When I hear the name Ravensburger, I automatically think of puzzles but that's not all they make. In fact, their new range of watercolour paintings sets, called Aquarelle, won the Best New Toy in the creative category at the London Toy Fair 2012.
We received a horse-themed Mini Aquarelle set (8.5 x 12cm) but they also come in Midi size (20 x 27cm) with designs of Dolphins and Safari Animals and Maxi (36 x 27cm) with three different world city scenes to paint. Having already used the virtually identical Aquarellum range from French company Sentosphere, Sophie knew exactly what to do and instantly got down to work.
With normal kids' watercolour painting sets, usually comprising those dried out little squares of coloured paints, there are several huge failings. Firstly, it's near on impossible to get anything other than a really watery, wishy-washy colour. Secondly, kids use too much water so the colours all run into each other or make the paper go all soggy. Thirdly, the paint invariably goes over the edges and makes a mess. In short, you'd never get anything that you'd want to put out on show on your wall !
With Aquarelle, you get three bottles of liquid watercolour, more like ink than paint, in really vibrant shades, a mixing pallette and a pipette dropper for measuring out the paints. With those three colours, you can make an infinite variety of shades and colours, adding more paint or a few drops of water until you get the exact shade you want. You can use the shades guide enclosed in the box or just let your creativity run riot.
But that's not all. They also use nifty colour repellent subject lines
which keep it all looking incredibly neat and tidy and much more
impressive than with normal painting kits.If you've ever used a candle
to write secret invisible messages that magically appear when you paint
over them, that's the basic idea. Even if you paint over them, the lines
stay visible.
This was Sophie's painting. Usually she paints the border in a vibrant, contrasting colour which looks really cool (and covers up any bits that went over the edge !) so I think I'll suggest this to her just to really set off her work. She's very proud of the finished painting though and I have to agree, it does look really good. I'll definitely be buying some more of these - we especially love the Paris, London and New York maxi designs so I think they will be our next project.
star rating : 5/5
RRP :£4.99 for Mini, £14.99 for Midi, £19.99 for Maxi
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Sophie's painting looks great!
ReplyDeleteugh I used to hate those dried out little circles that you can get, they are so irritating for a 'potential artist' hehe!