How good are Rosa watercolours? | Review | An alternative to Whiteknights? - Video

If you are looking for a vibrant, good quality paint at a reasonable price, then take a look at Rosa Gallery Watercolours. They are made in the Ukraine, so you are helping a Ukraine business as well as your art.

For those who have never tried Rosa Gallery watercolors, these are beautiful, professional grade, and transparent. Rosa Gallery paints disperse beautifully, they don’t stay put. They are developed in conjunction with professional artists. The range of 70 colours has some granulating mixes and a high proportion of single pigment colours.

As a couple of people have pointed out at 3.08 I said PG8 is a phthalo green - it’s not ( that’s PG7). PG8 is Nitroso Green or a Hookers Green. It gets a 2* light fastness rating, so is not the highest. Unfortunately I cannot add a note to the film once it’s on YouTube, but thank you for letting me know my mistake. And I said I can’t read Russian…. Well I can’t! But I meant, I cannot read the Cyrillic script. Looking into it, Ukraine and Russia use a similar but not identical form of the Cyrillic script. Apparently each has four letters the other doesn’t. Sorry for any offence caused.

A number of people have also commented on not bringing politics into art and why should a Russian art materials manufacturer suffer due to actions of its government? Economics and business has more influence on government than the individual citizen, it seems to me. All life is politics and art is often at its most powerful when it shines a light on injustice ( look at Picasso’s Guernica). You need to follow your own conscience and I am not dictating what you should do.

Should you buy sable brushes due to animal cruelty? Should you use spray varnish due to environmental concerns? Should you use acrylic (it’s liquid plastic)? Should you buy Chinese paints due to the treatment of the Uyghurs? Should you but Russian paints if you disagree with the invasion of Ukraine? I cannot answer that for you. All we can do is educate ourselves and make a personal choice with knowledge, not ignorance.

For me, I did not use Whiteknights before, so rather than being a negative decision to boycott against them, it will be a positive decision for tge Ukraine. Your choice may be different.

In this film I swatch out the dot card, which I purchased for £1 from Ken Bromley in the UK. I also swatch out some tube colours which caught my eye.

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