This was my first gouache set and I like it a lot! I then tried Holbein and love Holbein’s texture. Comparing WN and Holbein’s mixing sets, it’s much easier *for me* to mix realistic colors with the WN set. That’s obviously due to my lack of experience mixing with CYM primaries. For a beginner painter, I think the WN set is easier to use. I do wish they’d include burnt umber instead of that awful green though!! 😺🎨
If you want to buy this set and save some money, I really recommend looking for listings with water damaged packaging! I bought this exact set for around $15 last Christmas, the tubes were in perfect condition, brand new, just ofc with a slightly damaged box.
I still like Winsor and Newton professional watercolors, but Cotman and their other products have been a little disappointing to me lately, ESPECIALLY their student grade products. Their Galeria acrylics used to be really good, but they aren't anymore. And not just a little...they are SO much worse than they used to be that it feels almost sad.
my kiddo just switched over to Golden because the Galeria were giving a lot of issues. The Cotman that she had dried into this weird dust stuff in the tubes, not good. So weird. I had tried their pencils. Not worth the money, the color payoff is meh and the watercolor pencils have no lightfastness what so ever. Maybe it is a W&N issue hmmm
I think the older, made in England, Cotman watercolours are way better than the current bunch. I still love their professional watercolours, though. Never liked Galeria acrylics, but W&N’s professional acrylics I like very much. They, and Golden are the only ones I now use.
Winsor and newton have been trading on their name for the past 5 years or so moving production of the student ranges to Asia and releasing what looks like a bunch of private lable Chinese supplies. The professional ranges seem safe but I would avoid the student stuff. It's such a shame. Really like old cotman. Each move quality declined, from England to France to China. They need to get it together or they will ruin their reputation.
I love your paintings, especially the car one. I also love when I stumble upon a car graveyard on my walks . When I was little we had a huge old laneway in the woods full of some of the first cars ever made. I used to call it "the broken car bush" lol.
I agree with your findings, I bought winsor and newton gouache about 8 years ago (these and art spectrum were my professional introduction to gouache after trying reeves) and even back then I found there was binder separation, I dried some down in a palette and it dried hard as a rock and crumbled and would fall out of the palette. It would re-wet and be ok to use but frustrating and there was some gloss. I have found Daniel smith and schmincke to be so much better across the board so I’ll stick with these. It’s a shame to see W+N haven’t made any improvements in that time on what could be a quality product. As always thanks for your honesty Lindsay 👏
Did you know Daniel Smith ADDED A TON of new colors to their gouache line?!!! Cause when they first came out their color choices were quite limited, but now.... ufff A TON!
@@thefrugalcrafter yeah... I already have Holbein, but they dont carry Sap Green, and Daniel Smith's Sap Green (in watercolor) is a most have for me, so obviously I ordered it. I also bought their Cobalt Teal Blue. 😊
I have really old Holbein gouache that is still great and there was no binder seperation after not using it for years. As a watercolour artist I expect gouache to be opaque otherwise I might as well just use watercolours. Thanks again for a great review.
I'm glad I got the Holbein mixing set, but when I found I needed more colors I did get WN. In my hands the WN paints dry really nicely without cracking. I got Naples Yellow Deep, Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna. I feel like I now have a good gouache set overall.
yes your paintings are so great,i love them.i am using my new art whale gouache like a watercolor ,its a huge box the rose red and mauve are so beautiful,i do not like to waste paint even though i have so much,
I like both your paintings but the rocks and trees are my fave! I have a modest set of WN Designer gouache including the mixing set you're using here. I think for the money, it's probably one of the best brands. I have only a few tubes of Holbein gouache and if that weren't even pricier than WN, that would likely be my go-to. I hear that Schmincke is excellent and maybe rated higher than WN ? but I think it's even more expensive than Holbein. I may try a tube or two sometime but am in no hurry. Thanks!
Hullo Lindsay, I have been avoiding gouache since my retirement. I still have tubes left over from jobs that I did when working, but I just don’t love the medium and archival properties are more important to me now so I simply don’t have any desire to cut corners anymore. I did buy cheaper soft pastels as I was very unsure about moving forward with that medium. I have become infatuated with those soft sticks of pigment! I am still considering myself as a watercolor painter. I am enjoying watching your videos and seeing your success is encouraging,thank you.
Gouache on eu brands anyways tend to be more translucent as you mix with either black or white to heighten opacity; i have been playing with a crazy zor palette for years just using a few primary colors; I don't know anymore what the color names were but do remember there are some great zor gouache tutorials on youtube. It even works on watercolors to some extend, im just spoiled and like the conveniance colors lol I even find the himi brand as a hybride to be more opaque. I don't know why; I only have winsor and schmincke gouache and am in no rush to test other brands; I just use it in sketchbook work; for my white highlight on watercolor I always reach for bleedproof white when i lost the white. Its a winter phase on my end.
Oh my, another coincidence! I just finished swatching my very old Windsor & Newton watercolor paints (late 1990s) and here you are reviewing that same brand, although with gouache. My old tubes don't even have pigment information! I'm picking up on watercolors again and bought new brands like Daniel Smith, Maimeriblu and Roman Szmal. Then, I decided to swatch my old W&N.... Wow, they are really good! I am quite surprised that not many watercolorists cover this brand anymore. But I don't know how they are with their current production, if they are still any good.
I have an old tube of w&n Crimson Lake with no pigment info, lol! Beautiful color. I think their professional rage is still good, but there are better brands. They student ranges have slipped a bit, and they are bringing out a bunch of what looks to me white labeled Chinese products to sell with their logo. I have nothing against Chinese art supplies, but I won't pay winsor newton prices for them. They actually have a set of gouache that looks white labeled so I want to make sure people know what's what.
I recently found a way to make pretty much all my gouache “pannable” lol, I put a couple drops of glycerin water in the gouache and I mix it in. It will make the paint less matte, so keep that in mind, but it works!! No cracking ! I put half water half glycerin.
The Mijello Mission Gold pure pigment watercolor set I got from Amazon was shiny, had some binder separation, and one of the yellows smelled. They're okay for the price. Definitely not as bad as the Turner tubes I tried from Jerry's. Most of it was air and the binder came all out first. They were terrible. (Not gouache BTW, so I'm just providing irrelevant info 😅)
More irrelevant info: Maimeri Blu was also pretty bad with binder separation, air bubbles and shiny sheen. Worst is Tuner, then MaimeriBlu, then okay is Mijello Mission Gold.
How odd, I've ordered turner watercolor rubes from jerrys several times and they've all been good. I wonder if some climates makes ot worse. I didn't have any trouble with my mission gold either that I recall and they all rewet well.
@@thefrugalcrafter all within the last couple of months, this year. I swatch and try them out pretty immediately after getting them. The Turner ones were a cobalt and cadmium. And the Mijello ones are a mixed bag from Amazon. Snagged it on sale. (I would probably still enjoy them. As I like the set as a whole. The separation doesn't bother me as much since I can just mix it. It's the shine and lack of pigment that I don't like. Also the giant air bubbles. That really pisses me off. But at least they're not thick and goopy like the Cotman set that I first got and am trying to use up.)
@@thefrugalcrafter The MaimeriBlu I got a while ago and didn't like them when I tried them. So they're just sitting there. (Low pigment strength, shiny, air bubbles.)
You did great with this gouache. The paintings look great to me. I saw a lot of car grave yards in my childhood. Grandma's farm had about five cars. You brought it all back! Lol.
I just ordered an air tight pallet for my Artsy jelly gouache so it will be easier to grab them and paint. If I ever use them up, I will get some tube gouache. But I enjoy your reviews and have always liked what I order based on your recommendation. Thanks, Lindsay.
Winsor Newton seems to be having some quality control issues lately. I ordered WN inks from Blick and had to return some of them due to poor quality. ☹
Thank you for the review! This makes me curious if my 10 year old W&N also have binder separation now. Lol, i wouldn’t be surprised if they did, since I haven’t touched them in years. Glad to hear they are still a good gouache.
You are SO entitled to tell W&N how to do their job. 🤣 Burnt Umber would have been so much better than green. It would have made it easy to make yellow ochre and burnt sienna with the yellow and brown. That 2-pigment mix of green is so much nicer! I love the Holbein mixing set -- it's such a great CYM and the magenta and blue are so much more opaque!
I loved the abandoned cars on toned tan paper! Thanks for your review and the mixing. I got the 10 W&N set (44€ in Jackson's), which has yellow ochre (but also the hideous permanent green) You are right, a burnt sienna or a raw sienna would have been more useful in a starter set. I am off to re-watch your gouache paintings in search for inspiration. Thanks Lindsay!
Hi there Lindsay, thank you for another informative video. I love my Winsor & Newton designer gouache paints and have been using them for over 20 years, some of my older paints are still going strong lol. I have them for studio work but also have them panned in a travel palette too. I’ve never experienced any problems rewetting them or with longevity of colours when framed. I’ve tried other gouache brands but always return to W&N xXx
I like W&N gouache but find that no matter what, almost all of the tubes, be it in a set or open stock and across colour families have the binder separation issue.
I think they included that green so you'd have to buy other colors to make it a more rounded set. No brown? Have to buy it! Don't like that green? Better but a different one! That's what I felt about the holbein primary set and then look what I did... Bought the big set because it was more bang for the buck. I'm such a sucker!
I used gouache a life time ago when I studied graphic arts in college. My sister has one of my paintings on her wall. It is not in direct sun, and has not faded. I do not remember the brand I used but assume it was WN as other brands weren't around. I also found those brushes you are using on clearance for $2 at Michael's over the summer!
I’m not surprised they included a blue green as opposed to a yellow green, especially since this set is made for design not landscapes and florals. When I was researching color theory, l kept finding complaints from consumers about the inability to mix a bright blue green with the 3 primary colors (with opaque paints, like acrylics). Mixing a yellow green was not a problem. I also noticed that sets of primary colors (sets for kids mostly) in stores often included a blue green as a 4th primary color. When I researched that, I read that green pigments that cannot be broken down further had been discovered in nature so green should be considered a primary color now, at least in regards to pigments. As for this set specifically, does anyone else find their lightfast system deceptive? Why AA, A, and B? Why not A, B, and C? I suspect there are more A than AA and if I happened to buy colors that didn't have any AA but there were A and B, I'd think I had their best and second best.
A lovely little set! I use some W&N gouache as my local art supply shop carries them. They have the perylenes in the range, which is total chefs kiss. My only complaint is some paints (especially in the red/pink range) have formaldehyde as a preservative and it's kinda hidden on their website. You have to look through each individual color to see if it has that warning on it. ):
@@thefrugalcrafter some of the W&N gouache has formaldehyde, but W&N buries that info in their site. ): You have to click through each individual color swatch to see which have it. But for example Opera Pink lists that AND another biocide! They reeeeeeally hide the info! I went to their site to double check it and the info was hidden, I literally had to google "winsor newton gouache formaldehyde" and click on the result (which was the W&N non-US site's swatch for the Bengal Rose) - and *that* page was the one that had those warnings on it. 😑 Lovely. It shouldn't be that hard to get safety information!! I am cautious to not purchase any with the formaldehyde in it ... which most limits my reds and pinks options ): I really love their gouache but I'm prone to spilling paint water in the wild at times, so no cadmiums or formaldehydes for my palette.
@@thefrugalcrafter (I replied but it's not showing here? Sorry if you get two responses!) Some individual paints of W&N Designers Gouache have formaldehyde in them as a preservative. Most frequently it's their reds and pinks colors affected. And they BURY the info in their site! The US site doesn't even list it anymore, it just links to the MSDS (relying on your ability to navigate that. Niiice.) To find the page with the warnings on it - I had to google "winsor newton formaldehyde gouache" and it linked me to their international site's swatch of Bengal Rose. *That* page you can click through and it'll say on individual swatches which paints have it. They really force you to put the legwork in for it. It should NOT be this hard to get safety info!!! >:L I love their gouache, but won't use cadmiums or paints with the formaldehyde (as I'm sometimes prone to spilling paint water outside). But frankly I'm furious at how hard they work to hide that info.
I started using this in a colors class where the teacher had the specific set on her required materials list. I'd never used gouache before in my life, so what did I know? That being said, I really like this set of gouache from WN but it is not without its issues. The separation is a struggle with the red and green in particular. The red would NOT stay dried down in my palette. And these have completely dried in the tube over time unlike any other gouache I've used (aside from Arteza). I did contact customer service because I had a nearly full tube of green that completely dried. They sent a replacement but I cut into the dried tube and put it in a lidded container with water and rescued it. I like the pure simple colors of this set and the way it works. I've just learned to use it from the tube and to not be precious with it.
As usual…. a great review. I trust your reviews Lindsay and always look to see if you have tried a product and tested it before I buy it. Thanks so much
Lindsey, if anyone should be telling Windsor and Newton, how to do that job, it’s you, you understand paint and consistency what you’re looking for in a paint and what others are generally looking for because you talk to us on a constant basis I have never seen or heard of Windsor in Newton, reaching out, asking every day people and artists what they want. They say they consult with artist, but it would have to be a handful, and I bet it’s been a long time since they’ve revised it
I recently purchased the W&N Potter’s Pink 5ml and Olive Green 15ml and both of them oozed the slimy goo due to binder separation! This was from my local art store. Also with their Yellow Ochre gouache it seems like you squeeze out all of the binder before you ever get the actual pigment. 😢 I’m going to be sticking with Holbein gouache from now on.
I bought this set open stock a couple months ago, technically from Blick, but one of their in-person stores so the full set was closer to 40$. I got the colors open stock to avoid that green. Unfortunately I also have been getting binder separation with the blue (happened immediately upon opening it for the first time) and after a few uses the black is also leaking binder out the back of the tube!! I guess these are common problems with those colors in the line? The paints are great to use, but I’m concerned about the longevity of the tubes.
had binder separation on several main brand gouche; schmincke has those long tubes of gouache;; that one is more an ilustration gouache colab means not as much visual brushsstrokes; i prefere it over both winsor and schmincke gouche. Im not even sure how they name it im sure its on the website if you want to see the difference.
@@thefrugalcrafter I cou;dn't tell you the difference if my life depended on it must be more binder then regular gouache bc I found it acted different then regular gouache, i'll sent you the link via fb if I can find it. it's one of strangest collabs Ive seen lol. Does exactly what it says though.
I LOVE my M. Graham gouache, but the white doesn't pan well, and neither does cobalt blue (I saw this on Sarah Burns' videos on panning gouache). Not sure about the other colors; I know both those pigments are a little tricky to dry out. But it's so great out of the tube I sort of hate to try. Sarah loves the Daniel Smith for panning.
I've had my Winsor & Newton gouache for about 2 years now and I've also noticed binder separation in a few colors. I'm happy with them otherwise but I'm not sure if I'll repurchase them. I don't use gouache that often so it will take me a few years to use up a tube and the binder separation will always become an issue.
I know this is out of left field but what is the name of the etsy shop that makes the ugly mug you have my daughter wants to look at them thank you denita
Definitely might have to pick up some of these they look good. Unless you have a better suggestion for a teenager heading into art school in the fall. We have the Arrtx, Himi and Rosa Studio but they need to be in tubes for class. Ill also be checking out reviews on small stay wet palettes for them cause I'm sure they are going to have them mixing colors since the supply list recommends min 12 mixing containers.
These are pretty standard and easy to find open stick so probably a good choice for a college student. Blick has open stock tunes so you can compare set vs tubes.
I love your gouache reviews! So, so far, would you say Holbein is your favorite artist grade gouache? I know schmincke gouache is crazy expensive but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on Schmincke horadams gouache AND schmincke designers gouache (they are different). Jackson's has them for the cheapest price...if you ordered from Jackson's in the past and the order wouldn't go thru its probably because you were trying to purchase Winsor and Newton products...don't listen to what people say on here- if you live in the USA you can't purchase Winsor and Newton from Jackson's.- there is a huge warning/sign saying they don't have the licenses to deliver Winsor and Newton to the USA. So that probably why your Jackson's order wouldn't go thru when you tried purchasing. I live in the USA and I only order from Jackson's they have they cheapest art supplies anywhere!!! I'd definitely try it again- just remember don't try to purchase Winsor and Newton and all should be well:)...I'm not sure why I went on that rant..lol. Anyway great video, thanks for sharing as always❤
Would you be willing to do a comparison swatch and review of Winsor and newton with Holbein gouache? Also did you ever post that Turner gouache review?
I actually just got both the Turner design gouache and Turner acrylic gouache! But yes if you have the capacity, would love a W&N vs Holbein design gouache video
My black w&n gouache tube I only used once somehow opened up on the end. Now the whole tube is dried up. I personally prefer m graham and Holbein gouache since they are easier to pan.
I didn’t realize “designers gouache” meant lightfastness is not a priority (should have guessed since designers just scan their work and don’t care about longevity).
I'm so disappointed to hear about the quality decline of Winsor and Newton's student lines. I just made an Instagram post where I had Galleria listed as a good quality paint that is also locally available. I will have to update my post and remove that recommendation. 😢