Review: Renesans Intense Watercolour

These are the Renesans Intense watercolour tubes I received as a gift from Iwona from Renesans last month. Renesans is a company based in Poland that makes a huge variety of art supplies.

For watercolour, they have the Intense watercolour tubes which has a total of 70 colours, 50 of which are single pigment paint.

The pans are called Extra Fine Watercolour. The range has 54 colours and they use different names and pigments compared to the tubes. Lastly they have Liquarel, their liquid watercolour line.

I have the pans as well but I will test and review them separately.

Transparent Yellow (PY150) is a vibrant mid semi-transparent yellow. PY150 is also known as Nickel Azo Yellow. The tube that I have seems to have visible physical particles which took a longer time for me to dissolve them. This is the only colour out of the twelve tubes I have that has this issue.

Cadmium Red Pale uses PO20 which is known as Cadmium Orange with other brands. This is a lightfast semi-opaque red-orange.

Permanent Carmine uses PR48:4. I read from handprint.com that PR48 is beta oxynaphtholic acid scarlet, fugitive, semiopaque orange-red. PR48:4 though is the more lightfast version (source: dickblick). As far as Carmine go, this looks like a nice vibrant version.

Violet is definitely not the first colour that comes to mind when I see Perylene Violet (PB60, PR101). This is a very muted dull violet which is not surprising given that it's a mix of Indanthrone Blue PB60 and a PR101.

Helio Cerulean (PB15:3) is the unmistakable Phthalo Blue (Green Shade). It's an intense staining cool blue.

As for Phthalo Blue, it's PB15:1. Brands that use this pigment sometimes call it Phthalo Blue (Red Shade). This is the alternative to those who want a non-granulating version of Ultramarine.

Helio Turquoise uses PB15:3 and PG7, This is a vibrant staining cool green.

Cobalt Turquoise (PG50) is weird one. This looks very different from Daniel Smith's Cobalt Teal Blue and Schmincke's Cobalt Turquoise. This looks more neutralised to me, and not as vibrant compared to the two brands I've mentioned.

Olive Green (PG7, PO62)

Golden Green is an interesting mix of five pigments, namely PBr6, PY151, PY150, PY3 and PG7. This must be a very challenging colour to make in the factory.

This version of Burnt Sienna (PBr7) is vibrant enough.

Potter's Pink (PR233) is good.

Here's a sketch I painted with Transparent Yellow PY150, Cadmium Red Pale PO108, Cobalt Turquoise PG50 and Helio Cerulean PB15:3.

The darker areas mixed with Helio Cerulean has sheen that reflects light when viewed from an angle. This can be quite distracting especially when your whole painting is matte but certain areas have the sheen.

Here's how it looks when it's not reflecting light.

Here I tried to blend the dark area into the lighter area with clean water. When it dried, there's an edge that I don't see when the wash was still wet.

Conclusion

Overall, the colours are vibrant but not reaching the high intensity of Winsor & Newton, Daniel Smith and Schmincke paint that I use often. Another downside is many of the colours above dry with a glossy finish. The surface is not sticky, just glossy. So that can be quite distracting.

That's not to say the quality here is not good. The quality of Renesans Intense watercolour tube paints is satisfyingly good but there are quirks.

And these are very affordable when you consider the quality. There's a North America distributor on Etsy selling these paints, at US $7 - 8.75 per tube. At those prices, it's really worth the money and definitely worth getting.

I personally will be buying more colours in the future to test.

Renesans
Renesans Website – http://renesanspolska.pl
Pan Colors – https://renesanspolska.pl/en/discover-en/watercolours/extra-fine-waterc…
Tube Colors – https://renesanspolska.pl/en/discover-en/watercolours/intense-water/

Availability
April Mathis – Exclusive US Renesans Distributor
Esty Store – https://www.etsy.com/shop/alittlecreativeme
Website – https://www.alittlecreative.me
YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEXw-U-IZ75YbyAnC3QOlYA

April Palmer – Australian Renesans Distributor
Etsy Store – https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThePochade

For more art product reviews, visit https://www.parkablogs.com/content/list-of-art-products-reviewed