HIMI Gouache and Winsor & Newton Student Grade Gouache Review

For the past few years I’ve been painting mostly in gouache and have really enjoyed it. Within the last couple of months, I bought two different gouache brands: HIMI 18 Color Gel Palette and Winsor & Newton Student Grade Set of 10 Tubes. I’ve used a HIMI gel tube set before but wanted to try their cup version. I’ve also used Winsor & Newton in the past but only their student grade watercolor.

The HIMI gouache arrived with one cup dried out. It was still usable, but I didn’t get to try it in it’s gel state.

Here, I’m mixing the gel gouache. Sometimes the surface carries a clear or yellowish liquid do to separation.

Here it is all mixed and ready to use.

Here are the colors swatched.

This was the first painting I did using the HIMI gouache. I used a reference image from an Instagrammer that I follow by the handle: aurorabyz.

You can see that the gouache is matte except for the black color which has a slight gloss to it. I was surprised because I was expecting a matte black.

Here, I’m testing the HIMI gouache in a Moleskine notebook.

Another painting using the HIMI gouache. This is Rozz from the movie, “The Wild Robot.”

Overall, I loved this gouache! It was so fun to paint with. It’s super smooth and blends well. What I don’t like about these cups is that they dry out eventually. I don’t paint very often so my paints tend to sit around for months before I get back to them. Having said that, I will continue to use and buy HIMI gouache cups. I prefer them over the tubes. I’ve also tried another gouache cups brand called Arrtx but it smelled too strongly of plastic so made it difficult to keep using.

I bought the Winsor & Newton Gouache because I wanted to compare it to the Holbein Gouache I’ve been using. I like the Holbein Gouache a lot but it’s expensive so I was looking for something comparable.

The Holbein is a way better gouache than the student grade W&N, but the W&N isn’t bad. I also bought a wet palette to play with. Gouache dries quickly and it’s easily reactivated with water, but the fun is in using it in its gel state.

Swatch of the W&N gouache.

My first painting using W&N Gouache.

For the second painting, I decided to go with M-O from the movie, WALL-E. I asked my daughter which WALL-E character she’d like me to paint and she said M-O.