Oh man, I really want to love these paints…

Hi friends! Today I have a review of Shinhan gouache. Specifically the Shinhan Designer’s Gouache set of 12. You can also purchase the paint tubes individually at Jackson’s which is what I recommend and you will see why in the video.

I had several viewers on YouTube tell me that ‘Designer’ gouache is not meant to be lightfast because it is used by designers for print work so you need to buy ‘Artist’ or ‘Professional’ gouache if you want a lightfast paint.” I was always under the impression that ‘Designers’ gouache was the re-wettable opaque watercolor and that the ‘designers’ label was to differentiate it from the matte acrylic permanent acryl gouache. Honestly, there is no hard and fast rule as to what ‘artist’ and ‘professional’ means, it’s like ‘all-natural’. You can have lightfast colors in designers’ gouache and fugitive colors in gouache lines labeled ‘artist’ or ‘professional’ and since these tubes had favorable lightfast ratings on them you can imagine my dismay to see some known fugitive pigments used. Do you think I am being too hard with my review? In any event, if you see designer gouache you know you are getting the opaque watercolor re-wettable version. It is my mission with my reviews to break through the marketing and hype and get to the truth of a product, semantics aside.

Pros:

• Bold bright colors

• Colors mix well Opaque

• Not chalky

• Easy to paint with

• Evenly matte

• Very pigmented, even in washes

Cons:

• Several of the colors in this set use pigments that are not as lightfast as I would like for professional gouache.

Bottom Line: I really like the paint but I should have researched the pigments used before purchasing rather than just looking at color names, that’s on me. If you mainly do sketchbook work I would recommend these. If you want to display or sell your work I would still recommend this line of paint but I would choose open stock colors using more lightfast pigments. I really love using this paint so I am going to do my own lightfast test and see how the paint does in my sunniest window for a couple of months. If you can get these open stock for a good price I wouldn’t hesitate to buy these!