Review of l'Aquarelle Sennelier: painting a macaw

I was surprised to receive a free sample with 3 colors of Sennelier watercolors: normally I just get exactly what I pay for when I buy art supplies. It came in a package like this:

Free sample packaging

It came with three paints: Sennelier Yellow Light, Quinacridone Red and Cinereous Blue

After swatching the colors, I decided to paint a macaw. It seemed I was able to mix every color I needed except black, so I decided to use one from my kit:

Some color mixes: warm greens and oranges

First Impressions 

I was very curious about the consistency, since this paints use honey as a base instead of gum arabic which is much more common. I gotta say, I was wowed by how creamy the paint is even after it has dried (I decanted the paints into pill boxes). I normally use tubes W&N professional colors and they are not as creamy as these ones (even though they are great and I love the brand). The colors themselves are nice and I liked that I did not get muddy colors when trying out the mixes. I loved that even in mixes the transparency and luminosity remains.Would I get more of this paints? Yes! Unfortunately it seems the tube version is not available for sale in Norwegian retailers

Painting Process

I started by trying to get the proportions and the shapes right, that's why I started by the head, and then did the basic shape of the body. I continued adding more volume by coming back to add shadows and finalized the painting by adding the final details of the face using a tiny brush to paint eyes and beak.

You can see the full process on this YouTube video.

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