Early Access! LetterSparrow Handmade Watercolors Unbox & Swatch (Patreon)

LetterSparrow Handmade Watercolors Unbox & Swatch

Get Your Own: Mentioned in the Video: Beam Paints (Upcoming Review) Black Sheep: Jazper Stardust: Note: The audio on this one is a bit weird, it's almost entirely live audio, recorded straight to my camera. If you enjoy reviews like this one, please consider supporting my work via Patreon! patreon.com/nattosoup You can check out my watercolor illustrations and comics at instagram.com/nattosoup Shownotes: Letter Sparrow Handmade Watercolors Arrived in an ecofriendly recycled mailer Packaging inside is really cute My watercolors were wrapped in a glassine envelope tied with twine, the businesscard is watercolor, there's a handlettered Thank You, an informational flier about the packaging, and my receipt, which I really appreciate as it's not always included and always helps me with pricing, especially when a product has sold out. The Watercolor tin is a small, nondescript metal tin with a Letter Sparrow Sticker on it. Colors in The Primaries: Alizarin Crimson Cinnabar Brilliant Yellow Lemon Ochre Prussian Blue Ultramarine Blue Half pans are in thin makeup eyeshadow tins, and are magnetized to the palette itself using a thin sheet of magnet. Very neat. Might mess up your electronics if you just pop it in a bag. Swatching: On Baohong Academy watercolor paper 100% cottonrag Activation Time Granulation Opacity Chalkiness Relifting Like how quickly these activate Deliver strong, clear color Don't overly muddy the water- not dealing iwth chocolate milk Find the format of these halfpans a little challenging to use Color Mixing: Manual Mixing: Really had difficulty mixing olive greens and oranges with this palette, since lemon yellow is more likely to produce neutrals and grays. Optical Mixing: Colors are REALLY intense for the most part, which makes glazing like this not that effective, as one layer just massively overpowers the next. Really struggling to get my brush into the palette and not make a big mess. All the colors are fairly lifting, with the exception of prussian blue. The weakest color seems to be her cinnabar About Letter Sparrow Owned and operated by Kelly Hollstrom lettersparrow.com @lettersparrow Offers palettes, individual pans and plastic half pans that will fit in a standard size palette Also offers a variety of pan sizes, including mini size (half the size of the standard pan), the double pan (which holds as much as a standard half pan) the half pan, and a full pan. So the pans in this palette holds half of a half pan Palettes are generally in themed sets Also offers some metallics Launched in October 2012 These are vegan watercolors, so I guess honey is NOT the binder? Prussian Blue is not listed as a pigment Ultramarine Blue: Color index: PB29 Lightfastness: Excellent Non-toxic Transparency: More opaque than other colors Tinting strength: Strong Cinnabar Red: Color index: PR3 Lightfastness: Good Semi-transparent Tinting strength: Good Toxicity: Non-toxic Lemon Ochre: Color index: PY43 Lightfastness: 100% lightfast Transparent Toxicity: non-toxic Brilliant Yellow Color index: PY74 Lightfast: Medium Color index: PR 83 Lightfastness: low (Rose madder is known to fade within a few months of exposure to strong light.) Transparent Medium tinting strength Non-toxic The Verdict: A lot of thought and care seems to go into Letter Sparrow watercolors- this is apparent in the packaging and in the website. And it seems like she's very passionate about what she does. The inclusion of info cards that include facts about the pigments used, as well as pigment and lightfast information would make these a wonderful gift. For ease of use, I probably should have gone with the double pans (the same amount of paint as a traditoinal half pan), but that would've raised the price to $85, which is a bit steep for something I'm trying out. I love the attention that goes into the metal palette, but the magnet might be a bit weak for travel (my pans were all over the place), so if you're using this as a travel set, you might wish to put something in as a buffer to fill the empty space. While I feel like these are lovely watercolors, and Kelly's passion is apparent, it's challenging for me to recommend these to other watercolor artists like myself, as the paint to price ratio just isn't quite right, especially compared to some of the other handmade watercolors on the market. More paint per pan, or a wooden box would help elevate these as a luxury watercolor. Music: Letter Sparrow Unbox and Swatch: Kevin MacLeod: Snow Drop Tranquility Silver Blue Light Blue Feather Inner Light #handmadewatercolor #Lettersparrowwatercolor #watercolorreview