Does Himi Miya Gouache Dry Up? Affordable Jelly Gouache Paint Review After 6 Months ✰ Paint with Me

Hi there! Welcome back to my channel, my name is Sophia Mitropoulos, I'm an artist and a designer and today we're gonna be testing out the Himi Miya gouache set from Amazon and answering a really big important question which is: do these jelly cups dry out? This is a highly sought after paint set in the YouTube art world which is where I found out about it. Basically, it's got two major appeals one: the paint is in jelly cups instead of in tubes which makes it really easy to access and also it's just kind of weirdly fun to use. For many people, myself included, it's the first kind of paint like this that I've ever used and and two: it's really affordable.

This set that I have with the brushes, right now costs about $39. If you were to buy just the paint it would be $24, but when I purchased it six months ago I think I paid $23 for the set and it was $17 for just the paint so there has been some price inflation on Amazon since then. I've been using this palette for about six months and I really want to make a video to answer a question that I myself had which was how does this palette age and what does it look like six months down the line? Do these jelly cups dry out? Are they still usable? Are they gonna crack and fall off? Like, what's gonna happen? There's not a lot of information about this gouache set online but the general consensus does seem to be that it is student grade quality which means they're not guaranteed to be light fast and they might fade with time. Although I haven't experienced any fading with my own work, it is always a risk with student quality materials. If you're not familiar with gouache it's really similar to watercolor in the sense that it's a water-based medium but the pigment is a lot more opaque and less transparent.

My experience with gouache started in design 101 in undergrad we used the gouache to create really matte and flat color swatches that we then cut up and used in our color theory lesson. We weren't really using gouache as a painting medium but more as a design tool so when the collective student body hatred of gouache days happened, I was right there with them and I thought that this was a useless medium and I really didn't enjoy working with it. It wasn't until a couple years later when I had an art day and I decided that I was going to test myself to use all the materials that I never do, when my college gouache came out! As I used it that day I realized how much I really actually do love the medium as far as the Himi gouache set itself, I will say I thought it was gonna be a lot more portable even holding it upright I worry about the paint spilling out and I'm definitely not entirely convinced that jostling around in your backpack or being flipped upside down it's gonna keep all the paint in their cups. That being said I have seen some comments on YouTube videos where people suggest that they don't peel the lids all the way off of the jelly cups, which I think would be a really useful way to make it more portable. But I did what I saw every other YouTube video doing which was peeled lids all the way off. Today I'm just gonna do a quick speed paint in my sketchbook with the brushes that I purchased in this set that I have never used and I'm gonna show you how the gouache has aged and let you know what I think about it so, let's go!

Himi Miya Gouache Set

This is the Himi Miya Gouache set. It has 18 colors, let's open it up personally I don't usually store the palette in the case, I keep it with the rest of my palettes but for the sake of the video I figured I'd put it back in. I got this set in December so I've been using it for a few months now. There are two whites, one is a titanium white and one is a zinc white. As you can see these are a little dried out but that's why I have the pipette, so I can re-wet them which I will demonstrate here.. so you can see this one's a little dry and then I usually just drop a little bit of water into it and I don't even really bother mixing it, I just use the part that gets wet. But if I wanted to and if I was really particular I would probably take a palette knife and mix it all in there- but I would clean it first *laughs*. So as you can see these are a little dried out but once I start working with them they will re-wet. Anyway, I'm gonna add some water to all of these. Ok- do the Himi gouaches dry out? And the answer is yes, but they are always reusable, this is the first one that I've had that has started to crack, but I also started working with them closed while I'm painting. Also mine for some reason doesn't always clamp all the way closed so I was a little bit concerned about it. So this is the brush set that it comes with it. It's really adorable it's got this little bird on it.

The Brushes

And then these are the brushes. Personally, I don't actually use these brushes very often because they're a little long for my taste but they're really cute. This I could see using in a larger painting if I really needed a brush this size, but they are really tough bristles which I tend to use a little softer bristles. These are the tips of all the brushes that the set comes with the handles are really long for my liking but it is a really nice set of brushes to have.

So this is the final piece. It's a goofy one, I think they're all goofy, I'll probably say that about everything but. I don't know how long it took me. I think I definitely could have gone a little bit darker with some of the shading and cleaned it up a little bit but for the most part I'm pretty happy with it. It's just my sketchbook and at this point I'm trying to fill the sketchbook. I have seven pages left after this. And I sometimes work I often work both sides, so depending on what the medium is and whether it's gonna affect the next page or the previous page, or if I might want to tear it out, but usually most of this book is double-sided. I am really excited to finish that, so this was just another sketch in my sketchbook so that I could finish those pages and then show you guys how I use the Himi Gouache.

At first I was really hesitant to use the brushes because the bristles are really hard I started drawing and I was using a reference and then almost immediately I hated it and I didn't want anything to do with the reference at all, so I covered it up and I decided to let the medium guide my drawing. I used the brushes and I let the brushes dictate the kinds of marks that I was making which were a lot looser. And then I just went on and I created the portrait without a reference so it was a little bit more organic. I haven't used these brushes at all, this was my first time using them and I think they were actually worth using because they forced me to adapt to them rather than working with tools that I'm typically comfortable with. I do like to try and expand as much as possible and learn as much as possible and try new mediums and stuff.

Usually, I would probably try to salvage this but there actually is such little amount of gouache on this palette that I think it'll be okay. So I will wash this off and put it away, but I have been known in past to leave my palettes as they are for a couple of weeks at max. I don't load them up continuously, I like to clean them off intermittently but I try to use as much of the paint that's already on there before I clean them off. The one thing about this gouache is that if it dries thicker than this it will start to crack and crumble off, so once it has solidified to the point where it's cracked on your palette if it hasn't fallen off it's probably still usable but if it starts to fall off I usually just try to throw those pieces away because then you just get stuck with really dense pieces of paint that your brush just can't really pick up from and so the bristles will splay over, it it's really not worth it. Usually it's just worth cleaning your palate and starting again.

So that's my review of the Himi gouache set! I'm glad I got do this because I haven't pulled them out in a while, so it was nice to use them again, and I'm sure I will do more videos in the future where I'm using the gouache set since it is in my regular rotation. It's a great tool to learn from since the pots are so deep and I personally I'm really stingy with my paint. I try to use as little as possible which is a horrible habit that I'm trying to break, so this is a great way for me to do that, for me to allow myself to use more paint and get a little messier and not have to worry about salvaging so much of my paint. So, thank you so much for watching!

My name is Sophia Mitropoulos, this has been another video on my channel baby! We put out 2 now. So if you've made it this far thank you so much for watching, please give this video a like and subscribe to my channel if you're new here which I'm sure you are since this channel is brand new and this is only my second video. I appreciate your time I hope you enjoyed this painting and I hope you join me and watch me make more YouTube videos thanks, haha, bye!