Hey, this is Eric from Café Watercolor.
You can say this video is sponsored because I got a box of Mission Gold 34 color set from Mijello
straight from Korea.
So in this video, I’m going to talk about how I got it, what do I think of it, and as
a bonus, I’m going to share the painting process of this painting using only the Mission
Gold paint.
Let’s dive into it.
Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been contacting different paint manufacturer.
I want to see if any of them will want to work with me by having me test out some of
their paint.
I contacted Daniel Smith, Holbein, and Mijello.
Last month, EO Song, from the overseas sales department from Mijello replied to me.
She told me she will send some color to test and ask what color do I use.
I replied to her and after like 2 weeks, I got a huge box from them.
And I was floored by what they’ve sent me.
Let’s go over what they’ve sent me.
First, let’s look at the 34 color set.
The packaging is absolutely beautiful.
It’s like getting a nice box of chocolate.
Open up the box there’s a nice tissue paper cover, underneath there is a small pamphlet
introduce their brand and paint.
And another pamphlet giving you a list of their color with some additions information
like the lightfastness, transparency, and staining.
34 colors are probably more than what I need, but hopefully I will get to experience with
them all.
Aside from the 34 color set, they also send me 9 more tubes of paint.
Because I told them the colors I have in my palette and some of the colors I listed weren’t
in the 34 color set.
So they gave me some more paints which is really generous of them!
They include 4 pages of handmade color chart.
They are basically swatches with a small drop of paint on it.
So I can just add water and paint out the swatches.
Honestly, this was what I expected from Mijello.
They could’ve just sent me this and called it a day, and I would have no complaints.
So the fact that they include so much more stuff in the package was just overwhelmingly
generous.
Mijello also gave me this collapsible water bucket.
I am perfectly fine with my organic yogurt container, so I probably won’t use this
water bucket just yet.
Plus one thing I like about my yogurt container as water bucket is that it is white, so I
can easily tell if the water gets too dirty.
This collapsible water bucket is black, so it can be a bit hard to tell if the water
is getting too muddy.
However, I do see the benefit of having this for maybe traveling and plein air.
Now, I’ve mentioned it many times before that I am not a huge color theory guy.
I just see them as warms and cools and different shades of grey.
So the first thing that came to my mind when I saw a box of 34 colors and 4 pages of color
charts is “confusion”.
But because I don’t want to waste what they sent me, I decided to spend an hour doing
these swatches.
Each swatch already has a tiny bit of paint on it.
So all I needed to do is dissolve the paint with a clean wet brush.
And immediately what I noticed is how easy it was to revive the dry paint.
Most of the colors melt very easily with a little fiddle of a wet brush.
The colors are very vibrant, intense, and consistent.
Now, they are some technical aspect of the paint like the lightfastness, transparency,
and staining.
I’m not going to go over them because you can find the complete chart on Mijello’s
website.
And there are already quite a bit of videos about them.
I’ll put the link down below.
This video is mostly about my experience and my real life application with the paint.
What I discovered is that there are some colors that I use in my palette that Mission doesn’t
have.
Such as the cadmium colors like cadmium red, orange and yellow.
Well, the cadmium is very toxic anyways so I’m happy to find alternatives for them.
I also have a very warm yellow color in my regular palette called Hansa Yellow Deep,
and that is also something Mission doesn’t have.
Another thing is I found out is that there are some colors with the same name that look
very different between Mission and Daniel Smith.
Like Cobalt Turquoise, a color that I use a lot to mix my greens.
The Cobalt Turquoise from Mission looks more like Cobalt Turquoise Teal from Daniel Smith,
while the Cobalt Green from Mission looks more like the Cobalt Turquoise I’m familiar
with from Daniel Smith.
And the Cerulean Blue from Mission also looks very different from Daniel Smith and other
brands.
It’s a very beautiful blue, but I think their Cobalt Cerulean Blue looks more similar
to the Cerulean Blue I am used to.
So I definitely recommend you to do some research on your end if you decide to switch brand.
I ordered a new palette from Amazon because I want to do a painting only with Mission
Gold paint.
After the color palette is here I start to squeeze in the paint colors that I normally
use for my painting.
But since there are colors with different names but the same look, I squeeze some of
those colors down below so I can access them as well.
So I decided to paint a portrait painting of my friend Miyuki, who is also one of my
student from last year.
This is a beautiful photo of her during her wedding in Japan.
I love the red, vibrant color of her kimono, so I thought it will be a great subject to
test out my new paint set.
And my first attempt was, well, unsuccessful.
What happened was I paint it just like how I would when I use my regular Daniel Smith
set.
I do what I thought was a light transparent first wash on her face, and it turns out to
be way too saturated and intense.
As I mentioned, Mission Gold is very intense and vibrant.
While that’s a good thing, I wasn’t used to it so I was kind of heavy-handed on it.
And this is not me blaming the new paint at all.
It was the lack of my experience with Mission Gold paint.
But also, I don’t think I did a good job with the drawing and planning.
So the first attempt ended with some frustration.
The next day I get myself back together and start over.
I did a much better drawing.
And this time, I was much more soft-handed on it.
I didn’t do an overall first wash on the face.
I go straight into the value and I keep them light.
The result is a much more transparent skin tone.
What I did notice with my experience is that Mission Gold paint feels very pure.
What you put down is mostly what you get, the value and the color don’t shift much
when it’s dry.
It flows a bit less when I do wet on wet.
I usually like to pre-wet some area with water and put some drier mixture in it.
When I use Mission Gold paint, the paint doesn’t spread out as much as Daniel Smith.
Also, I wasn’t quite sure but I feel the earth tone colors from Mission Gold feels
more intense.
When it comes to earth tones like Yellow Ocher, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber and colors like
that, I usually expect them to be a bit more muted and dull.
But the ones from Mission feels very vibrant and intense.
To a point, I feel it looks a bit “cartoonish” if you know what I mean.
However, that’s not saying it’s bad, it’s just different, and I need to mix more colors
into it to dull it down, or in other words, stabilize it.
In terms of this painting, because the lighting of the photo is this soft overcast day, the
lighting contrast is not obvious at all.
So I need to really think about the structure of the face, and use different values to define
them.
If you look closely you can still spot the value changes on the face.
The eye sockets, areas under her nose, her cheek, her chin, and her mouth are all in
the dark.
So by grouping those value together it makes it easier to define her face.
I also paint some subtle shapes across her cheek and jaw lines.
They are not really visible in the photo.
But hinting them with painting shows your understanding of the facial structure.
So in this case, your painting looks more believable by painting what you know, not
just simply what you see.
You also see me adding some Cerulean Blue and Cobalt Blue in a few areas.
These cool colors will be able to give some balance to the painting since most colors
in this painting are warm colors, especially her kimono.
Her kimono is bright red.
With the vibrancy and intensity of the Mission Gold paint, painting her kimono is an absolute
joy.
If I get the intensity right, I rarely have to go back to make it more saturated because
the color doesn’t washed out after dry, and the color is in my opinion, more vibrant
than my Daniel Smith paint.
The thing about painting a red object is that you need to understand the property of the
color.
The brightest red is pretty much your straight out of tube red.
If you add white to it, if turns pink, and if you add yellow to it, it turns orange.
So in order to make the color red appears to be lighter, you work on the darker red.
So in this case, the folds and wrinkles of her kimono are the darker red.
So I mixed the Permanent Red Deep with colors like Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Alizarin Crimson
or even some blue colors depend on the warm and cool.
The darker red will make the pure red pop, and the lighting will read.
The kimono has quite a bit of graphical patterns on it.
For my sanity, I am not going to try to copy everything one to one.
But these graphics are excellent to reinforce the form of the cloth.
Especially the white crane graphic that’s on her collar.
Remember everything you paint should help telling the story and reinforce the form.
Lastly, I want to keep the background light, so just some subtle blue color.
While I was doing the background, I also want to create this red light bloom from the flower
on her head.
So I rewet the area and put some red in it.
I like the result of this one a lot better, especially her face.
It definitely has more translucency and value control.
So this has definitely been a very interesting experience.
I had a great time using my new paint set and will definitely recommend Mission Gold
paint.
They are good quality paint with amazing intensity.
There are a few things you do want to know first, and I have mentioned in this video.
It doesn’t flow as far as some other paint, some colors with same names look different
than other brand, and the earth tone is not as muted as you would’ve expected.
But again, like I mentioned in my other video.
If you have a good vision for your painting, it’s just the matter of getting used to
the paint and achieve your vision.
With the paint I have, I would probably have mix match my Daniel Smith colors with Mission
Gold colors.
So some vibrant colors like red, orange, and yellow will probably be better off using Mission
Gold.
And some earth tones like Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, or Yellow Ocher, I will probably use
Daniel Smith color for those, since they are a bit more neutral and muted like how I expected
them to be.
So have you tried the Mission Gold paint before?
And how’s your experience if you did.
Drop me a comment, I would love to hear from you.
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If you missed my last painting video you click there to check it out.
Thank you so much for watching.
I’m Eric from Cafè Watercolor, I will see you again very soon!