A Hidden Gem- Rosa Galleria Watercolors- Unbox & Swatch

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Mentioned in this Video:
St Petersburg White Nights, Yarka St Petersburg, Yarka Student Three Way Comparison: https://tinyurl.com/acw92mku
Yarka Student Watercolors- Unbox and Swatch: https://tinyurl.com/52578fpm
Yarka Student Watercolor Challenge and Tutorial: https://tinyurl.com/kvrwyzev
Yarka St Petersburg Unbox and Swatch: https://tinyurl.com/5amau5ea
St Petersburg White Nights Unbox and Swatch: https://tinyurl.com/uchw74ay
St Petersburg White NIghts Fieldtest: https://tinyurl.com/wjrs2j9c

Roman Szmal Aquarius Watercolor Unbox and Swatch: https://tinyurl.com/3td8nt2y

Da Vinci Artist Watercolors Unbox and Swatch: https://tinyurl.com/fpm4c98d


Get Your Own: https://amzn.to/3i324Gr
$36.90 on Amazon


Shownotes: https://tinyurl.com/4d4jwjyx

Rosa Galleria Store on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/2ymd7382

https://amzn.to/3o9C0Nt

• Organic and inorganic pigments
• Organic gumarabic
• High pigment concentration
• Clear and vibrant colours
• The colours and theirs hues in the tubes are identical as in the pans

They make paints, canvases, easels and wood supplies, brushes and palette knives, artbooks and paper, accessories, hobby and craft supplies

The packaging:
Cardboard box with a cardboard belly band. Bright, professional, and attractive- not shrink wrapped.
Belly band contains paint names, pigment info, lightfast info, and transparency info- GOOD JOB ROSA, I really appreciate this!

Packaging is pretty simple, there's a somewhat generic metal painting tin inside the cardboard box, inside the tin are wells for mixing and three rows of whole pans, each individually wrapped with their color name, color number, lightfast info, and opacity.

Colors in this set listed in the linked shownotes

Swatching:

When testing watercolors I'm testing
How easy they are to activate
Looking for muddiness/optical brighteners and extenders
Opacity
Granulation
Ability to blend/wash out
Liftability

These are beautiful, saturated colors that are quick to activate, but do muddy the water quickly.

I like the color selection, how clean the colors are, the granulation. There's definitely some opacity to them, but I think you can avoid muddiness, and they're really responsive paints. I think these would be EXCELLENT paints for folks who want professional quality paints that are quite affordable, available in larger pan sizes, and are immediate to work with. These could be great for artists who work large, or just impatient artists.

Color Mixing:
Manual/ Atomic Mixing: Oh man, these mix so well. You can get some really pretty mixes from these, both secondary colors, and 'fun' colors. There's a bit of granulation, so you can get some really pretty separation, and the blues (ultramarine and cobalt)+ reds (Carmine and Madder Red) make for some really purples and red violets. I'm glad they also included a strong, dark purple-- you can't really mix that. These are fun.

Optical Mixing/Glazing:

Despite allowing the grid to dry for a day, the colors still reactivated readily when glazed. I'm not sure if I applied the paint too thickly (kinda doubtful, but willing to consider it) or if it's the paint itself, or maybe the high humidity right now- I'll keep an open mind during fieldtest, but also try to be aware that these paints might not do well with glazes or optical mixing, especially with strong concentrations.

Wet into Wet: Colors seem to diffuse easily and quickly into water. Straight from the pan, color control can be a bit challenging, as these are somewhat sticky, readily activated paints.

Pros:
Very affordable, especially for professional-quality paints
Full pans, so you get a lot of paint for your $$
Great color selection- 21 colors and no white in sight feels so right
Mix beautifully and cleanly

Cons:
With paints this great, you just wanna be able to order open stock and fill up that palette and doesn't seem to be an option if you're in the US (although lemme know in the comments, with LINKS, if I'm wrong!)
Do muddy the water quickly, so you're gonna want frequent water changes for the best representation of these paints
May not do well with multilayer illustrations or illustrations/paintings that require glazes

Verdict
Yanno how I often say skip student grade and go with a good, inexpensive professional grade? And how I've reviewed quite a number of cheaper professional grades that are really excellent. This is going into that list, for sure. I hope as Rosa becomes more popular, it's more commonly available in the US without a huge hike in pricetag.


Music:
National Express-Dan Bodan
Morning Mandolin
A Quiet Thought- Kevin MacLeod
Tranquility- Kevin MacLeod
Broken- Patrick Patrikios
Sunny Looks Good on You
Silver Blue Light- Kevin MacLeod
Pluck and Play- Kwon
Sunset Dream- Cheel

#RosaGallery #RosaGalleryWatercolors #GreatWatercolors