In the last few weeks, I’ve been painting with some new semi-opaque watercolour sets that Fuumuui kindly sent me. They are the Cremora range of paints and I was sent the Muted Set, the Warm Terracotta Set and the Vivid Colours Set.

How gorgeous is the muted set?

These paints differ from Western watercolour in that the binder is resin rather than gum arabic. They are slightly sticky in the pan if you don’t use enough water and they dry with a slight sheen. These Fuumuui paints are very similar to Gansai Tambi by Kuretake, the main difference being the packaging. The Fuumuui pans come in a metal tin (rather than the cardboard boxes Gansai Tambi come in), making them much easier to take on location. The Gansai Tambi are available individually – the Fuumuui Cremora are only available in sets at the moment.
There is very little information about the pigments and lightfastness (I’m not that concerned about this as I’m just working in a sketchbook).

Why was I interested in trying these paints? Since May, I have been experimenting with putting acrylic markers over Neocolor II crayons (and I was trying something similar with Poscas early last year), but the main issue is that the waxiness of the NCIIs clogs the marker tips. So I have been wondering whether using a semi-opaque paint would be a good alternative – and then, out of the blue, Fuummui contacted me!

I love how creamy these Fuumuui paints are and how much fun it is for me to work with semi-opaque paints.

I haven’t quite worked out the best way to combine these Fuumuui paints with NCII, but I am really enjoying using a paint which is so different from my standard watercolour. 

It’s taken me a little time to get used to the consistency of these paints and how much water to put on my brush to achieve solid colours. I love trying new art supplies that require me to adjust my reflex actions, so it’s been a lot of fun playing with these paints over the last few weeks.

Here are some of my test pages when I first got the sets.

And then I took the Muted Set out on location!

Next, I combined the 3 sets into one, and this is what my palette looked like last week.

I love that the colour schemes I’m using with these paints are very different from my normal watercolour work.

Some of you might be thinking, why don’t you just use gouache? Eventually I will try that, but for now, this style of paint is much easier to use on location, and I also like how I can freely layer other media over the top! Because the paint has a slight sheen, my Fude pen glides over it, and I can also easily smudge Tombow (something I like doing).

I really love these Fuumuui Cremora paints (especially that Muted Grey Set!) and have enjoyed sketching with them. Thanks, Fuumuui, for sending me the sets!

Fuumuui also gave me a 10% discount code for anything on the site – they also have interesting double-ended travel brushes, and I’ve heard good things about their sketchbooks.
Code: LIZSTEEL
Link: https://fuumuui.com/discount/LIZSTEEL