Viviva colorsheets review

 

Hi guys!

Have you ever heard of  Viviva colorsheets?

Yes, there's an alternative to the usual pan or tube watercolors and today I want to talk about it!

I had a collaboration with Viviva and I had the pleasure  to receive and try their products, after some months I feel ready to review them!

What is Viviva.

Viviva is an Indian company that produces exclusively watercolor sheets. On  their web page you can read  how it has been born and developed, I think it's very inspirative and I want to tell it shortly.

 The founder, Aditya, was a teenager when he had the idea of making watercolors that were easy to carry and use en plain air because he was not happy with the classical portable watercolor palettes. He remembered  that, over 50 years earlier, his grandmother used a particular Japanese ink that might work in dry form, he collaborated with an expert to develope the right technology and with his brother who helped him to build the product and the brand.

In 2017 Viviva launched  the product with a crowdfounding campaign and with the collaboration and promotion by various artists on the web Aditya has succesfully finalised his project: now Viviva products are known and appreciated all over the world!

Viviva watercolors are hand made in India and their philosophy is based on the idea that art can unite people and artists who like their products virtually join the "Viviva Family".

Being part of this family I can say that I really felt the human connection by the Viviva team, because of the collaboration I've had some chats with them and I always felt welcomed and comfortable, as if we had known for some time!

Someone might think I wrote that because they gived me products, but it's not that. I think their approach with costumers and  collaborators is genuine and clear and it represents an added value to me.

Viviva colorsheet's packaging.

The sets arrive inside  nice floral cardboard bags and they look like booklets. On every page of the booklet (made of cardboard) there are two colored rectangles with a thickness of about 0,5mm...those are the watercolors!

I guess the ink is previously spreaded on large cardboards and dried, than the crafters cute out the rettangles and glue them on the booklets.

Each rectangle measures 6x4,5cm and the booklet contains 16 colors that you can easily find also when you close it. The size of the booklet is 13,5x7cm and it is about 0,5cm thick, more or less as a smartphone. Inside the package there's a waterproof cardboard that you have to glue on the last page, it is a palette to mix the colors. Between the pages there are water repellent sheets to avoid sticking with wet colors and below each rectangle there's a small area for the swatch. On the first page there are intructions how to use the palette. In conclusion the set is literally pocketable, lightweight and pretty handy.

Viviva team made also a set including a beautiful and elegant wooden case that you can personalize with the engraved name of the person who will receive it as gift (or your own name!) and a Kuretake waterbrush. 

Viviva gift set.

Swatches and impressions.

Swatches of classic Viviva palette.

I received three different palettes from Viviva: the classic one and  two limited editions they made in  collaboration with Etchr and with Jake Parker, the inventor of Inktober. Here I'll show you the first two because the  third took the colors from the first two palettes.

On my Instagram  you can see one of the sets that Viviva made in collaboration with Jake Parker. 

The colors of the classic palette are: crimson, deep pink, vermillion, dusk orange, chrome yellow, gold ochre, burnt umber, burnt sienna, light green, sap green, viridian, peacock blue, persian blue, violet, magenta, slate black.

It's a good selection of colors, mainly warm. In my opinion a cool brown would made the palette more complete, but it's still a totally enjoyable selection because you can mix the colors together to make new ones. The next tutorial will be about that!

Some hues are very peculiar because on the booklet they look metallized and very different than their actual color on paper...viridian and peacock blue look amarant/purple while persian blue and violet look brown!

The inks are extremely pigmented (expecially purples, blues and magenta), so you have to pick up a small dot with the brush and dilute! On paper they look very bright and very transparent.

Viviva/Etchr palette swatches

The Viviva/Etchr palette includes: vivid red, cherry blossom, burgundy, saffron, happy yellow, treebark brown, foliage green, olive green, lemon grass, ocean blue, midnight blue, indigo blue, metallic red, metallic baby pink, metallic light gree, metallic sky blue.

Metallic colors

The colors of the second set are  as very bright and transparent as the first one but a little less pigmented. The metallic ones are cute and they keep the metallic effect if you don't dilute them so much. No cool browns here either.

About the duration (how long a single rettangle takes to be finished) I don't have a precise idea because I never finished a rettangle. The most pigmented paints are surely more long lasting than you imagine, on their site it's claimed they are as long lasting as a regular half pan.

I can't give a rating even about the lightfastness because there are no informations about it. I think these watercolors are made to be used on a sketchbook, in that case the lightfastness doesn't matter!

Click HERE if you want to watch a work in progress of a painting I made with Viviva watercolors.

Here some examples of artworks I made with these beautiful paints.

Price and reperibility

Viviva colorsheets are purchasable by the official web store  where you can find various sets and limited edition products. They ship worldwide.  The single classical palette is on various online art suppliers.

The price of the classical palette on their store is $20. Considering the quality and that they are hand crafted I think it's a good price.

Some tips about Viviva colorsheets

Here some tips:

- Start taking a small amount of paint, the inks are very pigmented;

- Swatch them on paper to see how they look when you add more water, colors will look much brighter and lighter;

- The kind of ink, with no bidder, gets absorbed by the paper differently by common watercolors and lifting them is quite hard. I recommend to work with light layers;

-While you're holding the booklet in your hand pay attention to don't put the fingers on the colored rectangles or you'll active the paint and you'll make a mess!

Final vote  and conclusions

My final vote for the Viviva colorsheets is 9! 

It's a quality product and it meets the needs of artists who want to paint en plain air, it's eco-friendly and hand made by local women.

I like the innovative idea, the enthusiasm of the team, their way of doing marketing and their philosophy.

In the end, I would recommend to try them!

I hope you enjoyed this review!

See you soon!

Sara

LEGGI IN ITALIANO