REVIEW: Reeves Water Mixable Oil Paints

Recently I’ve been wanting to oil paint more as I’ve been finding Acrylic and Gouache difficult to get smooth blended skin tones. However, along with Oil Paints comes paint thinners. Horrible stuff, toxic fumes even if you get odourless spirits that I do not want to deal with. So the natural way to get around this is to use water mixable paint. The options for this is nowhere near as good as regular oil paint but its growing as a medium with Winsor and Newton, Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, Holbein and Talens each having their own formulas. Only recently have the budget brands branched out into this new water mixable version.

I didn’t want to spend a great deal of money on this new paint so I got the Reeves version to see how they worked. Oil and water shouldn’t mix right? Now choosing the budget brand suggests they naturally aren’t going to be as good as the more expensive versions so that needs to be kept in mind. I learned how to use gouache with Reeves so I went into reviewing hoping that while they may not be pigmented as much as I would like, or lightfast they would at least behave like the more expensive versions.

Reeves Water mixable paints come in multiple sized packs, 12, 18, 20, 24 tubes. I chose the 24 tubes as these were on sale at Hobbycraft for £8. They are small tubes of about 10ml, other brands come in 40ml tubes. There is a vast range of colours if you are lazy like me and want to mix minimally but of course if you are good with your colour wheel you can get away with 5-10 tubes. I will be comparing these paints with my Daler Rowney Graduate Oils which are a low end student end regular oil paint so the comparisons aren’t going to be too unfair.

My biggest problem with these paints is the way they handle. I never felt like a had them under my control. Black was the worst in this regard. They never became creamy like normal oil paints. I often felt like I was slathering them on. Detail was just impossible as they didn’t want to move from the brush to the canvas. When I did my first layer I was ok with I left it for a week and came back to my second layer hoping that glazing would make the paint flow better. I wasn’t trying to make it creamy, I was trying to make it watery. But I still had the application problem.

That is a pretty big negative for me but it wasn’t all a frustrating experience. One huge benefit of these paints was drying time. I want paints that won’t dry in 5 minutes so I can blend but I don’t paints that aren’t dry in 1 week. Within a day these were dry to the touch making storage of them easier, an essential for hobbyists. As for the colours themselves, they are fine. I like my oil paints to be a touch dark to make them atmospheric. A different type of painter may experience this differently.

The real question is, is it worth the lack of solvent. Nothing could make me use nasty solvent. I’ve found boiling water gets the oil out of my brushes but likely means my brushed won’t last long. I may continue with that until I run out of the oils I have and then try again on the water mixable with a more quality brand. Not all colours in this set had the same problem. It could be a case of Reeves being new to the market and not working out their formula properly yet. I’m not giving up on Aqua Oils but I’m not yet convinced.