Mission Gold were the first pro grade paints I tried. I love them. They are intensely pigmented. They are traditional Asian style watercolors, without much flow, meaning they will pretty much stay where you put them. They are mostly very finely ground, only a few of their colors granulate – the Ultramarine Light granulates nicely. They also have a nice granulating Cobalt Black. They do not have particularly great earth colors though, I prefer to use DaVinci or Daniel Smith earth colors, or a couple of Maimeriblu. I also recommend getting their pure pigment sets, or individual tubes. They have a lot of nice convenience colors, but those convenience colors dont always mix well with others, since they tend to already have complements mixed in. They also use the Asian naming conventions, e.g. they call Phthalo Blue Green shade “Cerulean Blue”, and Phthalo Green Yellow Shade “Bamboo Green”, which might confuse you. Just go by the pigment numbers. If you get their pure pigment sets you can get their color chart and see what pigments make up their convenience colors. When I was first learning, I would mix up the colors on that chart and I learned so much, plus I discovered uses for pigments I would never have tried otherwise – who knew PBr25 was such a great and useful color?
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