White Nights Artists’ Watercolours 36 shades- Review and Swatches

Hello creative souls ,

Hope you all are doing great!

In today’s Thursday Talks , I’d be reviewing my 36 shades White Nights Watercolors which I recently ordered from sitaramstationers.com. I got so many requests for the swatches and review of the same so I decided to take this as a topic for this Thursday.

What does the brand claim?

These extra-fine artists’ watercolours are manufactured with finely dispersed and lightfast pigments, and all of the colours are easily intermixable. The paint structure also comprises gum Arabic. This results in a quality paint, giving artists full assurance when completing important artwork. 

My take-

The set comes in beautiful shade range. Be it watercolor landscapes or florals, you are gonna love these for almost all your watercolor artworks. The set comprises of 4 shades of yellow, 2 shades of orange and purple, 7 shades of red and blue, 5 shades of green , 6 shades of brown, a white,black and Payne’s gray. The shades would allow you to paint beautiful realistic paintings as thats only possible through layering of shades and the availability of various shades and tones of one color makes that layering work easier. The swatches along with shade names and number is shared below-

As you can see, for each shade there are 2 swatches. The swatch in the upper box is “wet on wet” and the swatch in the lower box is “wet on dry”. I have lots of favourites from these. Some of them are Golden, yellow,Ruby (my love), Quinacridone Rose, Quinacridone Lilac, violet, bright blue,ultramarine, turquoise blue,Ceruleam blue, emerald green,green,olive, umber,Mars brown,sepia and Payne’s gray.

Product Details-

👩🏻‍🎨 A set of 36 pans is available for INR 5650.

👩🏻‍🎨 Each pan consists of 2.5 ml of product

👩🏻‍🎨 It comes in a really sturdy plastic palette which also has a detachable mixing palette with 12 big compartments for easy mixing of colors.

👩🏻‍🎨 Works beautifully on 300gsm or above 100% cotton paper. If you want to paint something that won’t have layers and layers of watercolors, even 25% cotton paper would be sufficient.

Reasons to buy-

🔹️ Amazing shade range in a single palette at a price which is still very affordable as compared to other brands having similar quality watercolors.

🔹️Lightfastness- lightfastness is the property that describes how resistant to fading it is when exposed to light.

Out of 36 shades, 30 shades have high lightfastness ,5 shades (yellow ochre,golden,yellow, green,olive green) show medium lightfastness and just 1 shade ,which is is violet, has low lightfastness.

🔹️ All the colors are really vibrant and show up really well making the overall artwork really attractive.

🔹️ Easily available online @www.sitaramstationers.com

🔹️The best part for me is if you run out of your favorite shade, a shade you can’t really do without, these are available as separate pans exclusively @sitaramstationers.

🔹️ This set is also available in a set of 12 shades for INR 1918 and 24 shades for INR 3800, both @www.sitaramstationers.com.

Final views-

All in all I feel these watercolours are worth every penny and if you are looking for supreme quality watercolors at an affordable price, there’s no better option than these.

Here’s a link you can buy these colours from-

White Nights Artist’s Water Colour Cake Set

Hope you found this helpful. If you have any further questions you can reach out to me on my instagram @kalaavi_by_pallavi.

Keep creating ❤

Beginner friendly Watercolor painting kit under ₹1000

Hello beautiful people…

So it’s time for Thursday Talks again and today’s topic is something about which I get the most queries. So I thought why not go ahead and pen down all the things you need to kick start your watercolors painting journey. With so many new brands coming up with new art supplies almost every other day, it has become difficult to decide on what exactly one should buy. This becomes even more difficult when you are just wanting to embark on a journey with watercolors.

If you are someone who is keen to start your watercolors art journey, this write up would be surely helpful for you as by the end of it you would have a list of all the basic art supplies needed for your happy journey with watercolors WITHOUT burning a hole in your pocket.

So without further ranting, I’d come straight to the points-

1. Watercolors-

First and foremost, obviously is the question which watercolors should you go for. There are thousands of options we see around us today and hence we are not sure what exactly is the best for us. I would suggest you going for Camel Artists’ Watercolors tubes. You can just start with a set of 12 colors which retails for ₹185 and you can get some discounts from Amazon or local stores too. Each tube contains 5ml of product. It has all the basic needed colors and the colors are nicely pigmented and vibrant. The consistency is perfect and if you squeeze out extra on your color mixing palette, you need not worry as these can be easily reactivated by adding few drops of water.

Camel Artists’ Watercolors

2. Papers–

Next important question is what papers to go for as watercolors papers are crazily priced these days. Trust me guys, I feel you. Spending so much on papers as a beginner when you always fear of just ruining your artwork isn’t a good idea at all. But you really need not spend it all on buying those 100% cotton sheets just because everyone else is using them. I’d recommend going for 25% cotton 300gsm cold pressed Watercolor sheets from Brustro. You can buy a pack of A4 size sheets which retails for ₹396. A pack consists of 24 sheets. As a beginner, I’d suggest you to divide your A4 sheet into 2 equal parts which would give you 2 A5 sheets as painting on A4 directly is a little intimidating. I even used to divide it into 4 parts making 4 A6 sheets from 1 A4 sheet and enjoyed painting as a beginner.

Brustro Artists’ Watercolor 25% Cotton Sheets, 300gsm, CP

I know, I know, that one question which is right now erupting in your head is how can I do heavy washes for landscapes and galaxies on 25% cotton paper? The answer is YES YOU CAN. All you have to do is wet your 25% cotton paper once ,then allow the water to soak in completely and then go ahead and rewet it. Now your 25% cotton paper is ready for heavy washes. If you still don’t believe me, I am sharing a galaxy artwork done on Brustro 25% cotton watercolor A4 sheet.

3. Brushes-

Brushes again are something that have no upper limit to it. If you are a beginner and still learning you would see the artists you look upto using their favorite high end brushes but again you just don’t need to spend on those brushes at all. There are so many amazing brushes brands in the market you can go for. But I’d suggest something that’s easily available in stores near you or online. You can buy camlin S-66 (round brushes) in sizes 0,6,12 and S-67(flat brushes) in sizes 4 and 12 and you are good to go.

Camlin brushes S-66

Camlin brushes S-67

4. Masking Tape-

Next up is masking tape which we all use for those crisp white borders and I personally love that white border in my watercolors landscape and galaxies. I have super amazing option for you guys. You can buy the “Asian Paints” masking tape. It will cost you around ₹20 per tape and one roll will last you long. I usually buy a pack of 6 as it just costs me ₹120. These are easily available in any hardware stores. Its available on Amazon too but the prizes are high there so I won’t suggest you to buy from Amazon.

Asian Paints masking tape

5. Color Mixing Palette-

Color Mixing Palettes are an essential but you need not spend a penny for this one. Yes, you read it right. Any old dinner plate lying around in your kitchen makes the best color mixing palette ever. If you have some paints left on your plate just cover it with another plate and you are good to go. I’d suggest you going for a white plate so that you can see the exact color.

White dinner plate as color mixing palette

6. Board-

You would also need a board to stick your paper to. Although you can always stick your papers to table but I’d recommend using a board as it gives you freedom to rotate your paper when needed and also allows you to tilt your paper for the most beautiful gradient washes. But you need not buy those expensive cutting mats for this purpose. All you can use is your exam boards.

Exam board as base for your watercolors artwork

7. Some other basic stuff-

The above mentioned things are the most important but apart from these you’d need some old cotton cloth (don’t waste money on paper towels) , 2 glasses for water ,one for clean water and one to wash your brushes (head towards your kitchen to find some old glasses), pencil,eraser,sharpener,ruler and scissors (to cut your papers into A5 or A6), some normal art papers for practicing various strokes and swatches so that you don’t ruin your watercolor paper directly.

Once you have all the things listed here,you are good to start on with your journey with this beautiful medium. Just remember one thing, the magic is in you and just those expensive art supplies won’t make your artwork beautiful.

Hope you found this helpful. If you have any further questions you can reach out to me on my instagram @kalaavi_by_pallavi.

Happy creating ❤

Brustro Artists’ Gouache Colors Review

Hello folks..

Today I would be reviewing the newly launched Brustro Artists’ Gouache Colors for you all. If you are a beginner and thinking whether to invest in these or not, this review might help you.

What does the brand claim?

Brustro Gouache colours achieve its high opaque value by the high pigment load. They are versatile paints that can be used straight from the tubes, diluted with water for a watercolour effect or mixed with different mediums giving you endless possibilities.

Gives you a uniform, matte, streak-free finish. They have excellent workability, coverage, durability and blend-ability. This feature attributes to them being a popular choice for designers and illustrators as the work becomes easy to photograph and reproduce without the problem of glare.

My take-

These are from one of the best yet affordable art supplies brand “Brustro” and marketed as “artist grade”. These come in a set of 24 beautiful and vibrant shades. The shade names and swatches are listed below-

Product Details-

🔹️ Comes in 24 beautiful shades

🔹️Tube packaging

🔹️Each tube contains 12ml of product

🔹️Works best on 300gsm watercolors paper

🔹️Artist Grade colors

Reasons to buy-

❤ Artist grade colors at such an affordable price

❤24 beautiful shades available in the set.

❤All the shades are really vibrant and pigmented.

❤They doesn’t dry out immediately as they are creamy in texture hence you can take sometime doing those tiny details.

❤Works well on both white and black paper.

❤Really opaque and gives good coverage.

❤Easy to use, hence beginners in Gouache painting can definitely give it a go.

❤Can be rewetted easily when required, so if you have squeezed out more product it can be used afterwords.

I would like to share one of my artworks done using the Brustro Guoache Artists’ Colors-

Bright Quirky Umbrella to brighten up the gloomy monsoon days!

If you’d like to watch a quick process video of the umbrella then here it is-

I hope yoy enjoyed this quick review of the amazing product. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask. You can also DM me at my instagram page “kalaavi_by_pallavi”.

Keep Creating!❤

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton