Review on Sennelier French Artists' Travel Watercolor 🎨 Set, 8 Count - Pack of 1, Multicolor by Kristen Simpson

I am giving these five stars mainly because of the flowers themselves, not so much because of their packaging. It is ideal for watercolor painting on the go. However, I was very disappointed with how the colors are packaged inside (except my green was noticeably smaller). There is a cheap plastic holder for paints and brushes that takes up most of the tin. For compact travel it seemed like a huge waste of space so I bought empty halves and moved the paints to the halves and threw away the cheap plastic. This immediately gave my jar plenty of room to add more pans (I currently have three medium pans and six half pans for a total of 9), waterbrush/brushes, pencil, sponge, paper towels. , and a small piece of plastic with samples and for mixing. I activated my new setting. While the case isn't as portable as I'd like it to be, it's definitely customizable. As for the flowers themselves, I LOVE them. I've tried several watercolor brands and I LOVE love love them. The colors are so easily absorbed, they lie very smoothly on the paper and remain quite moist due to the honey. I bought this with a Windsor Newton bedding set and it blows W&N out of the water. The colors are very bright, easy to layer and have a wide range of depth. I see many people initially complaining about the lack of brightness, but Sennelier excels in its layering/glazing ability. Keep applying color and you'll see the depth and detail it can achieve. My test of how valuable these colors can be is to paint a monochrome painting I made with my favorite color from the set; Payne Grey. I was absolutely amazed at how much I was able to push a color and it has remained my favorite watercolor brand to this day. This set is a great introduction to these colors, especially before treating myself to a large set like I later did. This is still my pick for the compact shape and vibrant colors. EDIT: I see a lot of people complaining about the blending of pigments in these colorways. What annoys me the most is when people bitch that nothing is "pure pigment". If everything were pure and precise there would be no variety in the colors or in the art itself. I found I could get a huge range of colors from the original 8 included in the set. Personally, I wouldn't recommend them for beginners, nor are they suitable for teaching the basics of color theory. This would be fine for advanced color theory practitioners, but not for beginners who don't understand why these colors are mixtures of colors or why they behave the way they do. Even after using dozens of other watercolors (including "top" brands) I still refer to my Sennelier set which I've expanded to 30 colors because I just love the creamy texture and the ability to layer what is great for portraits you need a sense of transparency of skin and hair. After all, these aren't for everyone. I've met too many people criticizing them too much, all for the same stupid reason "it's not pure pigment" that people swear by Midgello gold. If you're trying something new, trying a new color palette setting, or just want to try it out with an open mind, then this might be what you're looking for.