Art Supply Review - Amazon and French Art Store
I once heard that crafting or creating art can really be two different hobbies; buying the art vs. making the art, and for me there is a lot of truth in that. There is something so magical for me about going into an art store (or online) and look around to fantasize about all the different projects I could create, if only I had the time, energy and money. And so by doing this over the years, I have collected a lot of art supplies, some that I use a lot and some I have probably never used. Because of that, I decided that 2024 would be a year of using the art supplies I already own, and not buying anything new. But as you can tell by the title of this blog post, that didn’t happen!
Here I review the art supplies I have gathered so far this year, test them out, create art with them, and give my ultimate impression. I got my art supplies from two different places, first the ubiquitous, omnipresent Amazon, and the others I got while on vacation in Marseille, France from the cutest art store, Rougier & Plé Marseille.
To start with my mini-art supply haul from Amazon:
Himi Gouache- not worth the hype
I have been seeing Himi Gouache all over my social media and I was definitely influenced to try this insta-famous brand out. I got the HIMI Gouache Paint Set, 24 Colors x 30ml/1oz with Brushes & Palette, Jelly Cup Design in orange. The main difference from Himi gouache from other brands I have previously tried is their Jelly Cup design. Instead of the gouache being stored in tubes and squeezing out the desired colors and amounts you need, you typically have all colors open at once in their palette, increasing the odds of the paint drying out, or in my case growing mold!
I have seen a lot of cute unboxing videos on Instagram and Tiktok of people easily opening their Gouache Jelly Cups to place them in their storage container and I tried to make one myself, but I did not find the cups easy to open and the resulting video will probably never see the light of day! The cups are sealed with a thick plastic seal that was hard to pull up smoothly, I had to make a cut with scissors to start most the cups, and then I ended up with paint all over my hands, and wasted paint on the lids.
The set also comes with a palette and two brushes, and I use the palette for the paint almost exclusively because of convenience, but don’t think the brushes are the best quality and are not good for detail.
To get a feel for the paint, I followed a tutorial from Peggy Dean on Skillshare, Wildflower Wonderland: A Gouache Painting Adventure. For this project I found the paint to be perfect. There is a wide representation of hues in my set of 24 and I also found the paints to blend really well together. However, there are different consistencies among the different colors, where some seem to be drier and harder to reconstitute.
I have continued to paint with this gouache set and have found it overall to be versatile and convenient. I have used it mostly on mixed media and watercolor paper, but have also used this gouache on air dry clay and found that it worked beautifully. To read a tutorial about the air dry clay magnets I made- click here.
But I also find myself painting with the set more often than not, because I am worried about the paints going bad and having to waste. After about two months of use I noticed mold growing on my light blue paint. I scooped out the part that was growing mold hoping that maybe I salvaged that paint, but the next day the mold had grown back and I threw away the paint. Recently, I noticed two other jelly cups that were close to the blue growing mold, and it feels like a race against time to use this paint or lose it. I’m wondering if this has something to do with the water I am using?
Final Verdict: Himi gouache sets are super cute and trendy and come with lots of fun colors to play with, and the sets even come with brushes and palette, so for under $30 this is a great deal. I love the case it comes in and the convenience of having all the colors ready for you. These paints are great for painting illustrations on mixed media paper, or even painting crafts like air dry clay. However there is a lot of waste built into this set, I wasted paint opening the jelly cups, already lost one color to mold growing, with more on the way, and know they also have a tendency to dry out. So unless you paint with gouache regularly and have plans to consistently use your Himi set, I would recommend going with gouache tubes instead.
Arteza Gouache Paint Set of 60 colors - amazing value!
Next up from Amazon I got the Arteza premium gouache paint, 60 unique colors. And at the time of purchase in February 2024, this was an amazing deal selling for around $42.00, so less than $1 per tube of paint. I love that there are two different whites included in the set, as well the beautiful pearlescent colors.
Instead of opening up every tube of paint to swatch, I choose a neutral-pink palette of 5 colors to test and create a piece of art with. The paints went on to the paper beautifully, and I painted two squares of each color, one more saturated and the other more watered down. For all colors, both concentrated and diluted painted beautifully, and I loved the way the diluted latte brown looks almost granulated like watercolor with several hues.
After swatching I let the paint dry (for a few days) and then finally sat down to create an art piece. The paints reconstituted perfectly and I was able to easily and quickly paint an illustration of a bird on a branch.
Winter bird using Arteza gouache palette.
Final Verdict: While I have yet to use this gouache set as thoroughly as the Himi gouache set, mainly because I don’t feel the need to open all colors at once, I can safely say I really, really like this paint and would highly recommend it. It is definitely not professional grade paint, but for the amount of colors you get for the price I think its great. I especially love the range of green colors (9 different shades)! The paint is smooth and paints beautifully, and doesn’t dry on your palette chalky, so it reconstitutes easily after drying.
Daniel Smith’s Moonglow watercolor - a beautiful, however unnecessary, addition to your stash
The last thing I got from Amazon was a tube of Daniel Smith’s Moonglow. You may know of the brand Daniel Smith' for professional watercolors, and I have previously tried dot sheets from Daniel Smith and had a lot of fun with that, you can read more about that here. I saw that many Daniel Smith colors granulate when painting, meaning separate into different colors instead of one hue. One color I had heard was especially beautiful in this effect was Moonglow and so I decided to add it to my collection. These colors are a bit on the pricier side so my plan is to slowly add some Daniel Smith colors over time because they are so beautiful and high in quality. As you can see each variation of Moonglow that I swatched is unique in its own way, and once it dries you can see little specs of purple mixed in with the dark pigments. This will be great for any night paintings and will give such a beautiful effect to the night sky.
Final Verdict: If you can afford adding a few tubes of Daniel Smith watercolor paint to your collection I highly recommend it! Because they are an investment, I also high recommend trying their watercolor dot sheets, where you get a small sample of many different colors, so you can get a feel for what colors you like before taking the plunge.
Art supplies from France- Rougier & Plé Marseille
I recently went on a cruise around the Mediterranean, and while I had a plans to visit an art store at each cruise stop, my wallet was happy to only visit one art store, Rougier & Plé Marseille, in Marseille, France. Rougier & Plé Marseille is an amazing, three-story art store in the middle of downtown Marseille, just a five minute walk from the gorgeous marina with a row of restaurants serving up delicious seafood. This art store has amazingly been open since 1854 and has EVERYTHING an artist could ever need. To make sure I didn’t spend my whole time in Marseille in this store, and to make sure I had money for the rest of day, I limited myself to 20 minutes max looking and a budget of $80.
Rougier & Plé Marseille in downtown Marseille has been open for over 170 years!
My Marseille Art Haul
Two Stabilo Boss pens, one Ecoline brush pen, a set of Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens brushes, and Neocolor II Aquarelle crayons.
After running around like a madwoman for 20 minutes, I came to the register with a somewhat restrained haul, I was impressed with myself! The Neocolor crayons had been on my list for awhile, as had been the Ecoline pens and Stabilo Boss Highlighter pens, and I honestly was just influenced by the packaging of the Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens in summer vibes color set. This was a somewhat atypical shop for me and I purchased things I have never used before, and am honestly not sure how they will fit into my art just yet.
Neocolor Crayons-Aquarelle II- Beautifully pigmented water-soluble crayons
These crayons had been on my radar for the past year or so, as “professional” crayons, which just sounds like fun. I also was heavily inspired by Emma Carlisle and her fantastic multi-media sketchbook drawings. And I will say that when I swatched these crayons out on paper I instantly understood what everyone meant by “professional”! These crayons felt so smooth and buttery and their pigments are so rich! They also blend with each other incredibly well, as you can see on my swatching, where I mixed primary colors to get their respective complimentary colors.
Ecoline Brush Pen, Stabilo Boss Pens, and Pitt Artist Pen Brushes
Along with the Neocolor crayons, I also swatched out the Ecoline, Stabilo and Pitt artist pen brushes. I have seen Emma Carlisle and Ohn Mar Win use Ecoline and Stabilo pens in their sketchbooks, and so I chose neutral colors that I thought could be helpful with backgrounds or for covering large areas of a sketchbook page quickly (for doing timed pieces). I love both brands and find the Ecoline pen so comfortable to write with, it would be a great for brush pen lettering. The stabilo boss pens are really highlighters, but they come in a wide range of colors and are handy to have in an on-the-go mixed media supply bag.
Lastly, the Pitt Artist Pen Brushes in Summer Vibes Set. These are a beautiful range of colored nibbed pens, that are waterproof and permanent. The nib is quite fine and can create small lines making these pens great for the last details on some of my pieces.
Timed sketches of houses using Pexels and the art supplies I got in Marseille
Finally, I tested out the art supplies I got from Marseille (the Neocrayons, Pitt Artist Pens, Stabilo Highlighters and the Ecoline Brush Pen) with a series of timed drawings. I chose the subject of house and went to Pexels, a site with royalty free images that you can use for inspiration. To learn more about Pexels, and other royalty free sources to get artistic inspiration from, read here. I started with a 3-minute timed drawing (upper left), then did two 5-minute drawings, and finished with one 10-minute drawing (bottom right). And in less than 30 minutes I was able to get a really good feel for these supplies and I surprised myself with the final outcome. I ended up not really enjoying working with the Neocolor crayons, in a short amount of time I wasn’t able to achieve a smooth or even look with the crayons, and they were too monotone for what I wanted to do with the reduced time, examples are shown in the two 5-minute drawings. In the 3 minute drawing in the upper left, I used the crayons sparingly for the grass and sky, and do like the effect here, so maybe the lesson is less is more with these crayons.
After swatching the Pitt artist brushes I didn’t think I had much use for them, but as the I moved through the drawing exercise above I found myself using them more and more. They were really convenient and easy to use quickly, produced a strong line that can be made thin or thick given the amount of pressure you used, and I ended up finding them much more versatile than I originally thought (bottom right).
Well if you made it this far, I’m impressed because this blog turned out way longer than anticipated! Thank you for reading and let me know if you have tried any of these supplies and if you have any good tricks for using them.
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