REview and soft Roses (Paul Rubens New Gemstone Watercolor set)

Hi friends! I have to admit when I saw this new set of 24 Paul Rubens watercolors show up on amazon a month or two ago I was skeptical. Their original sets were awesome, why are they making another “regular” watercolor set? The Paul Rubens company offered me a set to review so I decided to compare it against the old faithful sets and see what was up with this new one.

I took a photo of the swatch card and wrote the pigment info that was on the pans. The first difference between this set and the original set is that they replace the cadmium and cobalt-based colors with hues. That could be a positive or a negative depending on what you think about the potential toxicity of those colors. I am a fan of the longevity of cadmium and the texture of cobalt so it isn’t a benefit to me. This set also sports a new tin design which I found exciting until I realized that it didn’t latch properly and did not have the customary slot and rail design that these heavy enamel tins usually have. The Paul Rubens Phosforecesnt set has a similar, but better quality tin. We will compare swatches from all the professional lines of Paul Rubens paints that I have in this video, do some swatching, and paint these soft roses to see how they interact on paper.

Are you ready? Let’s unbox this set!

Pros of new Paul Rubens set in the green tin

• price

• cadmium and cobalt free (this is not a pro for some, including me)

• Nice balanced color selection

• Pigment and lightfast info included

• Unique tin

• Nice giftable packaging

• Nice glazing, lifting and blending

Cons:

• My tin did not latch securely. Several viewers also mentioned that theirs didn’t either. I mentioned this to the company and they are looking into it.

This swatch is for my swatch binder. I glue the pan wrapper so I can have all the info andy and then paint a big swatch, ad a glaze stipe and try living a stripe off. The black lines are drawn before painting with a sharpie so I can test transparency.

Bottom Line: This is another good paint set from Paul Rubens. The only significant change I can see is the replacing of real cadmium and cobalt-based colors with hues. This was probably done to reduce cost or comply with consumers’ wishes to use less toxic pigments. I prefer the original palettes with the cobalt and cadmium because I feel those unique pigments give a palette more personality. This set, paint wise with the exception of the Manganese violet reminds me more of the Meilang Pretty Excellent paint this company also makes. Still, I think it is a good value and a nice option for those wishing to avoid real cadmium and cobalt paints.

I hope you found this review helpful. Happy crafting!