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Prima Art Philosophy Watercolor Lightfast Test CONFECTIONS AND CONFETTI Student Grade Color Chart and Review
Review, color chart, video painting demonstrations, lightfast and fugitive fading results for Art Philosophy watercolor sets by Prima Marketing. (Prima is a craft supply company who, in recent years, changed the art supply section of their catalog to be branded as "Art Philosophy".) This page covers the student grade PAN sets marketed towards crafters that do card making and rubber stamping. They come in metal tins with 12 half pan watercolor paints called "confections" or as a 24 color set called "confetti".
If you're looking for Art Philosophy watercolor TUBES instead (PROFESSIONAL ARTIST GRADE PAINTS you can see them on the other review page here). In 2019 they added the 24 pan "Confetti" set to their catalog as an affordable, bargain/crafter grade, option. This set has pigment codes, like you might find in higher quality paints, but do not be fooled - many of the codes are inaccurate and the pigments used will fade.
Their "Confections" sets that have 12 colors per tin are simply labeled as "artist quality" which has lead to confusion regarding their grade. The quality of these paints are definitely not up to par with any professional grade brand. At best, all of these sets should be considered "student" or even a third category including beginner, crafters or "bargain" quality. While you can create lovely looking artwork with these paints, they are overall less lightfast, lower pigment load, poor reflectivity / shimmer in the metallic ranges and have some odd reactions in wet washes or salt texture effects when compared to higher quality paints.
They are affordable, but if lightfastness is not a major concern I would recommend Pretty Excellent or Miya brands instead. Those brands offer more paint, and slightly higher light resistance, at a similar price point. That being said, Prima / Art Philosophy paints are capable of vibrant coloring, smooth layering and glazing techniques. The fading issues primarily mean they are only well suited to sketchbooks, practice painting, crafts and card making.
The following colors are part of the 24 "confetti" set, which does not share colors with any of their other sets. This selection is student grade and should be considered overall fugitive, with no lightfast ratings available. The pigments noted on their color chart have some errors, but several of the ones they claim to use are not typically stable in UV light (mainly in the pink/orange/yellow range). This set is best used for card making, scrapbooks and sketchbooks, not for art to hang on the wall in a room receiving window lighting.
In as little as 3 months all of the pink, orange and red colors faded from nearby window lighting. (Compared to lightfast pigments that remain unchanged for over 1 year in direct daily sunlight, this is dramatically fugitive.)
There was a typo on "Wood" that said PB25 (B for blue, which seemed to be a mistake for Br for brown... BUT there is evidence that this is a multi pigment mixture because what appears to be PBk7 black is all that remains after the lightfast test):
Confetti set swatch cards:
You can buy this set on Amazon below. As an amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
They also offer "Confections" sets of 12 pans, such as these:
Confections set reviews coming soon. I am currently working on the swatch cards for several of these sets and completing the lightfast tests. They contain slightly less fugitive pigments than the Confetti set, but had an unpleasant chalkiness and gritty texture in some of the colors. Overall none of the paints were as highly pigmented or easy to re-wet as pro grade paints.
If you're really interested in this company, I much prefer their tube paints, which are similar to ShinHan.
Confections swatch cards:
---In progress---
If you'd like to see how these paints compare to the same colors in other brands, check out the pigment database here.
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