There are many custom convenience colors (uncommon multi-pigment mixtures) in American Journey including: Andrew's Turquoise, Apricot, Blue Stone, Brown Madder Quinacridone, Carr Yellow, Chromium Oxide Green, Janet's Violet Rose, Mint Julep, Orchid, Pat's Coastal Blue, Peachy Keen, Quin Gold (an unusual PY42 version instead of PY150), Skip's Green, Shadow and Taylor's Flamingo Pink. There are also three very similar PBr7/PW6 mixtures that look like Buff Titanium PW6:1 (single pigment option available from DSmith or RSzmal) which American Journey calls: "Buff Titanium" (a hue), "French Gray" and "Coastal Fog". There's probably a couple more unique mixtures that I didn't immediately notice nestled in their 100+ color options. There are additional common mixtures like Periwinkle (Lavender), Passionate Purple (Thioindigo), Getz (Davy's), Junebug (Prussian Green) and Moonglow (Artemis) which can be found in other brands (like DVinci or DSmith). It is definitely fun to browse their catalog for mixing inspiration. Check out the "more info" tabs for pigment ingredients at www.cheapjoes.com/american-journey-artists-watercolor.html

@@KimberlyCrick Oh my goodness, thank you so much for taking the time to answer in so much detail. This is very helpful. You are so talented. I love your channel and the wonderful information that you share with us.

@@KimberlyCrick I took a look at the formulation of other AJ colors vs DV and unless I missed some, the following ones would seem to be unique too to AJ: sour lemon, fire engine red, quin burnt scarlet, transp red oxide, quin red rose deep, goethite, hematite burnt scarlet, peacock blue, sky blue, quin burnt orange, coral red quin, royal amethyst, cobalt green gen, earthen green, spring green, mummy, raw umber violet, transparent oxide brown, transparent oxide yellow, french gray, magnetite

Yes, that’s another beautiful unique color exclusive to American Journey. I don’t think anyone else has thought to offer a PR202/PV14/PW6 combo and it seems nice for florals too. Go them for creative mixtures!

Yeah blue stone was so much more versatile than I initially expected. The color separating greens I got combining it with quin gold deep and other colors in my palette were stunning. I feel like I need to do a mixing play time video just for that color and recreating it with other brands too :)

@@KimberlyCrick Yes please!

I know, I am absolutely in love with Blue Stone. It makes me want to try mixing every PB36 I have with all my ochres and earth browns. Maybe find the most intensely granulating version I can DIY mix too! Happy painting :)

Thank you... I'm terrible with oil paints and the clean-up frustrates me compared to watercolors so I'm afraid I won't be much help there. On the bright side a lot of the pigments used are the same throughout all paints, so some of the color and lightfast info applies to watercolor, oil and acrylic. Happy painting :)

Yes i think cobalt turq deep and a yellow ochre. It makes me want to play with all my similar blues/cerulean/cobalt chrome combined with all sorts of earth browns/goethite/umbers. Such an unexpectedly awesome combo!

Thank you, I gotta say I might borrow using catnip in sentences like that lol. My cats go bonkers for it, one just resigns to drool on a scratcher for an hour afterwards. I pretty much drool over these beautiful mixtures, Blue Stone made my night! Happy painting :)

The American Journey quality is similar to Rembrandt, but Van Gogh is definitely a nice close matching option in student grade! I owned an old pan of Green Earth from White Nights and it wouldn't re-wet. I wonder if it's better now after all the improvements they've done the past few years. I'll take another look at it!

There's a lot to be said for reliability, no surprises. Definitely a pleasure to paint with these or DaVinci. Enjoy your mixing play time, I'm going to do the same - these coastal colors are super inspiring! Happy painting :)

The vibrancy of their Ultramarine blows Daniel Smith out of the water 😍

There's more than that, a magnetite pbk11, goethite brown ochre and likely a couple more they had made just for them and DV didn't decide to use in their own catalog. Though to be honest these offerings are not overwhelmingly unique in comparison to other brands, particularly considering the unusual convenience mixtures they have.

I agree with Eve Bolt. 🇨🇦 I purchased my Da Vinci paints while in Florida.

If you're able to find the paul rubens opera neon colors for about $20 there is no better set for these type of bright colors out there. The only bad thing was the lack of a UV black light glow on the blue. Keep in mind that all fluorescent/neon colors are fugitive, so they will fade away on long term wall display, but they are the most vibrant awesomely bright colors you can get for personal work and sketchbooks as a beginner or advanced painter. There's very little competition in higher grade paints since most pro paints only offer opera pink, not the orange/yellow/green range. Happy holidays :)

No, it doesn't mean that DV/AJ colors are less lightfast, but rather these brands are quoting a different test sources of rating data. The surprising thing in the paint making world that always bums me out a bit, is it's actually really rare for a paint company to do their own testing. More brands than not rely on previously published ASTM records for that particular pigment. Sometimes a company realizes the ASTM data is outdated and supplies their own study instead (sometimes getting really confusing when someone supplies both at once, like Sennelier's color chart says PR122 magenta is both 3of3 stars self rated, yet also LFIII ASTM due to an outdated test result from the 1990s where a poor quality sample failed). It's supppperrrr rare that a specific pigment varies between brands (the rare exceptions to this include PR177 and PV23, due to the chemical manufacturing differences of the pigment powder suppliers worldwide that actually vary in quality enough to impact uv stability). In the case of Phthalo Blues the past ASTM rating for watercolor was LFII and a low LFI for acrylic/oil, however most modern blue wool scale results from pigment powder chemical supplier average BW7-8 (LFI equivalent). In general both LFI and LFII is considered lightfast for art, as it will take many months of direct sunlight to see any subtle changes in these colors - sometimes the difference between the low end of scoring LFI and high end of LFII is very little on a blue wool scale, which may have aided in some of the differences in ratings between sources. Hope that helps :)

@@KimberlyCrick I am so humbled and floored by the amount of time and detail you gave to answering my question. Thank you so, so much for this! I'm greatly encouraged by this absolution to explore these lines more. I continue to learn so much here. Also, my little girl adores your various animal paintings :) Thanks again!

Ooh, you said "smooth" colors. I am honestly not a fan of a lot of granulation unless I am painting natural stuff...

These paints are definitely great to know about even if hard to get, purely for the mixing inspiration. I am excited to start playing with all my cerulean/cobalt turq/chrome colors paired with ochres and pale earth browns after being inspired by Blue Stone :D

Blue Stone is a bit darker and more green, similar to cobalt green deep in masstone. I'll have to do some mixing to see what is the best Mayan Blue alternative. It is a bummer how badly Mayan Blue fades.

@@KimberlyCrick Thank you! You're amazing!

Joe's won't tell anyone who manufacturers the paper, but most good cotton papers are made in old European mills and it could be a Canson product. Unlike Arches who uses animal gelatin, Kilimanjaro uses a plant based sizing. The paper quality is really good though, so I were looking for a vegan alternative to Arches, this is a really good option.

@@KimberlyCrick Thanks, Kimberly. Fabriano Artistico now has a vegan sizing, so they're another possibility.