Van Gogh Watercolor is affordable and suitable for watercolor beginners. This time I unboxed a 24 half-pan Van Gogh watercolor set (tin box version) and made swatches with them.
Van Gogh Watercolor Introduction
Van Gogh is brand manufactured by a Dutch company, called Royal Talens. Royal Talens is actively manufacturing various types of art supplies. Popular brands that are produced by Royal Talens include Strathmore, Sakura, and Rembrandt.
Other watercolor brands usually categorize their paint into two categories, student grade and artist grade. Like Winsor & Newton, they have Professional watercolor (artist grade) and Cotman watercolor (student grade). The difference between the two categories is usually the purity of pigment and the amount of pigment. Student grade watercolor paints usually cost less so that students can afford them. Van Gogh watercolor doesn’t have these categories and is treated as student grade watercolor paint. This is because its purity isn’t that high and it is affordable.
However, based on the performance of Van Gogh paints, it’s worth the investment. The color is very saturated and the paint is easy to control. These make it suitable for beginners to use for practice.
Unboxing Van Gogh Watercolor Set
In our previous swatches, we tried out watercolor tubes. This time I bought a Van Gogh watercolor set from China. This set has 24 watercolor half-pans.
This set is contained in a blue tin box. I personally like this tin box. There are palettes on both sides when you open up the tin box. In the middle, the candy-like half-pans are the watercolor paints that we are swatching today.
Typically, watercolor sets come with a brush. I didn’t try out this Van Gogh brush when I did the swatches. Later when I had time to try the brush out, I love it immediately. The brush can hold more water than expected. Its tip can stay sharp almost all the time. This brush really matches my need on watercolor painting. So I end up using this brush pretty often.
🔗Van Gogh Watercolor Set： https://ebay.us/W94DGg
Thoughts
Chinese White 
Permanent Lemon Yellow 
Azo Yellow Light 
Azo Yellow Deep 
Gamboge 
Permanent Orange 
Vermilion 
Permanent Red Light 
Permanent Red Deep 
Madder Lake Deep 
Quinacridone Rose 
Ultramarine Deep 
Cobalt Blue Ultramarine 
Cerulean Blue Phthalo 
Prussian Blue 
Viridian 
Permanent Green 
Hooker Green Deep 
Sap Green 
Yellow Ochre 
Sepia 
Burnt Sienna 
Burnt Umber 
Payne’s Grey
Once I heard a watercolor YouTuber saying student grade watercolor paints have inadequate pigment. She always recommends using artist grade watercolor paints, even for beginners. My first watercolor set is a Winsor & Newton Cotman 24 half-pans. To be honest, I do find that it isn’t concentrated enough. To me, I like the paints to be concentrated so that I can be the one to dilute them when necessary.
Until I saw someone reviewing Van Gogh paints and comparing it with other artist grade paints, I found that watercolor paints can be much more concentrated. Through the swatches above, you can see Van Gogh paints are very concentrated and saturated in general.
However, for some colors, it’s also obvious that there are some impurities. I think this is why people like to categorize Van Gogh watercolor as a student grade. Except that, other performance is pretty normal and expected. Users can easily control it and get some expected results. So I think it’s very suitable for beginners.
Conclusion
As a student grade watercolor, Van Gogh watercolor is a cost-effective choice. If you are just starting on watercolor and don’t want to spend too much on artist grade paints, try Van Gogh watercolor.
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