Early Access: Surprised and Conflicted- Mijello Mission Gold Half Pan Palette Full Review Including Illustration (Patreon)
Content
Shownotes:
Full Shownotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QxXbuA-Q5gH-qm15ocV86Pw0phs03lIv7rfEO9EDF10/edit?usp=sharing
Get Your Own:
The Packaging
Cardboard box
shrink wrap
Plastic palette
swatch sheet on 100% cottonrag paper by Baohong
White spray painted plastic interior seems to be mattified
Large mixing surfaces
Swatching on their paper:
Spritzed to preactivate
Some colors lightened up a bit
Kinda challenging to get my small flat into the wells with the grid system, so this might not be a great fit for artists who paint larger (that said, Mijello makes the stay wet palettes that are much better for larger brushes, so it's all about finding what works for you)
Doing 2 layer swatches for this, a wash out, and a masstone. Sorry mine are kinda messy, I have to paint at an angle to get everything on camera.
Layer 1:
While many colors do rush to fill the swatch, it's not a universal, and most present a gradient of color, unlike many of the dye based student grade watercolors I've reviewed.
This feels like a very compact set for a 24 half pan set- in a very positive way
For the most part, masstone swatches are very saturated. This set honestly might not need a whole lot of preactivation, considering they were poured & not extruded.
On Blick Cottonrag:
I'm having trouble doing gradiated swatches. Colors are not as saturated as I'd hoped. I've used Mijello in the past, so I want to be leniant, but this might be one for the fieldtest.
Color Mixing:
Easy to mix nice secondary mixes, and the plastic surface has been treated in such a way that the colors ACTUALLY CAN MIX and don't just immediately bead up and refuse to mix. GREAT JOB MIJELLO!! A travel palette that actually allows for mixing.
I wouldn't say the mixes are any LESS saturated than the original swatches, but both are a little underwhelming?
Lift Test:
A decent mix of lifting and staining colors. The ones you'd think lift lift (for the most part) and the ones you'd think setain stain. Couldn't try the green gold b/c it was still wet.
Wet into Wet:
Colors diffuse really readily and very prettily, and intermix readily in water. Capable of soft, misty mixes, not seeing any optical brightener halos, or weird 'stoginess' to the paint.
As it dries, colors don't seem to fade significantly
Needs a fieldtest before I can do pros & Cons and verdict
Fieldtest:
Full fieldtest notes are in the shownotes.
I shared a WIP photo of this, and people were commenting that this palette is what they're looking for, they want this kind of color saturation. I want to point out- this is actually a LESS SATURATED professional grade experience than I'm used to. Saturation comes generally from how you handle the paints. So the level of saturation here? This is due to how I like to paint, what I'm looking for in watercolor, what I typically buy for, and how I have learned to use watercolors. This isn't this palette, specifically.
If you're interested in more saturated watercolors, I recommend going for professional grade brands. Japanese watercolors such as Holbein, Turner, and Kusekabe tend to be more finely milled, and have less granulation. Shin Han PWC and Mijello are typically very finely milled with some granulation, and generally have good color saturation. Sennelier, Winsor and Newton, and Da Vinci tend to be easy to use, last a long time, and feature good saturation. Qor has some of the best saturation and intensity I've seen for MOST of their color range, and some may find them challenging to use because they are so saturated.
The Verdict:
These are kinda disappointing for a professional set- I just can't get the value contrast I want, so everything stays at a kind of mid tone. Whether I try to mix a darker color or just increase the saturation, it just doesn't really work. I tried to lean into this palette's strengths, and still feel like it fell kinda short. These are just kinda disappointing. I just can't get the kind of saturation I need with these, and if I mix things too thick, they're very easy to reactivate. It makes me wonder if I'd misjudged Mijello the first time. The Moulin du Roy was a dream to paint on- it was from an older order, and I think they've changed their process a bit, but it's not the paper, it's the paint.
Chapters:
00:00- Introduction
01:58 Mijello Half Pans
04:25 Unboxing
05:27 Opening the Palette
10:27 Swatching on their Swatch Card
14:44 Swatching on Blick Watercolor Paper
16:42 Color Mixing
18:14 Lift Test
19:35 Wet into Wet
22:09 Fieldtest
30:03 Cleaning the Palette
31:22 Pros and Cons
33:23 The Verdict
34:31 Final Thoughts
Music:
Sunny Travel- Nico Staf
The Story of One Life
Sunset Dream-Cheel