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Review on 🎨 HIMI Solid Watercolor Palette - 18 Assorted Colors with Paint Brush, Watercolor Paper - Portable Travel Kit for Beginners, Artists, Students, Kids - Blue by Morgan Gilmore

Revainrating 5 out of 5

You surprised me.

UPDATED: I've been using these colors for a long time and I LOVE them. In my photos I compare them to Daniel Smith's "core set" and to be honest the colors are very similar, with Daniel Smith being a little lighter and a little more translucent. The ultramarine blue is very beautifully grainy. I have a TikTok video about it on my Studio_of_Meg account if you're interested. Definitely a great starter kit! These watercolors really exceeded my expectations. They're cheaper compared to other student-quality starter kits, but have a more modern design and bright, smooth, buttery colors that require a little water to activate. The colors are not chalky at all to me and match well! I was even able to use salt in the background of my painting to add a texture effect, although I will say they didn't give that classic salt texture that some other brands give. Everything in my painting was painted using just these watercolors and some of the white detail is from a jelly gouache set I've had for a few months now. I've only been using these colors for a day but will eventually update my review to assess their lightfastness. The set comes in a beautiful box containing a travel set and a watercolor brush. However, the brush doesn't fit in a travel box, which might be a downside for people, but that didn't bother me. I bought the green version. The green color set is a beautiful light mint green with a beautiful black robin. It's very stylish and makes me want to use it more often because of the cool color and the bird haha. The downside for me was that the actual set doesn't stay closed. The top and bottom flaps open slightly by gravity when lifted or rotated, but at least the watercolor inside doesn't fall out. The color mixing side stays out at the back when folded, but I haven't had any problems with that. However, if you're buying this for a younger or messy kid, you might be worried about cleaning issues. The colored half of the travel container can be used as a water container to wash your brushes, which is pretty cool. It would be nice if both halves could be used in such a way that one has dirty water and the other clean water. The water brush is good and comes to a very sharp point. You will also receive rough watercolor pattern paper (6 total). You are really small. So if you were expecting paper to be used for finishing, you will be disappointed. So buy paper if you don't already have it. When it comes to paper, I've tried colors on different types of paper. The pattern paper comes with Canson base watercolor paper and a non-watercolor drawing album. Everything looked really good except for looking through the sketchbook, but that was to be expected since the paper wasn't designed for it. So if you received this and your colors don't look as vivid, just try a different paper. They also blend really well, although I'd like to know more about them in terms of pigment levels and such. I changed the burnt umber/siena because they were labeled in a way that didn't make sense to me at first. Her sienna is like umber and her umber is like sienna. Overall I am very happy with this set!

Pros
  • Stylish and modern design
Cons
  • Slightly wrinkled