Hi guys!
Do you know what Gansai Tambi watercolor paints are?
They are Japanese paints made for traditional calligraphy with characteristical hight pigmentation and opacity.
They are used even for art, illustration, journaling and craft.
You can find various brands on the market, the most famous is Kuretake (that I've never tried), but today I'm going to talk about Gansai Tambi style watercolor paints called Komorebi, produced by MozArt and about their watercolor pad.
-I talked about MozArt HERE, with the review of their dual brush pens.-
Let's go!
Komorebi Watercolor Paints Review.
Packaging.
"Komorebi is a simple word in Japanese which describes the subtle beauty of sunlight through the leaves of the trees, and the dance the rays make." This is a part of the suggestive description wrote on the back of the packaging of this set.
The box that contains the 40 pans measures 21x18,5x1,5cm. On the cardboard which wraps the box there's a beautiful painting with a sunset above a lavender field.
The plastic which contains the pans is thin but resistant. The size of each pan is 1,9x3x0,9cm .
The pans are fully filled, I think the paint amount is a little less than the full pans of other brands.
Into the lid there's a chart for the swatches, with name and code of each color, the same code is printed below each pan. Between the lid and the paints there's a plastic protection. I think the packaging is comfortable and nice to see.
The paints.
The 40 pans includes: 26 well assorted regular colors, 6 neon colors and 8 metallic colors.
The paints are higthly pigmented and creamy, easy to activate. Dry paints are glossy, I guess it's for the hight amount of glycerine into them. They are pleasable to spread on the paper and they are vibrant, expecially reds and purples.
Despite they are Gansai Tambi style these paints are quite transparent and they don't have a chalky finishing as cheap paints have.
Neon colors are much vibrant and metallic ones have good pigmentation and medium coverage.
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| Swatches |
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| Metallic paints |
The company introduces these paints as artist quality, it means they should be lightfast but there aren't informations about it.
A feature of these paints is the smell, it reminds to me a bit of Das, nothing toxic or too annoying, it's a light smell but it's the first time I smell watercolor paints, I think it's becasue of the hight amount of glycerine they used to make them.
Price and reperibility
Price of 40 colors set is about €30 and you can find them on Amazon and on MozArt.com
Pros e cons
Pro:
-Good price
-40 colors
-Good colors variety
-Good quality
-Well made packaging
-Easy to find on the web
Cons:
-No lightfastness informations
-Smell
-No chance to buy pans singularly
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| Illustration I made with Komorebi paints on cotton paper |
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| Komorebi paints on MozArt paper |
Watercolor Pad Review
After the review of MozArt watercolor set let's see the watercolor pad.
MozArt watercolor pad is A4 size (29,7x21cm) with 30 sheets, glue-bouded on one side.
It's 300gsm pulp paper, acid free, natural white. It's cold pressed but the texture is quite rough on the paintable side and smooth on the back side (not paintable at all).
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Maybe you know the characteristics of pulp (cellulose) paper already but if you don't know here a quick explanation:
- When you use a big amount of water it warps a lot;
-On the surface there's a gel which doesn'at allow the water to be absorbed too quickly, it makes removing dried paint easily. It may be a quality when you need to correct a mistake but it makes hard working with layers because when you overlap a new layer the water re-activates the old one and all colors get mixed togheter;
-Colors lose a bit of saturation and they look a little dull;
-If the paper is low quality it frays easily when you put water on it.
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| MozArt watercolor paper, I put a lot of water on it |
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| MozArt watercolor paper after drying |
MozArt watercolor paper has the firts three characteristics but it's good quality. If you use the right amount of water you can anyway make layers, always without touching too much the paint on the paper.
Blending colors with wet on wet technique is not simple, you need to work it a bit, I think wet on dry works better with this paper.
I put a lot of water without the masking tape to block it and it bent a lot but it back flat after drying.
Colors lose vibrancy just a bit.
I'm using this paper for simple paintings, sketches and colors swatches because it allows to make lovely but not too intricate paintings.
Price and reperibility
Price of this pad is about €14, ou can find it on Amazon and on their site.
Conclusions
I think MozArt watercolor paints and pad are good quality products and they are really affordable. I recommend the paints to people who wants have fun with this media and want to learn it but even to professional artists for their sketches.
If you want to just have fun with watercolors and make simple paintings this well priced paper is good for you, but if you want to learn watercolor technique I suggest you to choose 100% cotton paper.
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| Illustration I made with MozArt watercolor paints on MozArt paper |
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| Illustration I made with MozArt watercolor paints on MozArt paper |
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| Illustration I made with MozArt watercolor paints on 100% cotton paper |
I hope this review will be useful!
See you soon,
Sara
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