Initial thoughts on Sakura Koi Watercolor Pocket Kit

I had bought the Koi Watercolor Pocket Kit of 24 to get into watercolors. I decided on this brand because they had such high ratings on Amazon. The thought of a portable watercolor kit intrigued me and bringing it with me everywhere I went was a nice thought. When I first started using this kit I really enjoyed it. Its portable and mess free with the refillable brush. I even took it out on my plane ride from Seattle to Hawaii to do some art. I had just enough space to paint in my little sketchbook.

New Perspective on Koi 

My perspective of the Koi Watercolor Kit changed when I recently I took a watercolor workshop at Pratt Art Center here in Seattle. The first day the teacher went over paints, brushes, and papers that were the best and worst. Low and behold she hated the Koi Watercolor set, the one I had brought to class. She explained that the paint was dusty. I hadn’t heard of this before and so far I didn’t have any issues with them. I actually really liked them up until I took the class. When I began painting with them on Arches Watercolor paper with a #10 round brush I began to notice what the teacher had meant by “dusty”.

My Dusty Examples

Here are three examples: I noticed that the “dustiness” was more apparent when the paint was applied as a wet on wet or when I had added more wash layers. Feeling down hearted my teacher was kind enough to let me use her Yarka Semi Moist Watercolor Pan 12 set. I’ll show you examples of those as well.

Yarka Semi Moist Watercolor Examples 

The colors came out crisp and didn’t have any of that weird dust or clay texture.

Sketchbook Examples 

I think the main reason I didn’t notice this before was because I was using the Koi Watercolors in my mini sketchbook that I carried around with me. The paper isn’t watercolor paper and I wasn’t painting wet on wet. I was using the Koi’s to paint my sketches.

However, I am now noticing this “dustiness” the more I use the paints as well regardless it being wet on wet or on watercolor paper. Below is an example from my sketchbook recently. You can definitely see the “dustiness” on the leaves. I notice that it’s more noticeable with the earth tone colors.

Last Thoughts On Koi Watercolor Pocket Kit

I highly discourage you from buying the Koi Watercolor Pocket Kit if you have any desire to practice with watercolors. For the price point of &21.00 and the weird “dustiness” that it gives off I don’t think it’s a real value. There are other pocket watercolor kits out there that’s better than Koi for a similar price that I’ll mention.

 

Other Recommendations

During my watercolor workshop my teacher was kind enough to let me use her basic student grade Yarka Semi Moist Watercolor Pan ($9.00) I must say I was much happier with this than my Koi brand and for the price you can’t beat it. My teacher also recommended the Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolors. Winsor & Newton does have a compact set of 14 or 12. This is the brand that most students brought with them. When I saw their paintings it definitely came out better than mine from my Koi. For more professional quality my teacher suggested the Sennelier Watercolor Travel Half Pan Set or the Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor Set. I looked at both sets and found that Sennelier is pretty expensive. I decided to buy the Kuretake because it’s only about $10 more than the Koi. For me that’s doable.

Kuretake Watercolor Kit 

I ended up buying the large 36 color set, which to my surprise is really large. My fault for not paying close attention. I thought the paint trays were going to be on the smaller size. I’ve got to say the paints are really nice. The paint is creamy and very saturated. I only needed a little bit of paint compared to the Koi Watercolor Kit. A feature of the Kuretake Watercolor kit is that the trays are removable. I really like this. The Koi’s trays are fixed. If I wanted to I can rearrange the paints. Also, I can take a couple of trays out put them in a container like an Altoids box and bring it with me if I wanted something portable. I feel like I could have easily gotten the 24 color set and would have be very happy with them.

Color swatches Koi VS Kuretake

Notice that in the Koi you can tell the “dustiness” in the earth tone colors, browns and olive green.

 

Lastly, here are the price points of each watercolor set based on Amazon. Prices may vary depending if you are Prime Members or if they’re on sale. 

 Koi Watercolor Pocket Kit of 24 $20.26 (Prime Users) or $24.49. Just wanted to show the price and how comparable they are to the Winsor & Newton Cotman.

Yarka Semi Moist Watercolor Pan Set of 12 $8.84 (Great deal if you’re starting out! Just buy a refillable brush) This is what I used in my workshop.

      Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolors Compact Set 14 $25.52. This is such a better deal for the quality of paint than the Koi. Just buy a refillable brush separately if you’re on the go. The trays on this are removable as well.