Grabie 100 Watercolour Set is a compact set that comes with a handy tool kit. This is the most shades in a set I have ever reviewed; the next big set I have is Paul Rubens 48 watercolour set. I am reviewing this Grabie 100 watercolour set as someone who mostly works with a limited palette. Without further ado, let’s dive right into Grabie 100 watercolours review!
Grabie 100 Watercolour Set
Here’s everything included in this set:
- 50 regular colours
- 35 metallic colours
- 5 fluorescent colours
- 10 macaron colours
- 3 water brush pens (two rounds and one square tip)
- 1 HB pencil
- 1 metal pencil sharpener
- 1 small sponge
- watercolour swatch sheet
The Grabie 100 Watercolour Set retails for US$49.99 (regular). At the time of this post, it is US$10.00 off.
The Tool Kit
The sponge isn’t useful, by the way. It is firm and does not absorb any water, so you are better blotting off excess paint or water on a paper towel. The HB pencil is fine but the sharpener is a bit hard to use. I have small hands and cannot imagine someone with average or bigger hands having an easy time at it!
The Swatches
I love it when the company includes a swatch card! I swatched all 100 colours with the three water brushes. These are pretty good brushes–each dispenses enough but not excessive amount of water with one squeeze, though the two round ones can shoot a stream of water if you squeeze too hard.
Shade range is good, but the inclusion of a metallic red and silver would have been nice. In addition, the three metallic blue shades look very similar to each other. One thing I notice is that the colours don’t go dark enough; the more shades you mix you will get more muddy colours with a cloudy appearance.
As with a palette of this many colours, some shades can be a bit chalky. I would say most of the colours are not transparent, but rather half opaque and milky. The metallics, fluorescent and macaron (pastel) colours, which make up one half of the palette, are more opaque than the regular colours, which is expected.
By the way, the macaron colours remind me of Mungyo’s Nostalgia of Pastel palette that I have. They are a pretty close match, except Mungyo’s colours are slightly smoother.
Grabie 100 Watercolours Review
First, I painted a Christmas stocking with this set on Grabie 100% cotton paper. Since there is no pigment information, I assumed that these are multi pigment shades, so dropping any colours in using wet on wet can result in a murky mix. The greens and blues tend to be more problematic but most of the other shades are okay. You can create some nice art work with the colours as long as you don’t mix them too much.
I have to say I quite enjoy using the metallic shades!
Next, I panted a quick loose floral piece on wood pulp paper. I did not mix any of the shades, which resulted in much cleaner looking colours. To be honest, with this many shades, you likely won’t need to mix your own.
After that, I went back to Grabie cotton paper and painted a Christmas icons piece, centered with a gnome. It is easy to paint without having to mix shades for a fun piece like this.
I do have to mention that the white in the set is not very pigmented, so I used Bleed Proof White for some of the highlights. You can see a sample of the Grabie white on top of the gnome’s hat.
Lastly, I wanted to test whether salt works with Grabie watercolours. For some reason, the Dark Turquoise shade did not work with salt at all, so I ended up using Metallic Verdigris to paint the ornament. On the other hand, the purple and red shades worked with salt very well.
Overall Grabie 100 Watercolours Review
This is a nice set of watercolours with a good range of shades. Some of them can be a bit chalky, but it is to be expected for a budget palette like this one. You can still create very nice art work with the colours without too much trouble, except if you mix colours, which might create chalky shades. Moreover, I would have preferred to have a more vibrant metallic red shade and a silver in the set but it is a personal preference.
While I don’t usually use a palette with this many shades and prefer to mix my own, I can understand the appeal of a big set like this to beginners who simply want to have fun painting. I can see hobbyists or cardmakers using this set.
If I were to compare the quality of Grabie 100 watercolours to something at a similar price point, I would recommend Meiliang which has much cleaner, vibrant colours that mix better. I do recommend Grabie’s watercolour paper pad highly, though, as well as the brushes, which I will be reviewing next.
Disclaimer:
While this product is sent to me for review by Grabie, this review is not sponsored. All opinions are my own. Any external links provided are for your convenience only; they are not affiliated links and I do not make any commission off them.
