Zen Art Supplies Art Nomad Watercolor Travel System
Zen Art Supplies Art Nomad Watercolor Travel System
Zen Art Supplies reached out to me not that long ago asking if I would check out their watercolor sets, actually, that isn’t accurate, they asked me to take a look at their Amazon store and select an item that I would like to review, however, after being spoilt for choice, I left the decision down to them and I am so glad that I did.
After talking to the lovely people at Zen Art and reading up about the company, it appears that this company and the lovely group of people who make the company work, come from an extraordinary good place. You only have to read their website to see what art means to them and after talking to so many of you, what it means to you.
Zen Art Nomad Watercolor Travel System
I am by no means a watercolor expert, I have used a lot of watercolor sets for the purpose of reviewing, however I have a deep passion for watercolor art. I think what watercolor artists can achieve is just mind blowing, from free and lose to realism and detailed, I can’t say I have a favourite, but I particularly love landscape and botanical and more recently I have been following a lot of watercolor portraits.
I have used a few watercolor travel sets but I have never come across a watercolor travel set quite as unique and comprehensive as the Zen Arts Water. with every travel watercolor set I have used, there has either been no watercolor brush inside the set, or a small collapsable water brush sometimes referred to as an aqua brush or finally a thin collapasable metal round watercolor brush and the actual brush on these is very small as you can see in the image.
Of course the brushes included in these types of sets are for portable reasons, however, in my opinion, more thought has been given to the design of portability rather than productivity. A lot of people would say that this is the right order of priorities as they are by definition, “Travel Sets” however, in my opinion, we are artists and what we do with the sets is the important aspect not what the set looks like or how portable the set.
I very much think after testing and demonstrating the Zen Arts Nomad Watercolor Travel System, Zen Art Supplies would very much agree with my take on the above matters. The reason I think this is because of the 6 brushes and 1 HB pencil included in the set .
The Packaging is nice, but I personally don’t think it really gives a good insight into the beautiful set inside it. On the back of the packaging there is a swatch of the 25 colors and there is also a depiction of what the 6 brushes can can achieve, however this is a pretty rudimentary depiction. I know I am going to sound arrogant here and this is not something I have ever done in my reviews, but I actually feel the product is so good that it is worth of this. I think the packaging for the Nomad set should be more premium, along similar lines to the Ethcr box, sturdy, magnetically sealed and a simple yet contemporary design.
the actual palette holding the watercolors is slightly larger than most travel watercolor systems, however given the extra abilities it affords to an artist outside of the studio, I thicken most watercolor artists will be more than happy with a little bit of extra girth.
On opening the Palette, I did have initially have a little bit of trouble, there is a clasp like connection on the front of the palette which looks like when depressed automatically releases the palette, however this was not the case for me. I found it much easier to simply open the palette by pinching the the sides from the top of the palette and lifting up, I demonstrate this on my YouTube Video Review.
On the bottom of the palette, there is a loop, that folds down allowing the artist to place his or her fingers through providing stability and safety whilst painting outdoors. Painting outdoors can provide lots of it own problems depending of course on where you are such as people passing by and accidentally knocking into you, hence the need for such stability.
I obviously didn’t get to put this part of the palette thorough its paces in an outdoor environment due to my disability, however, it does feel flimsy. I know it is only there to add a little bit of extra stability, but the loop is very thin. I know that Zen Arts need to save on some areas of the product in order to sell such a gorgeous product over all.
On opening the Zen Art Nomad Watercolor Travel System we are presented with 26 half pan watercolors. Obviously on the box it says 24 half pan watercolors but it would appear Zen Arts decided to add two extra colors. Originally I thought this was just due to me being a reviewer, but after talking to other artists who purchased the set, they to received the additional pans.
As is the case with all watercolour pan sets, the pans are individually wrapped and they are a pain in the proverbial to unpack, I don’t mean that this is a problem just with Zen Arts, this is just one of those things that is part and parcel of all watercolor pan sets.
After unwrapping all 26 half pans, you are presented with the full set of paints and ready to start painting. Lightly spraying a water mist over the pans wakens the pigments up and starts getting them ready for mixing and painting
Zen Brushes and HB Pencil
Next is the star of the show, the 6 watercolor brushes and the HB pencil that is all part of the palette, each brush with their own slot which makes selection easy when actually painting. Each brush has its own slot which as a unit, all 7 tools fold 90 degrees from flat to the pans to upright.
The palette is set up so as you paint, the brushes are right in front of you, not falling all over the place, or in a pencil case hiding behind another brush, they are stood upright and as you select a brush to use, once you finish you have a place to slot it back into and select the next brush. This is a beautiful portable device for artists.
Each brush has a reddish brown wood handle and clearly printed along the barrel is the type of brush along with the number size. At the bottom of the brush handle is printed the company name “Zen Art” and the logo. Everything is clear and makes selecting the brush you want really easy.
There are two Round Brushes size 4 and 8, next is the two Flat Brushes size 12 and 14, next up is the Angled number 10 brush and finally there is a number 6 Fan Brush. Finally there is an HB pencil, approximately half the length or just a little bit more than a regular pencil, also on the end of the pencil is an eraser which is incredibly helpful also.
Zen Art Nomad Watercolor Set Performance
Zen art also sent to me with the watercolor set a block of their professional watercolor paper which is 100% cotton, which I was really looking forward to testing given the pads reasonable price and cotton content. As always I started out by completing a swatch of the colors and so I used this opportunity to test the Zen Arts Watercolor Paper.
The pad was Cold Pressed, 140lb 100% Cotton content and as I mentioned came in a block meaning it is glued round the edges preventing buckling during painting. After completing my swatch I wanted to test the watercolors for opaqueness, levels of opacity on some of the paints. For this test I added a single black line using COPIC Black marker, again using the Zen art watercolor paper and then painted a line of paint of the black.
You can see from the image provided which colors sat on top of the black and those that just can’t be seen because of the black line, this test doesn’t show if the paint is good or bad, just how it reacts on dark paper.
I then started to play about with the paints bit trying to learn how they move and react to wet on wet, so I decided to use a new Ron Ronson Hake brush I recently purchased and created a very simple blue gradient wash using wet on wet technique and lifted out some clouds using a clean damp brush. As you can see from the image the effect worked well.
However here is where the strangeness comes in, I decided to tray the paints on another high quality paper, Arches Rough Watercolor Paper. I decided to try and paint a Poppy scene with faded poppies in the background and more defined poppies in the foreground.
For whatever reason, as the paint was drying on this paper, it felt and looked like it was leaving a chalky residue, it looked like a powdery deposit which took me by surprise because all of the tests leading up to this point on the Zen Art watercolor paper were perfect. In my mind the Arch was a high quality paper and so there shouldn’t really be any issues at all and so I was wondering if it was something I was doing wrong.
I decided to try another painting on the same Arches paper only this time because of the gorgeous dark blues and purples, I thought it would be nice to try and paint a Black Crow. I started to paint the bird and as always started with the eye which was fine but as I started with the head ad neck feathers, as the paint was drying the same thing occurred.
At this point I decided to stick to what I knew was working and painted my final piece on the Zen Art Watercolor Paper and as you can see from the final image, this painting of the bells in the sunset turned out fine. I know it was very easy painting and not very adventurous of me, but because of the paper issues I was knocking my own confidence.
I spoke to Shana Rowe Jackson who told me that when she completed her painting using the Zen Art watercolors she only used their paper but suggested that perhaps it was just a reaction with the Archs Paper and the paint. This was the only thing I could think of that was going wrong but as time was getting away from me and I knew I had to finish a review soon, I just had to finish.
I will at a later date test the Zen Art watercolor paints on various watercolor papers and grades and complete a more detailed and through test. What I can say right now is however, I very much doubt this was anything at all to do with the paints and more to do with just whatever reaction was going on with the papers.
Finally I did find that there was a smell from the paints, I normally never encounter smells from markers or other art products, I don’t think I have a very sensitive smell, but with the Zen Art Nomad Watercolor Travel System I could definitely detect a smell. This smell was not unpleasant nor did it cause any headaches or nausea, it very much reminded me of the paints I used as a child in nursery school. We would uses these poster paints that were in squeeze plastic bottles, but the teachers always poured them into these little pots as shown in the image provided. When we would use the paints and let the paper dry, the paint would all start to crack and and this would also happen in the pots, always leaving this weird smell.
As I mentioned the smell is not an unpleasant irritating smell that would cause headaches or require you to open your studio doors and windows for ventilation. In fact if anything the smell reminded me of my childhood and all those horrible paintings I would do for my Mum who was forced to plaster her lovely kitchen with them. I don’t think the smell indicates anything good, bad or indifferent regarding the paints quality, but it was something I noticed and thought I should mention it.
Lightfast And Pricing
As of yet Zen Arts have not got back to me about the lightfast ratings, I am almost positive that in fairness to the company, they sent this information out to me via email when they sent the product, however, I had problems with my emails and accidentally lost a lot of them and think this is what happened, hence the delay in them replying, it was totally my fault.
With regards to the pricing, unfortunately I am unable to provide a lot of links to where you can purchase this amazing set in the US and EU as there seems to be a shortage of the product, which I fully understand after using it.
To purchase the Zen Art Nomad 24 Half Pan Watercolor Travel System here in the UK you will pay approximately £29.95
To purchase the Zen Art Nomad 24 Half Pan Watercolor Travel System in the US you can expect to pay $31.90
For artists in the EU you can expect to pay approximately €35.00 for this amazing Zen Arts Nomad Watercolor Travel System.
If you wanted to purchase the watercolor paper which I loved using, for artists in the UK you can expect to pay approximately £19.99
For artists in the US you can expect to pay $35 for an A4 block of 100% cotton Watercolor paper with 20 sheets from Zen Art.
Unfortunately I was unable at this time to locate prices for artist in the EU for the watercolor paper.
Zen Arts Nomad Watercolor Travel System Conclusion
I have to say I absolutely loved this little travel watercolor system from Zen Arts and I really liked the watercolor paper they sent as well. The reaction to the paint on the Arch paper did surprise me and this is something I will absolutely get to the bottom of by test on other watercolor paper.
Given the vibrancy and quality of the watercolor paints and the palette with the excellent brushes all enabling outdoor painting to be a more pleasurable experience, I was so happy with th e pricing system they arrived at. Zen Arts produce a lot of other art supplies but in particular they have a few other watercolor sets I would like to try.
I think if you are on a budget and you enjoy the idea of picking up a watercolor set, heading outside and painting a landscape in your watercolor journal or sitting in a local coffee shop painting the world around you, this beautiful set from Zen Art Supplies, the Zen Art Nomad Set is just the perfect place to start.
If you would like to see this set in action you can check out my YouTube video review, you can also check out the still images of the artwork I provided here on The Art Gear Guide or you can sit back and relax and watch my short speed drawing video of the piece come to life. Thank you so much for your continued support and if you have any questions at all you would like to ask, please do not hesitate and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
