Review Of Paul Rubens Watercolors.
Review Of Paul Rubens Watercolors.
At this point in The Art Gear Guide timeline, you will notice that the vast majority of my reviews have ben colored pencils, markers, Pastels and of course Watercolor Pencils. I have always wanted to branch out further into mediums like traditional watercolors but two things held me back and that was the artwork or lack there of when reviewing a product and a lack of experience with other watercolor brands.
So for the past few weeks, which I know is a short period of time, but I have purchased a selection of watercolor pans and tubes to experiment with and develop a good understanding from a comparative view point.
A week or so before heading away on our holiday to the Lake District, Arrtx reached out to me and asked if I would like to review some watercolors from their sister company. I reluctantly agreed letting them know that I wasn’t too sure how the artwork would come out, however whenever I received the watercolor I was not expect them to be Paul Rubens. I had never experienced Paul Rubens paints before however I had used their watercolor pads which I really liked, but I knew that Paul Rubens was quite a respected name in the watercolor world so I was really looking forward to working with them.
I received two 24 sets of Paul Rubens Watercolor, the first was a tradition selection of colors and the second was a 24 set of Pearlescent colors, for those of you like me and had no idea what pearlescent meant, in simple terms the colors have a glittery sheen to them. I this review we take a look at both sets and in my YouTube review of both watercolor sets you can see some real time painting with them as well as a speed painting I completed.
Paul Rubens Watercolors Characteristics
the first set we will look at is the tradition palette watercolor set from Paul Rubens, I only refer to them as traditional watercolors to help distinguish between them and the Pearlescent watercolors. There are some things identical between both the sets and I will highlight this to save from repeating myself throughout the review.
The first noticeable characteristic I noticed was the packaging for both sets. Apple lead the way with packaging and the importance of this simple idea when it comes to selling products. Most of the time, a product well packaged and as a consumer it is easy to see effort and thought has gone into the packaging, can be an indicator that the product inside is also quality, as opposed to a flimsy cardboard box, half falling apart. I say can be an indicator because unfortunately there are always exceptions to such a rule, as there is with every walk of life.
On removing the box lid you are presented with the Paul Rubens Logo, printed on a pink microfibre cloth, a simple but effective touch. They could have just dumped a small cloth into the box, but they took the time and effort to add the extra touches, the detail, adding the Paul Rubens Logo to the cloth.
The exterior of the tin is simple but attractive and robust, pink with a small Paul Rubens logo, it is definitely a tin that will hold up well to a bit of knocking about in a bag when out on location. On the bottom of both tins, there is a ring attached allowing the artist to fix a firm grip of the palette when outdoors painting or even in the studio stood up. A very nice touch in deed, I know that there are other slightly more sophisticated palettes on the market, but sometimes simplicity and functionality is ample.
On opening the tin you are presented with 24 neatly wrapped pans, each pan indicating gorgeous colors. Each wrapper on the pans does have the pigment name in English and a number which corresponds to the pigment, however, everything else in written in Chinese. This obviously makes it a bit difficult to garner any additional information about the pans other than the pigment name. As this is my first watercolor review and not really knowing what information you wonderful watercolor artists will be seeking, I have adding the sizes of the pans, if this information is not needed I will refrain from all it.
After unwrapping each little pan, you are presented with tiny little pots of gorgeous color, an explosion of color is immediately presented once all the wrappers are removed. As you can see from the images provided, the colors are so rich and vibrant when in the pans, but the real test is on paper, which we will talk about in the performance section of the review.
Once you have opened the tin and unwrapped all the pans you are of course ready to paint and the tin itself provides a really nice space for mixing your colors and keeping them separate. On the inside of the actual tin you are presented with four quite large trays for mixing, each well is ample in size and depth allowing for significant mixing. The opposite platform has five much shallower wells for mixing but they are more than sufficient given the four larger wells on the inside of the lid.
Paul Ruben Pearlescent Watercolor Characteristics
With the Paul Rubens Pearlescent Watercolor set, the packaging, Pauls Ruben cloth and tin are all exactly the same, so all that I need to show you here is the actual inside of the Pearlescent Watercolor set. As soon as you open the tin of the Pearlescent watercolor set, you are present with what looks like, 24 sparkling gems. This is down to the glittery nature of the paper wrapped round each pan.
When you unwrap all of the pearlescent pans, the watercolor pans are no different to the sparkling wrappers of the pans, you are presented with gorgeous intense pigments glittering in the light resembling jewels and gems from Aladin’s Cave. There is a small issue however with the wrappers on the pearlescent pans, due to the glittery design of the wrappers, it is impossible to read the information on the pans. For the most part the writing is in Chinese, however, the pigment name is present as was the case with the traditional pans, so you have to turn to an alternative source when seeking the pigment names. As you can see from the image, there is text on that wrapper but it is incredibly difficult to read or see.
Paul Rubens Watercolor Performance
I took both sets of the Paul Rubens Watercolors away on holiday with me but I only really used the traditional colors set, but even then I didn’t get to use nearly half as much as I would have liked. But even the small amount I got to use them on holiday, sparked a new love for watercolors within me. I have always admired and loved the work that watercolor artist produce and using the Paul Rubens 24 set really peeked my interest in the medium.
My biggest concern with reviewing the Paul Rubens watercolors was my lack of experience with watercolors and being able to compare them to other student or artist grade watercolors. On returning from our holiday I spent about a week or so, buying watercolor tubes and pans from many other watercolor brands and then testing then against one and other, I wanted to make sure I understood the medium fully before conducting the review.
From what I can gather, many watercolor artists prefer to use tube watercolors for a whole variety of reason and many artists seem to use pans for painting out and about, away from the studio. One of the biggest issues I have read from other artists is that working with pans can be quite limiting when it comes to lifting color and pigment strength. This is something I could relate to considering some of the other pan based watercolors I have tried in the past, but I hand on heart never found this to be an issue with the Paul Rubens Watercolors.
The first thing I did was complete a swatch of both the Paul Rubens 24 tradition watercolors and then the Paul Rubens 24 Pearlescent watercolors, I completed both of the swatches on Hahnemühle 300lb Hot Pressed Watercolor paper, which I am absolutely loving using in various different projects, but I will be doing a review completely on the Hahnemühle paper soon. As you can see from the images provided, the vibrancy of the pigments in the Paul Rubens Watercolors is absolutely gorgeous.
I was really struggling to come up a subject to paint as a demonstration for the Paul Rubens Watercolors, especially when it came to the pearlescent, however, my wife Victoria came to the rescue and gave me the idea to paint the artwork I have. She told me to paint a fairy and to use the Pearlescent for the wings of the Fairy and perhaps some flowers.
I found a beautiful image in Pinterest which I drew my inspiration from, however for the life of me I could not find the artists name so if any of you recognise the painting I have done, please let me know the artists original name so I can give both my wife and them the credit for this painting.
This was my first proper watercolor painting, I have done lots of artwork with watercolor pencils, but as I am sure many of you already know, watercolors and watercolor pencils are really quite different. Any way the first time I painted the Fairy, I didn’t just want to copy the image I found on Pinterest and so I did change a few things but on my first attempt, I over complicated the painting and just made it too busy, I just wasn’t happy with it, but I learnt so much from the experience and so tried again.
The second painting was much better, I am sure I could improve upon it with time as well, but I was really happy with the outcome but most importantly I found working with the Paul Rubens Watercolors really easy and effortless. At first I was picking up too much pigment and it took a while for me to understand that after wetting my brush I only needed to gently touch the pan to pick up a lot of color. I started with a wet on wet background, adding a few splashes to give the illusion of flowers in the distance.
I had to mix colors to give me the flesh of the Fairy and the same with the greens to give me a good variation. When it came to the wings I used the Pearlescent Pauls Ruben Watercolors and as soon as the Pink hit the paper the glitter and sheen was instantly noticeable and created a very effective appearance.
To see the paint in real time, follow the link over to my YouTube Video review of the Paul Rubens Watercolors were I demonstrate the paints in real time, you will get to see how the paints react.
I contacted my contact who sent the paints to me and asked about where the Paul Rubens Watercolor pans fall in line with regards to student and artist grade paints. I was told that they are Artist grade, however their price does not really reflect this in accordance to other artist grade watercolor pans that I have been experimenting with of the past week or so.
Paul Rubens Watercolor Lightfast Ratings
The literature sent to me with the paints was pretty much all in Chinese, making it impossible for me to understand, however there were a few English terms I could find. On the wrappers of the pans the pigment name was in English and there was a pigment number on each pan wrapper as well. Pretty much all of the writing on the swatch material was Chinese with exception of numbers beside each color, I asked my contact about this and was told that those numbers represented the lightfast rating from the Blue Wool System.
this made sense to me as the highest number in the Blue Wool system is 8 and that was the highest number on the chart. After checking the pigment names in both 24 sets, I was able to determine, that in accordance with the Blue Wool system and the information I had been given, all of the pans were rated 6, 7 and 8 with only one pan rating 5.
According to the Blue Wool Scale, numbers 7 and 8 represent “excellent lightfast” rating ensuring lightfastness for 100 plus years. 6 in the Blue Wool means “Very Good Lightfastness” and assures lightfastness for 50 - 100 years. 4 and 5 mean “Fair Lightfastness” meaning that the pigments rated under these numbers will stay bright for 15 - 50 years. 2 and 3 means “Poor Lightfastness” meaning that the pigments under this scale will stay true for 0 - 15 years, leaving 1 meaning “Very Poor Lightfastness” and the pigment will fade within two years. I personally prefer the ASTM system with LF1, LF2 and LF3, I feel it is a much simpler system to follow and there is less scope for wriggle room, either the pigment is Lightfast or it isn't. That being said every pan in both 24 sets are highly lightfast with the exception of one color which is rated 5.
I think given the Lightfast scores and they being what they are, my take is that the Paul Rubens Watercolors fall within the Artist Grade quality, perhaps the lower end of artist quality, but artist quality non the less.
Paul Ruben Watercolor Sets Available.
With regards to the traditional pans of Paul Rubens Watercolors that I have reviewed in this review, you can purchase them in a set of 12, 24 set and a 48 set, the 24 sets actually come in a Pink Tin, Blue Tin or Black Tin, I haven’t found blue or black tins for the 12 and 48 sets, but if I find them I will of course add them here.
For the Pearlescent Paul Rubens Watercolor Pans, they also come in a set of 12, 24 set and 48 set, however I have not been able to find blue or black tins in any set size for the Pearlescent Watercolors.
Paul Rubens Watercolor Prices
The prices for the Paul Rubens Watercolor pan sets really very widely according to where you look, obviously I am unable to provide links and prices to every art store in the world, so I have done my very best and provided prices for Amazon UK, Amazon US, AliExpress UK, AliExpress EU, AliExpress US, AliExpress Canada and AliExpress Australia. Believe me I would love to do more but sourcing this amount of links take a few hours of getting
Amazon UK Prices
AMAZON UK - Paul Rubens Traditional 24 Pans £39.99
AMAZON UK - Paul Rubens Pearlescent 24 Pans £39.99
Amazon US Prices
AMAZON US - Paul Rubens Traditional 24 Pans $39.98
AMAZON US - Paul Rubens Pearlescent 24 Pans $49.80
AliExpress UK Prices
ALIEXPRESS UK - Paul Rubens 12 Pan Watercolors £15.51
ALIEXPRESS UK - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Pink Set £24.96
ALIEXPRESS UK - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Blue Set £24.96
ALIEXPRESS UK - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Black Set £24.96
ALIEXPRESS UK - Paul Rubens 48 Pan Watercolors £45.21
ALIEXPRESS UK - Paul Rubens 12 Pan Pearl Watercolors £20.57
ALIEXPRESS UK - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Pearl Watercolors £34.42
ALIEXPRESS UK - Paul Rubens 48 Pan Pearl Watercolors £60.96
AliExpress US Prices
ALIEXPRESS US - Paul Rubens 12 Pan Watercolors $21.78
ALIEXPRESS US - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Pink Set $36.30
ALIEXPRESS US - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Blue Set $36.30
ALIEXPRESS US - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Black Set $36.30
ALIEXPRESS US - Paul Rubens 48 Pan Watercolors $64.44
ALIEXPRESS US - Paul Rubens 12 Pan Pearl Watercolors $28.69
ALIEXPRESS US - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Pearl Watercolors $47.34
ALIEXPRESS US - Paul Rubens 48 Pan Pearl Watercolors $83.30
AliExpress EU Prices
ALIEXPRESS EU - Paul Rubens 12 Pan Watercolors €21.40
ALIEXPRESS EU - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Pink Set €34.42
ALIEXPRESS EU - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Blue Set €34.42
ALIEXPRESS EU - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Black Set €34.42
ALIEXPRESS EU - Paul Rubens 48 Pan Watercolors €62.35
ALIEXPRESS EU - Paul Rubens 12 Pan Pearl Watercolors €29.35
ALIEXPRESS EU - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Pearl Watercolors €47.59
ALIEXPRESS EU - Paul Rubens 48 Pan Pearl Watercolors €85.12
AliExpress Canada
ALIEXPRESS CANADA - Paul Rubens 12 Pan Watercolors $27.91
ALIEXPRESS CANADA - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Pink Set $45.35
ALIEXPRESS CANADA - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Blue Set $45.35
ALIEXPRESS CANADA - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Black Set $45.35
ALIEXPRESS CANADA - Paul Rubens 48 Pan Watercolors $81.41
ALIEXPRESS CANADA - Paul Rubens 12 Pan Pearl Watercolors $37.01
ALIEXPRESS CANADA - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Pearl Watercolors $59.98
ALIEXPRESS CANADA - Paul Rubens 48 Pan Pearl Watercolors $107.30
AliExpress Australia
ALIEXPRESS Australia - Paul Rubens 12 Pan Watercolors $29.66
ALIEXPRESS Australia - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Pink Set $48.20
ALIEXPRESS Australia - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Blue Set $48.20
ALIEXPRESS Australia - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Watercolors Black Set $48.20
ALIEXPRESS Australia - Paul Rubens 48 Pan Watercolors $85.29
ALIEXPRESS Australia - Paul Rubens 12 Pan Pearl Watercolors $38.99
ALIEXPRESS Australia - Paul Rubens 24 Pan Pearl Watercolors $63.21
ALIEXPRESS Australia - Paul Rubens 48 Pan Pearl Watercolors $113.06
Paul Rubens Watercolor Conclusion
Although I don’t have a vast knowledge of the various watercolor brands on the market, I have done my best to give me a good understanding of some higher quality watercolors and some more budget quality watercolors, just to give me a scale to work with.
When I received the Paul Rubens Watercolors, I was actually really happy as I knew that Paul Ruben was a well respected name in the world of watercolor and the only watercolors I had tried up until that point was budget quality or a few student range like Winsor and Newton Cotman Watercolors in both pan and tube.
As soon as I started swatching the Paul Rubens Watercolors I could see the difference immediately, as well as feel the difference on my brush and when applying it to the paper. The Colors were striking as I applied them to the Hahnemühle 300lb Hot Pressed Watercolor paper. They reacted really well to the various techniques I applied such as wet on wet, I must admit, I am not familiar with all the techniques a watercolor artist may use so please, by all means, if I have missed a test in this written review or the YouTube review that you would like to see in future watercolor reviews, please let me know.
Don’t forget to check out my YouTube Review where you will see some real time demonstrations, you can also watch the speed painting I have completed of the Fairy by following the appropriate link and if videos are not your thing, I have added a series of images of the artwork here on The Art Gear Guide, simply follow the link and you can click on the image, enlarge it and inspect the artwork in your own time.
