Product Test - Faber-Castell Watercolour Tubes

Last month I went to Hobby-X 2019 at the Ticket Dome in Johannesburg. I bought a number of fun things and some brand new and unfamiliar. But I also bought some more familiar products, among which was a set of watercolour tubes. This set was produced by Faber-Castell. I could hardly wait to get my hands into all of the new products, but first up were these wonderful watercolours. I decided to blog about this, as watercolours often get a bad rap for not being bright enough. I deliberately painted these brilliantly bright colours in thick layers to show how vibrant the colours could be. However, it is also true that these colours can be muted considerably by painting more diluted and thinner layers.

This is what the paints look like all packaged neatly in a box.

When unpacked, the twelve tubes lie neatly side by side with the labels turned up. It also has a little information pamphlet with the bare minimum info to get you started in watercolours. It is done in a variety of translations.

I take an A5 piece of watercolour paper and write the names of the colours in pen on the paper. Watercolours are also meant to be transparent. This is the aspect which distinguishes is from Gouache, which can be described as opaque watercolours. As I wish to test the transparency of the colours, I make an asterist next to each colour's name. I will paint over this to see if it is still visible afterwards.

I lay down a line of each colour and notice that the asterisk remains visible for all the colours, aside from the black. However, I have used a black pen, which may account for this. I find the colours beautifully bright and vibrant. All of the colours had a wonderful thick consistency, aside from the Mauve, which was too watery and seemed to have separated in the tube. All the tubes were properly sealed when I opened them the first time. Some colours burst out of the tubes once the seals were broken. Take care of unnecessary messes when breaking the seals on your tubes!

These were all the colours that burst out of the tubes. I caught them on a plastic palette to be used later in the test.

I then painted all of the colours horizontally as well as vertically across another page to see how well the colours mixed. I did this wet on wet, although the hot day made it difficult for me to do so as the paint dried quite quickly. The wonderful thing about watercolours is that they will lift again when wetted, though. This test proved beyond a doubt that the limited colour range would make it possible for me to create endless new colours with careful mixing.

I then did a very quick portrait sketch in pen on yet another page.

I mixed the colour for the skin and used the rest of the colours in the painting straight from the tube. Both options worked marvelously! Note that I have done all of the experiments and the painting with a single medium flat brush. This proves the maneuverability of the paint beyond a doubt.

My conclusion is that these paints are absolutely brilliant to work with and I can hardly wait to sink my teeth into it for a more substantial project.

You can watch a compilation video of the above steps on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/9FgslQ3AOno

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
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