So fun to revisit these paints! These were the very first watercolor paints that I saw you review and my first set of WC paints ever! I adore them and have since gifted them to budding artists that I know. Once I'd watched your channel for a while and learned more about WC paint, I did something very similar for my set. I made a chart and set it up almost identical to the one you've done here. I am sentimental about these paints because they (and you, dear Lindsay) were a big reason that I began to create again. I'd stopped doing any art altogether when my husband of 30 years passed away unexpectedly. We used to paint together and I just couldn't even look at my supplies. I was enormously blessed to have friends who talked me into packing up & storing my art things and not selling or just giving them away. I am beyond grateful for the people who love me. Because I am now a prolific artist and I just love painting so much! Thank you for this video. I always learn something new from you! Love and Bless ox

I'm so happy they made this set with pans. Thank you so much for taking the time to "rename" the colors. It makes understanding them so much easier.

Really enjoyed learning about the warm/cool color wheel and how to mix browns and greys. Thanks for another great tutorial!

amazing video! You naming those colors to their everyday known names is super helpful for people who are new to watercolor or color theory! You should def do that for your new watercolor 30day class. Or make a list of colors that they'll need using warm or cool references or the everyday names used for said paint colors. Such a great idea. Anyway, great video. Thanks for sharing. Much love!

Lindsay, I feel like this video is "fan service" in the very best way! I am one of probably thousands of beginners who got this set on your recommendation, and it is was a wonderful way to start my journey. I was evicted to see this video! I got my 🦜 out and painted along with you, and these paints are as fun as I remember. I absolutely LOVE that you went over naming conventions and warm and cool colors again. I have gone on to collect some other sets including Mission Gold Pure Pigment and some tubes of Van Gogh and Daniel Smith, but honestly the only difference I perceive is that my rinse water stays cleaner longer. So maybe Mei Liang has a bit more filler than those other brands -- but it's got plenty of juicy pigment and is so affordable. Please don't hesitate to update reviews of popular products! If this was the only set I could ever use again, I'd still be thrilled with it. Your reviews are the best.

Thank you Lindsay! The warm /cool distinction is something I struggle with.

I’m so glad the quality stands up. I’m relatively new to watercolor and I bought these for under $17 during Prime Days. I’m thrilled I got such a great deal!

This video was GREAT! Loved learning how to make that color wheel and love that you gave common names for each color. YOU are a Pretty Excellent teacher❤️

I SO needed this! All the warm/cool versions of colours and what they would be called is precious. Thank you!

Good review! I saw this on Amazon 2 weeks ago for $16.75 and I couldn't resist. Maybe save it for a Christmas gift for my granddaughter. 🙂

I bought these when you first recommended them. I don’t feel precious about them so I enjoy playing with them. Thanks for identifying the colors by more common name and warm/cool. That was so helpful.

You’ve inspired me to boldly go where I never thought I would… using paint! Used your link to order, first time I’ve ever done that. Looking forward to receiving them and rewatching this when I create the swatch card. Thanks for your teaching style and knowledge.

I don’t get tired of color charts and color mixing!!Thanks for the comparison=)&labeling it’s a great refresher!!Lindsay 😊🦋🌺🦋

Bought mine last year, still use and love them ❤ even though I have pro paints now from various brands this set is just so fun for playing. 🎉

I still love my Pretty Excellent paints. Thanks for doing this Lindsay!

I bought a set based on your recommendation and I love it. The colors are so vibrant. I've been trying just to use the primaries to paint and it's a challenge but I feel I've learnt a lot since doing that. Thanks for the update!

I got this set a few years ago for my niece. She loved them! I saw them on Amazon for $20 the other day.

These type videos that you do are so useful! You always have so many tips that are helpful to beginners. Thanks!😊👍🏼

Super helpful video Lindsay. It's always helpful to revisit colour charts. Can't wait until the class opens. 😊 Had such fun in the 30 days class that I suffered Lindsay withdrawals afterwards...so joined critique club...and loving it. You are such a great teacher!!

I'll save this for tomorrow to re-swatch mine out, very helpful, thank you

Thanks for sharing this very helpful video. It is the paint that I have on your recommendation. I am so glad you share the common names and the mixing info. Going to write that info down! Awesome, thanks!

Thanks Lindsay! Great colour mixes! I find 36 quite a lot for beginners, especially when there are so many similar ones (2 almost identical oranges, 4 very similar reds, 8 shades of blue). I use yellow a lot, so having only one option of each warm and cold is a dealbreaker. Also, here in 🇩🇪 the orice shot up to €30 (a bit more than $30) so for this money I prefer to buy a good 12 or 24 set of Van Gogh, Cotman or Schmincke Akademie paints, as they all include pigment and lightfastness info, with lots of monopigment paints. Plus, they are all open stock, so I can buy individually without having to buy the set. Thanks for the review, it helped me see these paints are not for me.

Thank you for this. I always wondered about the different names for what looked to me, the same color. Now I know. Makes so much sense now. And the “color wheel” of warm/cool colors, very interesting. I’m going to do this tomorrow.

I’m so glad they are still a good choice! Thanks Lindsay!

Ah, I've been waiting for this review! I really appreciate you went over the color names and the warms and cools and the mixing and all that jazz. Great video. Thank you. ❤

I waited so long to see this review comparison; it by far surpassed my expectations!! Lindsay this is most amazing review comparison ever!! I love how you gave the colors common well know name. This has taken me a while to figure out on my own. I'm so glad you love this set as much as I do and still recommend it!! I can't wait for the 30 days to a better watercolorists class to come out. I'm so very excited especially since your using this watercolor set as it's my favorite and so affordable!! Thank you so much for taking the time to make this review and sharing your knowledge. It's more appropriated than you'll ever know!! Love and hugs

Great comparison video, filled with answers to several questions I've seen on your recent videos. Thanks so much! I love these paints, now have the old and new ones, and will play with mixing. I always learn something from you.❤💜💙🩵💚💛🐕

I bought the first set a couple of years ago based on your recommendation and so glad I did. Even though I have several different sets of student grade paints, this is one of my favorites. I keep it in the living room so I can paint in there while watching TV with the hubs. I use it a lot in my sketchbooks. I've always been happy with the supplies I buy from your recommendations. Thanks for taking the time to test out products and see which ones you recommend for us. I did notice they changed some of the names between the old and new set but that doesn't really matter.

I’m so glad you did this review/comparison! Thank you!

I love this exercise. Thanks for sharing it. Can't wait to try this out on some of my colors.

Thanks for taking the time to tell us warm vs cool colors and renaming to more traditional colors. Very helpful!

Great video Lindsay, I have enjoyed my Pretty Excellent Watercolors for years on your recommendation! Thank you!

This is so interesting because I bought this set years ago after your first review and there was one Amazon review that said pans were included. They might have even had a photo -hard to recall now but I remember being disappointed that wasn’t true, although the quality made up for it! How curious

I love my Pretty Excellent paints! They were the first I bought, based on your recommendation. I wish now they would sell tubes. And thanks for color mixing tutorial!

Love when you list the cool, warm and neutral colors and also the various names. I have the original set.

I love this video. I know understand a lot more about cool and warm colours. The way you explain is so very beginner friendly. Thank you. You have opened my eyes about colours.

These are the first watercolor paints I bought, because of your video.

Thank you so much, Lindsay. I use pretty excellent all the time, but still have trouble with the warm/cool thing. This was very helpful! 👍👍

Thank you for the Color lesson. I had this in Interior Design School in the late 70's. I needed to be riminded of how the warm and cool colors work. I pulled out my big color wheel to review. Thank you!

thank yo i got the pretty pink 48 set with 36 plus 12 metallics,,im glad you did this video i got mine out and will hae fun with them ,love you

That’s so useful! I wish that video came out when I started painting with this set.

I recently bought this set and I’m not sorry! Thanks for the color theory lesson Lindsay. 👏🏼👏🏼♥️♥️

I wish I had these when I first started painting. I started with Cotman, which I didn't like at all because I felt like I had to fight with them, and fought with them for actual years. I bought the Paul Rubens palette like 6 years ago, and that was great, so I assume these are just as awesome. I don't use it anymore but that was seriously one of the best decisions I made. I recommend these a lot. Thank you for the update.

Loved the paint mixing and color theory warm/cool lesson!❤

Thanks for the explanation of colors. I was confused by all the typos and differents names. 😊

Thank you Lindsay! I love your reviews and appreciate you taking the time to do a comparison with pigments defined. 🤗😍♥️🙌🏻 This set looks like a larger version of the 24 set of Paul Ruben Qiaomei Watercolours which I got after seeing your review on them. Oh how I love love love that little set!!

What a great video I’m new to water colours would love to see more on the colour wheel and colour mixing thank you !!!

Saving this video. Always forget warm and cool primaries

I like these better than the professional Paul Ruben’s I bought. I love them

Perfect timeing, i bought these some time ago and absolutely love them specifically the yellow ochre, raw sienna, and burnt sienna. Ive been looking online for tubes of paint to buy when i want to replace these or just make a custom pallet, and was trying to figure out some of the real names of the colors. I was debating between that and just buying a new pallet (especially since they're in those nice half pans now) good to know quality is pretty much the same.

Thanks for the review! I actually just received this the other day from the aliexpress sale. I’m tempted to try it out but saving it for my kids.

Hullo Lindsay, I do wish to compliment you on your wonderful color mixing demonstration, truly amazing! Clear, concise and informative. I have stopped buying student or budget grade paints, but it is still nice to know what to recommend if asked about an alternative to professional grade paint. I know that not everyone has the money for the better quality supplies for creating art. I know that there are people who have no plans to keep their artworks, I honestly don’t understand that. Thank you for sharing so much of your knowledge with us. Please take care, be safe and enjoy the rest of your day!

Thanks Lindsay for sharing your art knowledge. I appreciate your skills as a teacher and artist. You make watercolors make sense. Take care and God bless you and yours. Sincerely Becky B from Arkansas

I have the earlier version of these paints and use them to dabble and play. ❤❤❤

This is very interesting because i am kind of a pallet collector but the smaller ones never have so many reds or blues! This looks much more useful. Thanks. Maybe this will be next?

Thanks, Lindsay! Thanks for the very helpful renaming! Great to see more options with these paints. I've done a fair amount of mixing with them but mostly intuitive. And it's one thing to read about mixing via color wheel and another to see it done. Looks like the tray you got is at least usable, unlike the one in mine.

I love my set I bought after your first review.

Thank you 😅

This is really helpful. I’m not an artist but I love to colour, mostly with pencils. I ❤ colour but often get the undertone wrong, which can ruin a page. Thanks Lindsay.

Thanks this was super helpful 😊

Thanks for this!! I actually bought this set I really enjoy it. And yes they do fall out of that plastic thingy..I actually got some academy colors at hobby lobby for 1.74 clearance and I got some Davinci scuola on eBay.

I find it very interesting that they changed to half pans. Do you think it is more paint than the original? New class? ❤❤❤ I can't wait to sign up. Your classes are the best, Lindsay. Thank you.

Excellent tutorial

I have learned so much about watercolour composition, brands and manufacture from you in a day and a half than I would have thought possible. It should have occurred to me, before I bought it, that the new MaiLiang, in pans, might have been different in other ways, but it didn’t. I was delighted and relieved to see this review, and watched it as I swatched my new paints. I like them very much! Have you reviewed any inexpensive granulating paints? From now on it’s review first, purchase second!

l just l had a beautiful watercolor box like that😍😍

I just received two of the 48-pan sets (bogo). Both of them were packaged very well, but in both of them the base plastic was broken. I wonder if it is a widespread problem. Just putting the warning out there! Thank you for introducing these paints years ago, Lindsay! I've used them ever since and have had great fun with them.

👍🏽

I love this set. I only wish my version had the pans. I pulled all of mine out and stuck them in pans, then removed the plastic, but it's one of those tins where the bottom has divots for mixing, so they don't sit evenly. I'm still wracking my brain for a magnetic solution for that, as I really like the tin otherwise.

It's finally dropped everybody!!! The review!

I was wondering if you were going to do a video like this bc I got my daughter's around the time you reviewed yours and I loved it so I bought 1 for myself about a year or so later. They were packaged the original way. But, there definitely were some differences in the names and a bit with the colors. I found that my set, which I believe is the 2nd? version they put out was not a great as the 1st? version. They had more hues, some of the paints just didn't seem as nice. I swatched them both, twice* right next to each other just to make sure it wasn't a user error lol. I also noticed some of the names were different too. I do know that they both are great for the price though. I love how they are removable now so you can move them if you want to or just 2 put a few in a travel palette if someone wants to do that. Anyway, thanks for doing the comparison video! Have a great day . Now back to the video** BTW ty for going through and giving the paints common names and saying whether they're warm, neutral and cool. I'm not super new to color theory/mixing but this is always helpful and enjoyable to watch. I always learn something when I'm watching your videos, so basically everyday lol. So thx . Agian have a great day

I have the version that is unwrapped. I got mine from Temu a few months ago. I have not really used them much, because I have so many watercolor tubes that I squirt out onto palettes, and I want to use up most of that! I hate to waste any paint at all. What do you think about Art Whale? I saw a couple of very good reviews, so I got that for my nephew's daughter who wants to learn watercolors from me. Yeah, it is very handy to know about the split primary color wheel. That was the first thing I taught my nephew's daughter. We made a color wheel together with the warm and cool versions of the primaries. 😊

this was great! I will use these more now I think. I do have a question. When you mix that natural green. You kept saying thalo and I wasnt sure if you meant the green or the blue but I understand it like this: You can either 1. mix the primary cool blue and yellow to make a "thalo" green. Similarly the warm yellow and red to make "orange". Then mix the orange and green to make a muted green. Or 2. use the convenience "thalo/ viridian" green and the convenience orange to make the same. Either way-- same?

Great tutorial and overview of color theory. Also very helpful because I swatched my paints on a scrap piece of watercolor paper and threw away the box but forgot to label the swatches! I am eager to sign up for your 30 days of watercolor painting. I didn’t miss it did I?

Hi Lindsey!! I was wondering if you had seen the new ones. I got the 48 set and it is in the pans and plastic sleeve. Each pan is wrapped. The label of the color is on the paper. There is no name or color marked on the pan so once it is unwrapped you don't know the name of the color!! So I've written the name on each pan and put a magnet on the bottom of each pan. I will probably wind up removing the thin plastic shell that holds the pans because in the palette I received that thin white plastic is already torn. I do wish that the company had marked the names and numbers directly on the half pans. Thanks for the review. HUGS

They are pretty good watercolours for the price but there are a few cons to them: - there is no pigment or lightfastness information anywhere about them. Assume them to be fugitive: Kim Crick did 1 year lightfastness test and only 19 out of 36 seems to be lightfast (in masstone), and 17 are fading (among them 5 major fading on colours like 686 Vermillion, 599 Tree Green, 090 Cadmium Orange hue, 231 Deep Violet and 398 Fresh Violet/Mauve) - three brown colours (named as "Burnt Sienna", "Van Dyke Brown" and "Burned Brown" in my set) are very, very close - they are both dull brown, and there is no red-brown (such as English Red or Venetial Red) or earth-brown (such as Umber or Sepia) anywhere. - there is no Indigo. One can mix Payne's Grey with blues, but the absence of this popular colour is unusual to me - Light Sky Blue /Verditer Blue is clearly a mix with white, and rather opague - they keep having discrepancies in the names of the colours between shop charts, charts on back package, labels on the paints and booklets, so it makes it difficult to trace which paints perform not so well)

You really should get the bigger set it has the same clear topper label like the one that comes in the big sennelier set and it also has the pigment info on it

last comment I swear.... I'm thinking of buying the Mondo Lllama wood box from Target and putting these in that box!

The color wheel can be so confusing. I appreciate the demonstration it really helps to see it every time. Would you consider permanent rose to be more neutral or warm?

I have bought the old set about a year ago, after your many recommendations staying the same about these and even compared to other, newer student brands that have come out since. I have this one and the 48 set (the rose and purple tin), thought they were the exact same paints but some extra, although I don’t find it handy to take out to paint with since the tin is so big. I really don’t care for the plastic inlay and have tried to take them out and just put them in my own empty half pans but the sizes don’t match. Now I’m kinda bumped I didn’t wait a bit longer because they now come in their own pans. Love the paints so if you know a brand of half pans that will fit the old cakes or know of another trick or product I can use, I’d love to know

Dickblick has Winston and Newton alcohol inks 48 ct for 99. That’s a good price, I hope, I bought it. 😂 also an itoya marker pad/ case that looks like etcher field easel….can’t believe the price for 25.00

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You rock. I have a question? Why do you draw a black line in your swatches? Love these videos!

I have the 48 set. The colors are beautiful. I saw this set and considered getting them, but then I noticed that MeiLiang has a tube set. Do you think you might review the tube set any time in the near future?

Hello Lindsay, thank you for doing this review! Quick Question - I just opened my new Pretty Excellent 36 set, and wondering about a couple of pigments. There are three that have the word "cadmium" in them. Do you think they are really truly cadmium? [Cad Yellow, Cad Orange, and Cad Red Light (hue)] The fact that one is named hue, I realize that one's probably not cad, but the other two? am just concerned because if they are indeed cadmium, I don't want to use them around my nieces's babies... any light you can shed would be so welcome.

how do you make grey?

10 months too late for this review! i guess it wasn't on my radar back then since i was pretty content with my watercolor set-up but i've been looking into changing things up a bit! Do half-pans from other brands fit into this box? like could i replace them with my favorites from W&N or Schminke?

Same as Melaing?