Tag: watercolour pans

Disclaimer

I purchased this set back in 2021. Before the war in Ukraine. I’m not trying to promote the brand, just provide a source of information. Let’s talk about paint, not politics.

What are White Nights?

White Nights are a series of professional (artist’s) quality watercolour paints made by Nevskaya Palitra in St. Petersburg, Russia. They’ve been produced since the 1930s, but I didn’t hear about them until the late 2010s.

The paints are available in 2.5ml full pans and 10ml tubes, and I will be reviewing the pans. There are 145 colours in the range, about a third of these being newly added in the last 5 years. A lot of the new colours are multi-pigment mixes, in speciality pastel and granulating ranges. I’ll be covering 37 colours from the classic range.

Pricing

I’ve had the set for almost 5 years, and it cost about £45 back in 2021.

The equivalent 36 set is available for just under £80 at https://www.stpetersburgwatercolours.com. While the price has almost doubled in 5 years this still works out at about £2.20 per pan, with a nice sturdy plastic box thrown in.

That’s incredibly good value for a full pan of artist’s quality paint. The only other artist quality range of full pans I know of near this price point is Rosa Gallery.

The set

Packaging

The set comes packaged in this cardboard box, with all information printed in English and Russian. One section is also printed in German, French, Italian and Spanish. The back of the box shows a chart of the included colours, with pigment information. In my set there was no Indanthrene blue, and instead I got Ultramarine Deep. While it would have been nice to try PB60, I was happy that they at least replaced the out of stock colour with another blue, rather than a totally random paint colour.

The box also discloses paint ingredients, listing them as: Pigment, filler, gum arabic, water, additives. While “additives” is a very ambiguous ingredient, I appreciate the transparency of the company providing an ingredient list at all. There are storage instructions which basically tell you not to let them freeze. Also a warning that the set contains zinc dioxide, a guarantee for 5 years from the date of manufacture, and a contact address.

The box

Inside is the plastic box that houses the paint pans, and let me tell you this thing is tough. I am not gentle, as a result, I’ve put the box through the wringer over the last 5 years. The white plastic probably isn’t as bright as it once was but there is no damage whatsoever. The hinge is smooth, the clasp shuts tight, there’s no cracks or dents. I deliberately removed the fold-out mixing tray quite early on, as I prefer to mix on a ceramic palette so it wasn’t useful to me and occupied valuable work space when open.

If you don’t already have a mixing palette then you may appreciate that one is included in the set. There’s also space to store a brush, and you could use the inside of the lid could be used for mixing paint on too.

The pans sit in four recessed rows. Unlike most metal box sets, there are no clips holding them in place. If you want to travel with the set, make sure the mixing flap is in the box, or the paints can be shaken loose and rattle around. Not a big deal, but more than once I forgot to reinstate the flap and then had to put the pans back in their usual order upon arriving on location.

The paints

The pans arrive individually wrapped, with the wrapper giving the colour name, pigment info and a date of manufacture stamp. Also included in the box is a branded colour chart for swatching your colours.

Here is my filled out chart, which fits in the box, although I have it laminated and stuck on my wall as I mostly use the set in the studio, preferring a smaller pocket sized box for travel. Most of the colours are fairly accurate, although it is notable that the cobalt blue does go much darker. At the time of swatching I wasn’t very aware of some pigments having a lower tinting strength than others.

The paints rewet easily, so there’s no need for tedious scrubbing. The paints being full pans also helps with picking up paint easily and helps avoid poking at the paint with the tip of the brush.

In general the paints have good pigmentation, and have lasted a very long time. I’ve been using them as my main workhorse set for years.

White Nights seem to have a bad rep for being fugitive, possibly from older formulations of the paints that haven’t been produced since 2019. I’ve have experienced lightfastness problems in 3 of the colours in this set (less than 10% of the paints) and I’ll talk about them when covering the individual colours below.

With a whopping 36 colours in the set there’s a lot to choose from, and you should be well catered for with whatever you want to paint. As I’ve got more experienced with mixing I find the oranges, purples and greens sit idle these days, but I definitely appreciated the wide colour selection for the first couple of years. There’s plenty of single pigment colours (26/36) and the pigment properties are as you’d expect, cadmiuims are somewhat opaque, phthalos are transparent and staining, ultramarine lifts, and cerulean granulates.

A more in depth look at the colours

A set this large is probably going to have a white, whether you like it or not. This white is more transparent than the frequently used Chinese white with PW6 and in my opinion is basically useless as a colour. If I want to add white I use gouache, which has better covering power. On occasion I have used this paint to increase the viscosity of a mixture, so it can be dropped onto damp paper without creating cauliflowers, which is pretty niche, but it does serve a purpose. Something I’ve found out more recently is that PW4 can get more more opaque when exposed to light, so that could make mixtures using this paint appear to fade. I haven’t personally experienced this issue as I seldom use this colour.

A cool, semi-opaque yellow. Useful for adding some vibrant highlights to foliage, and it’s covering power allows for a few touches of light over dark. Can make mixes chalky, I prefer to use it on its own and let the mixing happen on the paper, without fussing with it.

Another fairly opaque yellow, primary to slightly warm, with good tinting strength. A pleasing colour, though I usually reach for the more transparent “yellow” which I find easier to handle in mixes. The powdery texture does make for interesting mixtures,

A baffling multiple pigment mix for a usually single pigment colour, this one is disappointingly weak. Yellow Ochre is such a useful colour that I chewed through it pretty quick. I then went on to use use raw sienna as a substitute for this empty colour.

A mixture of Hansa Yellow and Benzidine Orange. The orange component has noticeable fading, so the colour appears yellower over time. A brightly saturated orange colour not suitable for works intended for sale or display. Reserve this one for sketchbooking and practice.

Benzimidazolone Orange produced a similar hue to the Golden colour above, and is more lightfast. I rarely use a bright saturated orange, but when I do, this is the one to go for. I’m not sure why two oranges of almost identical hue were included in the set.

Benzimidazolone yellow is a semi transparent primary yellow that mixes great oranges and greens. My go-to yellow, is now sadly empty. Winsor and Newton’s Winsor Yellow is made with the same pigment number, and is very similar in hue and behaviour.

Benzimidazolone scarlet is a reddish orange that when sufficiently diluted makes a wonderful peach colour that is a suitable base for (cartoonish) Caucasian skintones. I relied on this colour for this purpose for quite a while, but a little goes a long way, the pan is still more than half full.

Made with Naphthol Red, a pigment known for having variable lightfastness. I haven’t noticed fading in mine, but I don’t know if there might be variation between batches, so this is one to test yourself before using in paintings you want to be archival. A very intense red, and quite pretty. Not one I reach for often, but that’s because there are a lot of reds to choose from in the set, rather than because I dislike it.

An opaque, warm red. I suspect there is some filler in this one, it doesn’t seem to go as far as the cadmium yellows. If I want a warm red I tend to use Titan Red above, as it goes further and when thinned down is quite transparent.

A *very* strongly pigmented opaque earth red. I find it tricky to handle because it has a very large drying shift- desaturating significantly as it dries. I think it will make a very useful colour for painting natural subjects if I can pre-empt the colour changing as it dries.

A very saturated transparent pink with tons of tinting strength. Nice colour for florals, and mixes with ultramarine to make a lovely purple.

I can’t find much info on PR19, and think it might be a typo of the frequently used PV19. Another pink colour, this one is a bit warmer than Quin Rose above, and an excellent cool red for mixing with.

Made with an unusual pigment that I can’t find a ton of info on. This transparent colour reminds me of red wine, I’m drawn to it quite a bit. Looking for a substitute for when this runs out, I’ve found perylene maroon, PR179, to be quite similar.

A dark, muted purple, with high tinting strength so a little goes a long way. More permanent than the Violet, below.

My apologies for the bronzing on this swatch, I was not used to such strong colours when I painted these out. A dark, intense purple that is very pretty when freshly painted but goes brownish when exposed to sunlight. Unfortunately one best reserved for the sketchbook, not for professional use.

Here’s the lightfast test result, with 2 years exposure to indoor light on the left, and the control on the right. Even with my poor photography skills, the difference is obvious.

A common staple of many painters Ultramarine is a saturated, lightfast, warm blue. This one has good pigmentation and subtle granulation.

This is Phthalo Blue, green shade, and is an excellent example. Very very high tinting strength, this one has lasted well despite frequent use.

One of the weaker colours in the set, which would be expected from an expensive pigment with naturally low tinting strength. A very useful primary blue, which got completely used up. This colour had the most pronounced granulation in the whole set, and I had fun using it for textural effects. I bought a pan of cobalt blue from Rosa Gallery to replace it, and it is ever so slightly stronger, and much smoother with little granulation.

Almost identical to Ultramarine above, but fortunately it is a very useful colour so I don’t see it as a problem. As the name would suggest, this one goes slightly darker at full strength.

A convenience mix of phthalo blue and phthalo green, strongly staining and transparent. I use this one less frequently than either of its constituents, but it is a pretty colour that behaves itself in mixes.

Technically a hue or imitation colour, genuine indigo NB1 is neither lightfast, nor widely available in watercolour paint. A very dark blue masstone, appearing as a cool grey when diluted.

Presumably a typo of cerulean blue, which is the common name for PB35. A pale pastel blue, lovely for subtle skies.

A bright, saturated green. Looks garish straight from the pan, would want to tone it down by mixing if I intended to paint anything natural-looking. Might suit cartoons or a certain style of illustration work.

This is phthalo green blue shade and possibly has the highest tinting strength of any paint I own, including those with double the price tag. Absurdly pigmented little box of magic. Not very natural on its own and stains like a b*tch (half my brushes are stained green because of this bad boy) but mixes very well. Mixing this with a transparent red makes a darker tone than the neutral black provided below.

Nitroso green is a beautiful dark, natural looking single pigment green, which is unfortunately fugitive when diluted. Stable in masstone, but not worth the risk if you want to display your paintings. I love this colour, and I used it a lot when I first got his set. I used it in a couple of giftcards for my mother, which she loved and displayed. Two years of indirect sunlight later and light washes of this green had almost completely disappeared. Do not make the same mistake I did, reserve this one for the sketchbook.

Lightfast test for Green (PG8) showing fading to the diluted paint on the left card.

A convenience green which I used a fair bit when I was new to watercolours. One of the components, PY1, is less lightfast than the others, and the hue may appear less warm after prolonged exposure to sunlight. Less grievous than the fading in “Green” above, as the paint holds its value (darkness) and takes much longer for any change to be visible. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t specifically *looking* for fading, although the oldest paintings I have done with this are under 5 years old. I’d be comfortable giving someone a card painted with this colour, but not selling the work. If the colour continues to fade over longer periods it could bite you in the arse and damage your reputation as a professional.

This military green uses the same pigment commonly used in camouflage paint. An opaque colour, it can make paintings chalky or muddy if used thickly and fussed with. In diluted washes is makes a lovely pale grey green for distant foliage.

A yellowish earth tone and one of my go-to colours, especially after I ran out of yellow ochre. This is a little darker and stronger than the yellow ochre, and a single pigment.

This orangey-red earth tone is easier for me to paint with than the English red above, as it has a much smaller drying shift. Semi-transparent and non staining, a valuable mixing colour.

Umber is often created with a single pigment so this multi pigment mixture is a little baffling. A cool, almost greenish brown, I used it a lot when I first got the set as it goes quite dark and cool dark browns can be hard to mix.

The colour of milk chocolate. I prefer burnt sienna for my warm earth tone, but there’s nothing to complain about with this colour either.

A transparent version of a traditionally opaque pigment. A granulating mid brown.

The darkest brown in the set. Sepia was originally made in the 18th century from the ink sacks of cuttlefish, it is now made from a mixture of pigments. Since I learned to mix a dark brown from burnt sienna and ultramarine I use this paint less frequently, but still a nice colour to have available.

What it says on the tin. A premixed neutral black, all ready to go.

This goes just as dark as the black next door, but has a cooler tone. Less noticeably blue than the other payne’s grey paints I have (from M Graham and Daler Rowney) this pan is now empty, as I used the colour for dozens of value studies.

Purchased open stock on a whim shortly after obtaining the set, this single pigment green gold colour is transparent and staining. Green in masstone and yellow when diluted, its a very interesting colour. I like it for foliage.

Technical testing

Below is a colour wheel test, to show the results of mixing 3 primaries. If I still had any “yellow” (PY154) left I would have chosen it for this exercise, but was pleasantly surprised by the Cadmuim Yellow I was forced to use instead. The greens it mixed aren’t quite as bright, but it creates an interesting subtle texture where it wanted to separate out from the blue (phthalo PB15).

With the wet in wet mixed bars on the second half I tried out a couple of different primaries. Swapping the phthalo blue for ultramarine gave more vibrant purples, but dull olive greens.

Also shown are a number of the colours layered over one another. This shows which paints are more opaque vs transparent. To a lesser extent is shows whether the colour applied first reactivates and lifts when a single paint stroke is gently applied over it. You can see that the chromium oxide green is very opaque, and the emerald (phthalo PG7) is much more transparent.

Completed paintings and projects

Regardless of whether you like what I chose to paint, there’s no denying that these paints can create a full range of hues and values.

Key strengths and weaknesses

Pros

• Paints offer a lot of bang for your buck. The quality of paint for the price is kind of a steal, I like these better than Daler Rowney Aquafine- a good student quality line in the same price range. Rosa Gallery is similar in price but I’ve only tried one colour so it would be unfair to extrapolate the entire range from one pan. Some of the colours hold their own compared to much more expensive examples of the same colours from other brands.
• Most colours are well pigmented. The Phthalo based colours in particular are incredibly strong.
• Paints come in a very durable box. It’s a bit to big and bulky to make a nice travel set, but that’s not what the box is marketed as, or what I bought it for.
• The labelling is clear, with pigment information provided on both the box and the individual pan wrappers. There are a couple of possible typos with the PR19 and Ceruleam but it doesn’t feel like information is being deliberately obfuscated. Colour names are sensible, with names such as cad red light, quin rose and cobalt blue directly indicating the actual pigments they contain rather than some fanciful marketing BS names like “Christmas tree green.”
• Individual pigment characteristics are apparent, but not obtrusive. This puts them in a goldilocks zone between some brands who seem to deliberately try to mill all pigments to the same particle size so all colours behave consistently, and others where certain colours granulate so aggressively you can feel like a spectator in your own paintings as they do their own thing.
• The majority of the paints are single pigment, making mixing a doddle. Most of the multipigment paints are either convenience greens, or modern substitutes for antiquated colours, like sepia.

Cons:

• 3 of the colours have significant lightfastness problems and are not suitable for paintings that will be displayed. Keep in mind that a *lot* of artist quality paint ranges offer Opera Rose (which includes a fugitive neon dye), Aureolin PY40 (which often acquires brown discolouration), and genuine Alizarin Crimson PR83 (well documented to be less stable than modern alternatives) and this does nothing to harm their company’s reputation whatsoever. If you only want lightfast paints you could ditch the 3 problem colours and still have a large, well balanced set of colours for a bargain price. My actual beef over this is that Golden and Green get 2 out of 3 stars for lightfastness on the packaging and they undergo very significant changes within 1 year of display. I don’t have a problem with fugitive artist grade paints being made and sold- as long as they are clearly labelled as such.
• There are quite a few opaque colours here, and that’s something I know some watercolourists hate. I don’t think opacity is necessarily a bad thing- I like a dab of lemon for a quick pop of highlight on foliage- but it is more about knowing your paint properties and using them accordingly.
• The pans are slightly smaller than standard full pans, at 2.5ml instead of 3. While this doesn’t negate the set being excellent value for money, it does mean that you can’t substitute full pans from other brands into the box- they’re too big to fit. You could refill the empty 2.5ml pans from tubes to work around the issue.
• The yellow ochre is frustratingly weak, which is a bit of a let down for such a useful colour that other student paint lines often do well with.
• Using a 3 pigment mix to make umber is baffling, and the only logical explanation I can think of is that this was a cost cutting measure.
• The current standard 12 pan offering contains the aforementioned disappointing yellow ochre, multipigment umber, and the fugitive green. It also features the 3 cadmium colours which are lovely paints but the opacity can be challenging. If you just want to try a few colours you might be better off picking them open stock, if you can find them.
• If buying second hand, make sure you check how old the set is. This set contained more fugitive pigments Prior to 2019-2020.
• With current distribution issues, the pricing of vendors is all over the place. Look for deals that still offer these around the £2 per pan mark. If the listing works out at £4 per pan or more look elsewhere. If you have a bit more cash to splash and like full pans Roman Szmal are *lovely* paints and their cheaper series start at around £5 per pan.

Use it or lose it?

This one lands firmly in the use it pile. I have been using it, to the point that a fifth of the pans are now empty. Because I’ve run out of a few of my most frequently used colours I’ll probably be using this in conjunction with other paints to fill in the gaps, but it isn’t leaving any time soon.