Watercolor Confections Vintage Pastels by Prima contains 12 half pans of muted watercolour paints. I already own Nostalgia of Pastel by Mungyo, a.k.a. Pastel Dreams under Art Philosophy, likely a white label production. Vintage Pastels is also made in Korea and has the same quality like the Nostalgia of Pastel by Mungyo.
The price of this set has gone up dramatically; it was CAD$33 a year ago, and now it’s CAD$49. I purchased it from the US Amazon for US$31 (including shipping) as a Prime deal. If you are thinking about buying it, please read this review. You’ll be glad to save some coins!
Swatches of Watercolor Confections Vintage Pastels
Inside the box, you get the small tin palette with12 half pans and a swatch card. I always love it when the product comes with a swatch card, especially if the paper is watercolour paper. However, the paper is very thin and not real watercolour paper. Therefore, I will also do swatches in my Painter’s Color Diary.
By the way, the colour code is printed on one side of each pan, which is nice.
I knew going in, this is a very muted palette, which is what I wanted. However, the swatches scared me a bit, especially on the swatch card. They looked very cloudy and chalky. In fact, they remind me of cheap watercolour paints I used in art class as a child.
The only good shade is 117 Charcoal, a single pigment paint. As far as lightfastness goes, periwinkle is the least lightfast. The feel of the paints is exactly like Mungyo paints I already owned, while the paints performed like Grabie 100 Watercolours.
Performance of Vintage Pastels Watercolour
First, I did a couple of paintings on 100% cotton paper in the Lightwish Watercolour Sketchbook.
For the first painting, I had wetted the paper first, and immediately I knew there will be trouble using these paints wet on wet. They simply did not move. Moreover, the white base in them was so strong that there was hardly any pigment in the wash. If you look at the sky area, the paints didn’t blend, so forget about doing a variegated wash. The paint just collects where you deposit it. If you try to move it wet on wet it becomes cloudy and leaves whitish puddles.
The second painting fared better only because I had used the Charcoal shade. Again, it’s hard to drop colour in wet on wet, because the paints don’t disperse. If you use it close to full strength it looks even more chalky.
To demonstrate how milky the white base is, this is what the water looks like when I rinsed my brushes:
As for mixing colours, you are out of luck. Due to the heavy presence of a white and grey base, intermixing between shades create just a cloudy colour. Everything will become whitish grey. Furthermore, the paints lift very easily, so you can’t layer at all.
Use for Colouring a Stamped Image
The Watercolour Confections line seems to be quite popular among paper crafters. In an attempt to find a use for these paints, I painted on a stamped image by Stamping Bella. I used 300g wood pulp paper for this, and only this palette so you can see the range you will get. It has little depth and was frustrating to use, especially because it does not do well wet on wet or glazing. The finished piece looks like non-lightfast watercolour that sat out in the sun for too long.
Overall Review
Watercolor Confections Vintage Pastels is a set of opaque watercolour that is chalky and contains a heavy white base. The paints lift easily, so you won’t be able to glaze/layer. In addition, they do not move, so they don’t work well wet on wet. The paint quality reminds me of Grabie 100 Watercolour set, which also had a lot of fillers and binders but not a lot of pigment. Still, Grabie was much better.
This set has a lot of good reviews but I really cannot recommend it. You are much better off mixing complementary colours to create muted, desaturated shades you want, without that heavy white base. With the lack of pigment and inability to layer, I have little use for these. Even as a companion palette, these paints lent the same cloudiness to whatever you mix them with as well. I felt like I wasted my money.
At this price point, this set is not worth it. Save your hard earned cash for something better! 🙂
