The Winsor & Newton Watercolour Bijou Box is a really compact little box, smaller than the Sketchers' Pocket Box, and even my wallet (which is small).

The box is made enameled metal. There are two colour mixing wells on the lid. The bijou box used to have four mixing wells but Winsor & Newton discontinued that model, so even though you might see product images with four wells, they probably come with two.

The mixing wells are coated some some protective layer. When mixing, the watercolours tend to collect together which is good, as compared to mixing on a plastic surface which tends to scatter the water.

The bijou box uses the Artist-grade watercolour so they are pretty intense. The colours also come out less chalky than the Cotman (student grade) series.

Only eight colours are included in the box and they are:

• Winsor Lemon
• Scarlet Lake
• Permanent Rose
• French Ultramarine
• Winsor Green (Blue Shade)
• Yellow Ochre
• Burnt Sienna
• Ivory Black

Inside the box is also a collapsible brush that is too small. You can take that out and put in four more half pans.

This is a sketch I made with the set. The colours are very beautiful and even.

This is a colour mixing chart I made with my customized set where I added four more colours, namely, Cadmium Yellow, Winsor Blue (Green Shade), Olive Green and Raw Umber. The 12 colours are versatile, capable of mixing into a whole spectrum of colours. Colours are still intense when mixed.

I bought the set at around US$65 equivalent, with shipping. This is a rather pricey set. A 12 half pan Cotman pocket box is only $20.

Each Artist-grade pan is around $7 (source: Blick Art Materials), so 8 half pans is already $56 if you are to buy them separately. The box is hard to find as a separate product, although I did find one selling at $32. In the end, $65 isn't too bad, at least I know this is going to last a long time.

So overall, it's still well worth the money. It's a very high quality watercolour set.

Availability: Amazon.co.uk

There's also a variation of this Bijou box with 12 pans and an integrated water bottle.

There are several Amazon UK merchants selling the box set. I bought mine from RatchitArt, who's also selling it on eBay.