I was very interested to get my hands on a set of Kuratake Gansai Tambi watercolour paints. These Japanese watercolours are generally regarded as high quality, well priced paints but some people seem to not be massive fans. I remember seeing them when I was first looking into watercolour sets for myself, after wanting to upgrade from a low quality (hello, $10 at Kmart) set. I was initially put off by the giant pan sizes and super bright colours which reminded me of children’s paint sets. I’m very happy to say I was wrong.
Essentially, Kuratake is a brand selling ‘gansai’ paints- a specific kind of Japanese watercolour with a slightly different binder than western paints. It’s this binder that allows the paints to be applied more thickly like a gouache, and makes them dry with a slight seen if they are applied thickly.
They also come in a linen wrapped box rather than a metal or plastic palette. There is no dedicated mixing space, though the clear plastic piece that is provided to keep the pans in place during transit can definitely be repurposed for this (or just grab a plate!). It’s difficult to tell exactly how much paint comes in the pans, but they’re defiantly laid out in a different configuration. The large shallow pans are clearly made to be used with large calligraphy style brushes, but there were no issues using my preferred tiny brushes.
If you water the paints down like a normal watercolour, they move, flow and dry just like quality western watercolour paints. I got an 18 colour selection, which is a nice middle ground of not too expensive but included some colours I liked which were missing in the smaller set. I did feel like the set was designed for floral painting- why else would you need three greens- and the colour choices defiantly are a bit different to what you’d see in a western set of 18 paints. That said, I love the inclusion of indigo, violet and a pink and the turquoise is a colour I would regularly need to mix if it wasn’t included.
During the standard test paint, I was really pleased with these paints. They’re very creamy and it can be easy to overload the brush and use them like a gouache (even if you don’t mean to!) but if you water them down appropriately I see no reason why they should be drying with a satin finish.
Pros:
Bright colours
Well priced
Many set sizes to choose from
Big pans would be great for large washes
Cons:
Odd colour inclusions
Less sturdy box, compared to palette set up
Minimal mixing space
Can dry shiny if heavily applied