most bang for your buck❤
I really like them. They're bright, happy, affordable, convenient. Great for my sketchbook and experimentation. I have the old clamshell style 18 half pan +2 tube set with the sponge and decent size 6 brush. Very reliable. Great when I want to paint and not have to think about color choices in my higher end sets. I recently got the smaller 12 +3 sketcher set which will go in my travel kit. Perfect size. I find Van Gogh gives a little more punch on the pigmentation than Cotman. I did pick up the dusk tubes and a few other colors. I love that they're available at my local Joann (big box) for less than $5/10 ml tube and I don't have to trek 15 miles to Blick for Winsor and Newton or Daniel Smith at 4x the price. I can also bling them up a bit with some of my Holbein gold or silver in abstracts. I really like the violet leaning Payne's Gray. I find it refreshing although I normally prefer a blue leaning Payne's Gray. I really like the richness of the Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber for some reason. There's definitely a place for Van Gogh, especially given the price.
My watercolour journey started about 3 years ago with my first art supply purchase of a 15-paint VG travel set. I then expanded with various VG tube paints. (Here in Spain, they cost between 2.20€ and 3.50€ for a 10ml tube, depending on where you buy them).
I'd say I probably ended up with 75% of their standard range and tried a couple of their interference colours and dusk colours.
Eventually, I started to notice how they didn't dry so well and seemed a bit "chalky". Mind you, it's still possible to have a lot of fun with them and produce some interesting paintings- at least from a beginner stage to a couple of years on.
Later, with more experience I started trying a few Daniel Smith paints and the difference was like chalk and cheese!
However, there is still a place for VG paints in my palettes, they have some good paints that can still be useful in any painting at my stage of learning about watercolour painting. They do have a few duff paints too, but maybe that's because I don't know how to use them properly.
I would choose VG every time for my small travel/practice palette. The slight opacity isn't a problem once you get used to it. Teaches you a lot about mixing washes for a start. Colours re-wet easily, are vibrant and are said to be fast, fast enough for what I use them for anyway. And at the price, about €3 where I am in Germany, much cheaper in sales, what's not to like. I would, and have, recommend them to any beginner. Just paint and fail until you begin to fail less and less, and don't worry about wasting expensive paint. Another great swatch btw.
Thank you 😊🙏
I love the dusk colors. I'll have to see if they are available locally. My Hobby Lobby has or had a selection of Van Gogh paints. I haven't been in so long, who knows what they have now. lol I think all the colors are very nice.
I think so too. Definitely a good student grade watercolor.
Imma winser newton fan. There cottman half pan sets are perfect for a beginner as they made sure they all mix well togeather and you cant go wrong. And there pro line has the BEST transparent colorful/ bright colors there is. Now i will use any paint i can, student to pro if its a good paint. I go by what i can get a deal on unless there is a certain color i like from 1 brand....then i will get that brand.
I've tried both Van Gogh and Cotman and I wouldn't buy Cotmat any more whereas I like to buy Van Gogh from time to time. They are on the opaque side, that's true, but you can dilute them without loosing vibrancy. I would say that the Cotman watercolors are more chalky, opaque and less vibrant than Van Gogh, as well as far to highly priced in Poland in comparison to the Van Gogh watercolors.
In my opinion the Van Gogh watercolors are the best student brand. You may find more transparency in Maimeri Venezia, but they're less pigmented and hard to find. I don't know if Maimeri is producing them still.
I think it's a good idea to use Van Gogh and buy better paper and attend workshops. It would be far more profitable than buying for example Daniel Smith watercolors.
I had never seen Van Gogh paints but I really liked all the colors that contain Pbk 11. They’re very beautiful and granulating. I often do the same with my high end paints -mix them with pbk11 to create very granulating paints. I might get all the paints with pbk 11 from Van Gogh though as they’re very inexpensive here in the US. I checked today and they cost 3.33 each 10ml tube.
They are very nice. I think at that price it makes more sense to buy the tubes rater than mix my own.
Van Gogh is my first watercolor palette. Sap green, quinacridone rose and burnt sienna are really nice. Thank you !!
You're welcome 😊 I've not tried the sap green. Maybe that's one on the list for the future.
I've been really surprised at how much I like VG paints! I have a few of these but this video was definitely helpful, I want to check out that range of dusk pants. Thanks for the swatch video, they're always fun.
You're very welcome 🙏
It would be interesting to see a mixing chart on these as there are a lot of single pigments and none with more than two. I do mixing charts for fun to hang up but if I really want to know how a paint mixes I do it differently and it wouldn't chart very well at all. I don't actually find charts too helpful, only slightly, but I do think they let you know a bit about if the paints will mix well and they are so nice to look at.
I really like them - colourful, vibrant and inexpensive=) Absolutely love your swatches=)
I have a van gogh 10 tube set and I rarely use them except the dusk colors...they dont really move in water so I almost always have to add ox gall to my paint mixes-which gets exhausting...I also have noticed how opaque they are; which is not necessarily a deal breaker for me...But I have like zero experience with student grade paint so I cant really compare Van Gogh with other student grade brands; so Ive come to the conclusion that brand is nice, not what I would consider professional but definitely not a paint that would hinder an artist while working...side note: Ive compared Van Gogh to White Nights and I actually found that I like the look of Van gogh a bit more than White Nights- tho I did not compare the 2 brands in an actual painting- i just compared swatches. Also Side note#2 I dont really consider White Nights professional in my studio- I often find myself regretting my choice when I pick a white nights color for a painting after the fact. Anyway great video and thanks for sharing- much love:)
You're very welcome. Thank you 🙏 You're right about them not being very active on the wet paper. I'm used to using Asian brands which are also not very active so it's not really a problem for me.
That's interesting to hear your comparison to white nights. I know that many people consider white nights to be a step below the artist grade brands but I always thought they were above the student grades.
Looking at the swatched b29, and the swatched b15 - The labelling that surprises me is the turquoise green
Me too. I had to check, double check and then triple check the Van Gogh website to make sure that was really what it said. And after reading your comment I checked for the fourth time 🤣
I’ve just seen a swatching out of the dot card and it says on there (on the card) that turquoise blue is made up of PB15 and PG7, and that turquoise green is made up of PB15 and PB29. I did wonder if they’d got them the wrong way round.
If they were swapped round that would make the turquoise green OK but could turquoise blue be made from phthalo blue and ultramarine? Something has definitely gone wrong somewhere. They’re probably both made up of phthalo blue (PB15) and phthalo green (PG7).
I really like these paints! I started out with a set of them when I got into Watercolors but even after upgrading to better paints these still hold up fairly well. They have a really nice selection, great prices and while they can be a bit on the opaque side they're still really great for painting without having to worry about wasting expensive supplies :>
I think they're nicer than cotman. I seriously use these and Derivan Artist paints (which are an Australian brand that is pretty rich pigments but only 24 colours and are the same price as van gogh but more transparent and very vibrant). I use van gogh for colours that the Derivan doesn't have. The money I save goes to paper and brushes and frivolous stuff like food!
In Chicagi it's $3.33 a tube. Great value. I might try them for the price.
Thank you for doing this swatch.
You're very welcome 🙏
Patty-I like them better than Cotman. They laydown better for me. The price is better for me too, which surprised me.
I love my Van Gogh's. They have some really gorgeous purples-I imagine not something you have a big need for. I really like the Cobalt Ultramarine hue. Much closer to the type of sky I see around here. I am always dumbfounded by pictures with bright blue skies.
I quite like the cobalt ultramarine hue too. I quite like Cotman one also. Both are great for painting skies and much cheaper than the real thing 😊
i've seen them : ) grew up in florida and on certain days, there is ZERO cloud cover (including the thin cover you don't even really see, and it creates a crazy blue. i see it sometimes other places too but that's a consistent one. or sometimes out in desert areas like arizona or utah. so if you ever get a chance to travel those places you could see it.
Always liked these, they're my favourite student grade paints, I still like using them, even though they're a bit opaque. As someone who's main medium when being taught colour theory and basic painting in school were the infamous and cursed Deckfarben, which are a bit like gouache, aka opaque, but not really that opaque that you can layer.them all too well and not as flat like those, you always get bubbles and streaks in them, I don't really have much of a problem with their opaque ness, I had worse 🤣 And they're prices are really low here in Germany as well, the tubes cost roundabout 1,7 Euros or something like that for a 10ml tube 😅 I had my basic and muted pocket boxes for like 5 years or something and barely made a dent in those half pans, I don't think they could be too full of fillers (but not an expert on that here, either, just my experience 😘), maybe they're more opaque because the pigments aren't ground as finely as they might be in an artist grade paint 🤔?
I don't really know about fillers either. I just assume that all student grades contain more fillers than artist grade.
I noticed that the amount of fillers really depends on the color with this brand. Some colors seem reasonably clean, while others very clearly contain white pigment or some other filler, and they dirty the paint water quite quickly and leave a bunch of white residue at the bottom. I'm also not an expert on this matter, but just from experience I don't think that the amount of filler always determines how long a paint lasts, I think it's mostly a matter of pigment density. If there is little pigment in the binder, then you'll end up using way more of that paint in order to get the right color. Whereas a paint with lots of fillers but a high pigment load could last a long time because you would not need much of it. But I think that in most cases the companies that include little pigment also tend to be the ones that add a lot of fillers, so those usually are the paints that go quickly just for that reason. Unless of course they are so horrible that noone wants to even use them, lol. Like Crelando watercolor tubes from Lidl... ewww. But the Van Goghs really do go quite a long way though, I find that their halfpans last noteably longer than those of comparable brands like Cotman, Aquafine or Sennelier l.p.A.
I've heard so many good things about these, and even in the US they are cheap, it's about $3.10 per tube. Great to see them up close! I suspect the Olive Green has a typo in it's pigment information, because I can't imagine that green is made with those two pigments! Does it have pigment info on the tube itself? I've had dusk pink in my cart at Blick for a while LOL.
I do have the tube any longer so I don't know what it says. I did check on UA-cam though to see other people swatching it out. I found a two year old Van Gogh video from Eve Bolt where she has the same two pigments for the olive green. So if it is a typo, they're definitely not in any hurry to correct it 🤣
Great idea on using the money for classes.
Hey, just curious where do you get your art supplies, you say baht so I assume in thailand? Bangkok?
Wow at that price, I might go that way too lol. My first paints were Grumbacher paints but then found Holbein. Later, I found Daniel Smith, Turner and Qor. And recently a few more brands but really I am happy with the paints I have. Most of the time I try out of curiosity. It used to be where I could go to my local art store and pay for studio time to try the paints but that option no longer exists. Oh well.
I never tried Windsor Newton or Van Gogh. I had been curious about the purple/magenta Van Gogh pallet that was out a while ago, but guess that's long gone. Lol I love purples. I paint a lot of landscapes and wouldn't probably use - well only to look at.
Tfs.
For all that I know that pink and purples pocket box is still being produced. They barely ever seem to kick one of them out of program ^^ They're also quite inexpensive, too. You can get the basic one with a whopping 15 colours for 15 Euros here in Germany, if you're lucky. The last one they added is one inspired by Van Gogh himself in a bright orange box which I got on my list (I just really rather hope that I can visit the museum they created that one with as a cooperation and get it there instead once the whole pandemic situation is over) along with and the one with the colours of nature, one that contains a lot of yellow through orange and earthy green shades. I already own the old basic colour one, the muted tones and the iridescent and metallic colour boxes and got their Titanium Buff, Oxide Black and Dusk colours on my Schmincke main palette, so I probably shouldn't be hoarding ^^' Oh, and for me and my climate here they seem to rewet quite well if you pour your own pans, if your interested :3
I have the purple and magentas palette. My girlfriend won it in a giveaway 😂 Like you though I paint landscapes and don't have any need for all those colours so it was never opened. It's still in its plastic wrapper somewhere.
@@LunaBianca1805 oh interesting. Haven't seen it around lately. Maybe I still have a chance? I hape not for the temptation. Lol
@@JayNathanWatercolor yeah, that's what I thought what would happen to mine once I bought it. Still in packaging, buyer's remorse. It's great she won it, tho.
I really like that turquoise green! Do you think it has white in it? It reminds me of Holbein Cobalt green that has white. Also I’m eyeing that red violet! Wow it’s pretty
It might have white but, if it does, Van Gogh aren't telling us 😊
Thank you
you like turquoise greeeeeeeeennnnn!!!! 😆😆😆it's time for a celebration!!!🥳🥳🥳
Haha! Well everyone knows that turquoise is a rubbish color. So when we find a good one we should definitely celebrate 🤣🥳🤣🥳
I like them. They go fast, though. A little doesn't seem to go as far as with professional brands for some colors, but for a dollar a tube? That's a crazy fantastic deal. There is a Quin Violet red shade, PV55, that is just gorgeous, luscious, for grape and amethyst colors. I also really like Light Oxide Red, very opaque but beautiful, and Oxide Black. Great line up. Thanks for swatching them out.
You're welcome ☺️ I like the light oxide red too. It's one of my favourites.
I'm not a watercolorist, so I will stop buying the expensive watercolors (I don't have that many;-) because I don't really need them. These look great and I have a pan set. Do you think there is a difference between the pan and the tube colors?
There's no difference as far as I can tell. I only have experience with a few Van Gogh pans though. The tubes are a much better deal I think as the pans are pretty small.
VG pans are good if you prefer pans or want a small travel palette, wet and start up really easily - not something you can say for Cotman in my experience. At the price I think they're a great paint for sketching and practice.
The tubes and pans are, in my experience, basically the same.
Not me thinking they are most affordable in Europe... ~4 euro a tube in my city in Italy (2.5€ online though). I still like van Gogh a lot, even if it's student grade paint it will always be amongst my favorites.
Yeah Van Gogh isn't perfect but it's a great value student grade paint.
It must be a beginners mistake, because whatever I do, all the colors come out way more vibrant and opaque with zero transparency. The colors look way better, however the painting in the end, looks wrong!! I guess I have to add more water and only touch the paint once twice with the brush, so I won't take much color on it, right?
Keep practicing and you’ll get it I’m sure. 🙏☺️
@@JayNathanWatercolor I did! It's the brushes that perform differently! I got a Quil, that holds way more water, than the cheap synthetics I was using, and now all the colors don't look opaque like Acrylics, but transparent like they should look!! Thank you very much!!!
🔥🔥🔥🔥
price: weird, it's like.... $3.50 plus in the states. surprising it's so much cheaper where you are! thank you for this vid and commentary. i was wondering if ANY of the colors are transparent to augment my set but it seemed to me that most aren't. and VG lists most as transparent. crazy. especially one of their light blues which is SUPER OPAQUE. :/ i get that they're student grade but that feels like false advertising. why not just list them as semi? or actual opaque, when they are. i mean it can't be generating happy customers that way... g____g
I’ve only swatched out a dotcard from Van Gogh. Here in the states they’re about the same price as other student grades, so I’ve never seen any reason to get any. And good heavens I have enough professional grade to last me the rest of my life. But those prices in Thailand! Good grief, I would only be using those paints at that price. Paul Clark is another professional artist on YT that loves Van Gogh watercolors. I should take my dotcard and compare it side by side with my Cotman and Miya watercolors. I get along just fine with both of those.
Haha! I can relate to that. I think I've got enough artist grade paint to keep me going into the next decade 🤣
hey, on your dotcard and swatching for van gogh, are there any transparent colors? aside from py128?
No offense, but...I have all of these and Van Gogh are FAR superior to the other 2. Miya are bright and fun to play with in a journal or cartoons but they are made with dyes instead of true pigments. You can't really execute watercolor techniques with them. Cotman are ok but weak and full of fillers. Van Gogh makes real watercolors
PY129 ugly? How could you 😭
Hah! You should be used to me saying that by now? 🤣
@@JayNathanWatercolor Never 😂. And the funny thing is, I never used PY129 before 🤣. It looks so beautiful, though. I really can’t wait until I try it.
🤣🤣
hahahaaa! (i agree, i actually like py129 based on color alone. haven't mixed much of anything yet tho.)
The Aquafine from Daler-Rowney are way better than Cotman and Van Gogh. Bright, clear, transparent and vibrant. They have improved their whole range. Also the Daler-Rowney Artist Grade paints are amazing, better than W&N, Rembrandt and many others. Let's not forget that they have a tradition in making watercolours sincer 1783 and have been suppling Constable and Turner.
That's great to hear about the Aquafine. I've never used them but have been thinking about testing them for a while. I was actually about to pull the trigger yesterday on a 20 pan set that was on clearance at Jackson's but unfortunately it was sold out 😭 I'm sure I'll try them sometime.
As for Daler Rowney artist grade. They're another brand I want to try in the future but I'm not sure when I'll get around to it.
It's good to hear your views as I never really hear much about them. All I ever hear and see from Daler Rowney is their aquafine range. Either they want to keep their artist grade paints a secret or they have a terrible marketing team. 🤣
Yes, they are really weird in not promoting such great paints (the Artist grade). I only find them on Jackson's, and 2 weeks ago they were on sale, so "yey". As for the Aquafines, I use the tube version and they do their job excellent.
I absolutely agree, the Aquafine are really good and I would always recommend them if someone is looking for student grade paints. I used their travel palette for quite a while and then got some tubes in an art subscription box, which I use together with my artist grade paints. They are beautiful vibrant and highly pigmented colours that are lovely to work with.
Honestly though, *all* of the very traditional art supply companies have supplied a famous artist or two. They would obviously have to get their supplies from somewhere.