Review on 🎨 Schmincke Horadam Aquarell Half-Pan Paint Metal Set, Set of 48 Colors (74448097): Unleash Your Artistic Brilliance! by Maria Aguillon

Schmincke's Horadam line of watercolors is one of the world's leading brands and the quality of the watercolor cuvettes and tubes is fantastic. The 3 stars I'm giving here relate to the composition of the set itself. You'd think that this understandably expensive but "generous" 48-color half shell set from Schmincke would contain at least a few essential colors. The absence of RAW UMBER and COBALT BLUE was pretty egregious. Raw Umber is irreplaceable - it's one of the few single-pigment earth tones that has a natural cool tint. Instead, in this set it is replaced with "Sepia Brown" which is not true sepia but more of a blurred shade of phthalo and black pigments. The traditional earth color RAW SIENNA is also missing in this set. Another glaring omission is the absence of cobalt blue (PB28), resulting in a disturbing break in the classic mid/neutral blue spectrum that is particularly important to the botanical artist. Instead, a shade called "Mountain Blue" is used to fill that mid-blue spectrum - a mix of ultramarine, lithopone white and phthalo green, all cheaper pigments by the way. I find the addition of white pigment to recreate the blue midtone particularly taxing. I expected it from smaller brands, but Schmincke? In addition, the composition of the burnt sienna pigment is questionable. Unlike real burnt sienna (PBr7), the composition of the burnt sienna pigment in this set consists of a fairly strong synthetic iron oxide red (PR101) and a bone black pigment (PBk9). This pigment composition results in a harsh brownish-red hue that lacks the natural nuance and subtlety of traditional true burnt sienna. Colours. The 48th bowl contains an additive of ox bile (not a dye) that can be used to improve the flow of colors. Then there are 2 whites - titanium and zinc - and 2 metallics (gold and silver). So from a more practical point of view, pushing aside the bull bile, 2 whites and 2 metallics, there are actually only 43 colors when viewed from a more traditional watercolor perspective (unless you really need to use 2 whites and 2 colors ). . 2 metallics of course, which would be zero in my case). If you are considering buying this set, you should take a very close look at the color selection and the pigment composition of the individual colors. Overall I'm happy with my purchase based on the quality of the paints themselves, however I found the color choices in this set to be a bit lacking. This means I will end up buying multiple colors individually, which is contrary to why I bought this set in the first place.