Review: Handmade watercolour from Dan Barrett

In an earlier video I made (below) on Manganese Blue alternatives, people said the alternatives don't look like the original PB33 pigment. One comment mentioned watercolour artist and illustrator Dan Barrett who is still selling the discontinued paint. So I bought myself a half pan.

I bought this for £9 and shipping to Singapore was £7. That is almost US$22.50 for this small half pan.

I probably should have bought a few more pans to make the shipping worth it.

Just for comparison purposes, a full pan of Cobalt Blue Deep PB74 from Kremer Pigments is US$10 and Lapis Lazuli is US$16.

My package also came with some extra paint dot samples that I did not expect.

This was the sketch painting with Da Vinci's Manganese Blue which is a mix of PB33 and PB15. The granulation isn't that obvious.

This is the sketch I painted with the half pan Manganese Blue together with the Kremer Pigments palette. I wanted to use Kremer Pigments for this sketch because for some reason, many of Kremer Pigments paint has really nice granulation, or the illusion of granulation.

Here's a close up on the granulation of true Manganese Blue PB33. The granulation looks lovely on this coldpress paper. The hue is definitely more vibrant compared to Cerulean Blue PB35 and Cerulean Blue Chromium PB36.

The plants were mixed with PB33 and PY151. You can probably mix granulating greens with PB33 but it's not obvious from the small patch I painted.

The following are swatches created from the watercolour dot samples.

Aquamarine Blue PB36

Pyramid Yellow PY151 is suppose to be more vibrant, or at least Daniel Smith's version which is Azo Yellow is incredibly vibrant.

The thing with watercolour dots is sometimes they just don't rewet well.

This is blank because Fuchsite PW8 dried back into a rock and could not be re-activated with water.

Manganese Brown PBr8 is not a common colour. I don't think this is a special colour because there are so many earth colours available out there.

This version of Perylene Red PR178 is very muted compared to Daniel Smith's version.

Quinacridone Gold PO49 is a discontinued colour/pigment from most paint manufacturer. At the time of this review, it's out of stock on Dan's website.

Sandstorm PY139 is a nice warm yellow. This colour is £5. You can get this paint in the form of a MaimeriBlu 12-ml tube from Jackson's Art for £7 which is much cheaper.

This is a good alternative to New Gamboge.