Will you share some of your Gansai explorations so we can see it in action? 

Sure!  I'll try to get some examples posted as soon as I can.  I'm using wifi as my phone service at the moment and I'm not sure how it's going to work for photos I take with my camera, but I'll figure it out.

Yesterday, thanks to my oldest son and his wife, UPS delivered me the 100 color set of gansai and I'm thrilled and excited about that. I'll be all set for the rest of my life now, even if I live to be 100 years old.  lol

You know, I was thinking about it yesterday that pre-mixed colors exist in western watercolors, too, but they're usually called "convenience" colors.  For some reason, though, it's different with gansai.  I  watch walking tours on Youtube a lot and in watching some videos from Japan, I see the exact colors in those videos in the colors that are pre-mixed in gansai.  I think this year the Christmas cards I do for the people here in the park will be snow scenes from world heritage Japanese villages painted with gansai.

8 hours ago, Grizabella said:

Sure!  I'll try to get some examples posted as soon as I can.  I'm using wifi as my phone service at the moment and I'm not sure how it's going to work for photos I take with my camera, but I'll figure it out.

 

Yesterday, thanks to my oldest son and his wife, UPS delivered me the 100 color set of gansai and I'm thrilled and excited about that. I'll be all set for the rest of my life now, even if I live to be 100 years old.  lol

 

You know, I was thinking about it yesterday that pre-mixed colors exist in western watercolors, too, but they're usually called "convenience" colors.  For some reason, though, it's different with gansai.  I  watch walking tours on Youtube a lot and in watching some videos from Japan, I see the exact colors in those videos in the colors that are pre-mixed in gansai.  I think this year the Christmas cards I do for the people here in the park will be snow scenes from world heritage Japanese villages painted with gansai.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How exciting with that big set of colors! I’ve  heard people say that they go bigger with their Gansai collection compared with watercolor, which makes sense. I think people generally do less color mixing with Gansai. The name ‘convenience color’ really sound a bit accusatory, doesn’t it? Like ‘for the lazy person who can’t be bothered to color mix’ 😅😆

I have taken a watercolor class that got very deep into color mixing so I do enjoy it, but I also have many self made mixes and also a few convenience colors that I’ve purchased. I think some people assume that an orange or purple color is automatically a lazy mix, but the few ones that I have decided to purchase for my collection are single pigment, and you can’t get that exact shade or intensity by mixing multiple pigments (though you can get fairly close). Does Gansai use mainly single pigment colors? 🤔

Thanks for sharing! 

Gansai doesn't use many single pigment colors.  They've started giving their colors English names since people used to complain there was only Japanese language in their sets.  However, I'm not sure whether those are as accurate as our western paints.  I suppose they are if they name those  They have colors like burnt umber,  yellow ochre, ultramarine, cobalt colors, some cadmium colors, alizarin crimson, carmine, rose madder---to name a few.  But then others like horizon blue, old mauve, billiard green, shadow green,---and then potter's pink, gofun white, ecru beige----maybe you get the idea.  I haven't named them all.  There are 70 like that in my big set and then they also have 8 gold metallic colors, 5 pearl colors, 5 gem colors, 6 opal colors and 6 graphite colors.  

Yes, you're right that the "convenience colors" does sound like it's for those too lazy to mix their own.  LOL I have no shame----I have lots of convenience colors in my western watercolors.  What I like about the pre-mixed colors of gansai, though, is that they're so bright, clean and vibrant and always the same.  I've tried three brands in small sets and they're all the same.  A couple of the sets don't have English names for the pans and I don't know Japanese, but the colors are the same as my Kuretake sets.  Something I've noticed with western watercolors is that their convenience colors vary----Payne's grey in one brand will have that nice blue tint but then in another brand, there's no blue to really see.  Kuretake has blue gray deep and that's a lovely substitute for Payne's gray.

In this big set, I'm noticing some things that I think tell me Japanese manufacturers are trying to fit into the western watercolor market.  The gem colors remind me of those ones by a western manufacturer whose name escapes me right now but you might know the ones I mean.  It's an American guy's name I think.  And crafters like metallic, pearl, and opal colors so they've made those.  The graphite colors I'm not sure about but they're really nice colors.  They can be burnished.  The metallic, gem, opal and graphite colors are aimed at etagami and greeting card crafters, I suspect.  They're really lovely, though.  

For this year's Christmas paintings for my neighbors, I'm going to do Japanese snow scenes and I think I'll use the opal colors on the snow areas.  It's beautiful, delicate and subtle but should really be pretty and will add to the illusion of real snow.

You’re right about paynes grey, some brands include black pigment and the shade can really vary a lot! I mostly make my own blue grey mix; I have one version that is granulating and one that isn’t. 
 

Regarding the gem colors, do you perhaps mean the primatek colors by Daniel Smith? Some of them are quite nice, but I feel that they are overpriced 😕 So it’s good that there is competition on that market! 
 

Your plan for those Christmas paintings sounds like it will be a hit! I haven’t tried many of the shimmering colors but I have tried gold and silver gouache and it was really fun to use, so I can imagine how much fun you’ll have with the opal colors! 

Yes!  Daniel Smith!  That's the one.  I agree about the over-pricing.  You can probably find the gansai gem colors on Amazon separately quite reasonably as well as the opal colors.  The graphite colors alone are $11 for the six of them.  I've seen opal and gem colors alone there in small sets, too, I think.

12 minutes ago, Grizabella said:

Yes!  Daniel Smith!  That's the one.  I agree about the over-pricing.  You can probably find the gansai gem colors on Amazon separately quite reasonably as well as the opal colors.  The graphite colors alone are $11 for the six of them.  I've seen opal and gem colors alone there in small sets, too, I think.

 

Yes, they have all those and then some in smaller sets on US Amazon for about that same price. The gem color set is $12 .