Hi friends, Today we are going to take a look at a small set of watercolors that really pack a punch, The Rosa Gallery Watercolors. I am reviewing the 12 color set which sold out shortly after posting my review to YouTube yesterday. They have also increased the price if you want to preorder it so I recommend you go for the 24 set in the cardbard box if you want the best value and don’t need a tin, or, go for some of their tinned sets if you want one. They are still a fantastic value. The 24 cardboard box set will have all of the colors in the 12 set plus 12 others. I purchased this set myself and was not paid to do this review. Affiliate links are used in this post.

As promised in the video I have photographs of the charts. Creating a mixing chart is a great way to see the possibilities of colors in a set when mixed with another color in the set. To create more variety (otherwise the bottom half of the card would be identical to the top half) I use more of the color from the top row in each column. In other words, look at the color on the top of a column and all of the colors under that will have a mix where the top color is more dominant.

Here is the chart using a split primary mixing technique. This 12 color set has a warm and cool version of each primary color which is what I recommend to my students (and why I bought this set to test out!)

This is an example of mixing with warm primaries, and of cool primaries. The color mixing stamp is from Waffle Flower.

Below is the swatches with a glaze stripe and the pan wrappers. Sorry for the upside down labels, it’s funny what bothers me and what doesn’t huh. Also, I forgot to make my transparency stripe until after I swatched the yellow so look to the right of each yellow swatch to see the transparency.

And finally some of the granulation examples. I found Ultramarine Blue, Umber and Cadmium red to create the most granulation in mixes. To get granulation you want really wet washes so the pigment can settle out and separate in the standing water. You also want to use smoother paper with a heavy sizing for the most dramatic effect. To avoid granulation simply do controlled washes on dry paper or speed up drying with a hair dryer or heat tool.

Now lets look at the pros and cons of thie paint:

Pros:

• Extremely saturated clean and vibrant color
• Professional Quality
• Quick to rewet
• Open stock available *Although they are much more economical in sets per pan
• Price (much lower than other comparable brands) Even cheaper in Europe!
• Mixes well
• Contain real cadmiums which are usually very expensive
• Pigment info disclosed

Cons:

• These are a liquid poured pan that can become sticky in humid environments so probably not the best for travel as an sideways palette could get messy.
• These can be hard to find in the USA, I jumped on the chance to order a set when they came in stock on Amazon.
• Most of the sets have Cadmium colors in them so not suitable for children. Also many artists wish to avoid cadmium so I thought I’d list it here as it is a con for some.

Bottom line: You really can’t go wrong with these paints at this price. I know the price changes on Amazon so I’d say these are totally worth a try if they are less than $2 per pan in sets especially if in a tin. I’ll probably get more if I have the opportunity to! You can visit the Rosa Gallery Store on Amazon to see what they have available.

Happy crafting!