Hello, to any of my artistic or creative Plant Peeps! In this post, I’m reviewing and testing the ever-popular Miya Himi Jelly Gouache paint set. I’ve been seeing tons of videos on Youtube about this brand, and I started getting curious about this funny-looking paint set with the giant square cups. It’s one of the oddest paint sets I’ve ever come across!
Some background info— these paints are designed to be non-toxic and used by students in Asia for their art classes. The large paint cups hold much more paint and are easily accessible, and you don’t have to struggle with squeezing paint from tubes onto your palette. They’re supposed to be used for art practice, and are probably not professional grade archival and lightfast paints. I purchased mine on Amazon. It’s a set of 18 in a mint green case.
Specifications of the Miya Himi gouache Set
Overall, the entire set is quite heavy, at least 2 lbs (.91 kg). Each gouache cup holds 30mL of paint (which is huge when you think about all the tiny tubes that you usually see in art supply stores). A plastic palette fits directly into the lid and can be easily popped out.
As you can see in the photo above, the jelly cups are packed pretty tightly together, but each of them have their own little slot that they fit into, so you can put them in and take them out easily without disturbing the rest.
The full spectrum of colors is shown above (these are the bottoms of the jelly cups). There are two whites included; one Titanium White and one that is simply…White. I’m not certain if each white performs its own function, or if they were included because whites are generally the most frequently-used pigments, but I’m glad that there is so much of it. There was a sticker on the bottom of my paint case that listed the colors, but the print was tiny! Somehow I managed to decipher which colors were which, and I created a swatch sheet to do some color testing.
Swatching of the Miya Himi gouache Set
The paper I used was this Pentalic Nature Sketch sketchbook. I purchased it at my local art supply store, but they may have changed their cover design as the only equivalent I can find online looks like this. It worked very well for my color swatching and, later, my gouache landscape painting. The 25% cotton content keeps buckling down to a minimum, and the paper pretty much dries flat, especially if you weigh it down with a heavy book.
Sorry for the funky yellow glow in this top photo. The day I took this picture, the sunlight was a weird color from all of the smoke from the Northern California wildfires, almost 800 miles away. Pretty crazy!
Here are all the color swatches! Some characteristics that I noted while opening the jelly cups and doing the swatches are as follows:
- The foil lids of the jelly cups came off pretty easily, with the exception of one;
- Paints are quite pigmented and vibrant;
- But still quite translucent;
- Consistency is thin, so works well for layering techniques;
- Matte texture after drying, but with no chalkiness.
Painting
Next up, time to test out the gouache with an actual painting! I decided to try out a landscape based on a screencap from the Studio Ghibli movie “Tales From Earthsea.”
During the initial painting stages, it took me some time to get my technique right. I have not used gouache extensively (if at all), and was applying it more like a watercolor with thinner glazes. I really had to force myself to cut back on the water usage in order to get the opacity that I wanted. After 1.5 hours, this was the final result:
I’m pretty happy with it despite the rocky start. I did get a little bit frustrated with the lack of opacity in the yellow flowers dotting the grassland. Even applying the yellow paint straight up (with no water dilution) I couldn’t get them to pop as much as I wanted them to. In the end, I think I ended up applying a base layer of white flowers, waited for everything to dry, and then overlay the yellow pigment on top.
Pros & Cons
So the positive aspects for the Miya Himi Gouache set are as follows:
- Affordable
- Large quantities of paint
- Jelly cups make the paint easily accessible
- Carrying case makes it super convenient to paint. Just pop off the lid and get to work!
- Vibrant colors
- Dries with a matte finish, no chalkiness
Some negatives aspects (at least to me, it may not be an issue for others):
- Less opacity than expected
- The colored palette can throw off your color-mixing
- No ability to purchase individual refills (for now)
Overall, I would say the positives outweigh the negatives when it comes to the Miya Himi Gouache set. It serves its purpose as long as you are using them to practice your painting techniques. Obviously, if you are looking to sell actual artworks, I would strongly recommend that you choose artist quality paints that are archival and lightfast.
Always Keep Creating,
Heather (a.k.a. The Botanical Chick)
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Thanks for the feedback on these paints. I am seeing students use these. I think you are right about the student grade paint for the price. A color light-fast test would be helpful with these paints. For now I will stick to familiar brands.
Thank you for sharing your experience with Miya Himi. This is a helpful article.
Thank you, glad to hear!