Customer Reviews
One of the cutest and most compact watercolor palettes I have ever seen.
As soon as it arrived I ordered a secone one for my daughter-in-law. She & my son live in a tiny apartment on the east coast while he finishes law school, so I like gifting her with surprising tiny art supplies!
The plastic is strong and flexible, so it should hold up well. All the joints are smooth and the little cup snaps on the side easily. then it all folds up again to go back in the cup and is ready for travel. It's perfect as a unique and fun gift for the artist in your family. I love how light it is and how compact it folds up. Art and Engineering, mixed with form and function fascinates me and this ticks all the best boxes.
I was fortunate to have the coupon that worked even when this was on sale, but I think even for $15-$18 it will still be a good price. This is probably going to be a student or practice paint, but it doesn;t seem chalky, so I may be surprised. It actually reminds me of my Prima paints, but I haven't actually done any painting with it yet. I will use it and then refill it with some paint for doing botanical paintings in my garden this spring. I'm so excited to get up tomorrow and play with my new mini palette. Thanks
Loved it colors are vibrant
This little palette is adorable. It's even smaller than I thought it would be and I am an absolute fool for a novelty palette! I filled out the included swatch card and am not disappointed with the colors. If they bother me in the future, I can always replace them. Seriously - this little palette, a water brush and a small sketchbook, and I am ready to go.
So... I did not expect a whole lot from this. I figured it would be a typical 'good idea but poorly executed' situation, but I wanted a convenient little palette for taking out of the house.
So I was *very* pleasantly surprised when I received it!
First, it looks like a bit of cheapo plastic crap. It's not. It is thick, and shockingly hefty for its size. It clasps together very securely without being hard to open. The two little fold-out mixing plates are, frankly, kinda brilliant. I was a bit bemused by the sleeve/water cup with it's little clips that seem kinda useless... until I realized they clip *onto* the palette when it's all opened, which it did not show in any of the pictures.
It does not come with any travel brushes, but I've accumulated so many over time that I can't even really consider that a downside, just worth noting.
The paints themselves aren't amazing, but at this price point I doubt that's surprising anyone. It's a decent selection for mixing on the go, though. And of course, once you use them up, you can replace them with higher quality paints.
All in all, *definitely* worth the price.
Frankly, I’m impressed! Impressed, because the advertisement on the Amazon page and the reality of the product are not only one and the same as far as I can tell; but this cute little thing has got a lot of heart to boot. “Tiny but mighty” is how it is described on Amazon, and it is. As tiny as it is, it still offers 9 respectably sized watercolor cake pigments that actually provided the pigment code information, the colors are mulled quite finely for such an inexpensive product ( IOW’s: they aren’t gritty, IMO, like most watercolors under $20 that I’ve tried), a swatch card is provided, *and* there are 5 color mixing areas, and the case doubles as a water container! I absolutely love it! As far as paint quality goes, they are student grade, which means the pigment load isn’t as intense as professional paints, but for $13 I wouldn’t expect them to be. But the colors are pretty, finely mulled for what it is, and there are warm and cools of each primary, and then some. So far, I’ve only painted a leaf, but I had fun painting with this set. Chances are, regardless if you get this for a hobbyist or a professional artist, they will probably enjoy it. They might eventually remove the watercolor cakes that came with it, and replace them with their favorites, but that isn’t necessarily a knock against the product per se. Some of us have spent a great deal of time testing lots of paints and know which colors and brands we work best with for our style. This is especially true when forced to narrow options down to 9 or less colors. I know that I will eventually substitute these watercolor cakes with poured tube paint colors that will allow me the most mixing options for my favorite colors du jour. And since this gradually changes over time to other color choices, the paint colors will probably be substituted many times during a favored palette’s lifetime, anyway. So, yeah: both beginners and pros might enjoy this because it’s cute and transformer ish, so you can carry it in your pocket, if you wanted to. I don’t think I’ve ever met a painter who didn’t like to play musical chairs with their paints; rehoming them in new tins, or novelty containers that are repurposed into travel tins. Such occupations seem to be part of the artistic process, in fact. I’ll probably use mine to fill with 9 awesome earth shades from an eclectic mix of my favorite brands. It would be great for that because it’s so small and light.