Painting Set

[Shawna]

When Saige is feeling creative, she can bring out this art set. It includes:
An easel with a tray and cup for holding her supplies—it folds for easy storage when she's done!
Five faux paint tubes and four brushes that Saige can really hold on to
A painter's palette for blending the perfect shade
A sketch pad to plan out her paintings, plus a portfolio to store the finished product
Five of her paintings on real canvas
$48

I bought this set for my 10yo. I was very impressed with the quality of the canvas pictures. The paintbrushes are very realistic and adorable, too. The sketches inside the portfolio book are extremely detailed.

The only complaint I have about it is the easel itself seems a little flimsy. It may just be the particular set I received. I've told my daughter to be very careful with it as I'm afraid the piece at the top could break/come apart easily.

That being said, I'd give the set a A-. It provides hours of play! I think it's a must have for any AG! Just be careful with the easel :-)

[Clover]

As soon as free shipping was available, I immediately purchased this set, as this one an accessory set I wanted, regardless of whether Saige the doll would ever come here or not.

Easel with plastic cup to hold brushes
Both pieces are plastic. I am a bit disappointed with how light-weight the easel is. I do agree that with heavy play, it could easily break. The plastic cup has a little notch to stick it in the gap in the easel to attach the cup to the easel.

Five faux paint tubes
These are just plastic paint tubes (not real tubes filled with paint) molded so they look like they are in different stages of use. Very cute.

Four Brushes
the brush handles are made of plastic. The brush ends are actual brushes with two flat brushes and two round brushes. I am glad of this little detail, as any painter uses of a variety of brush types when painting, and glad AG included this.

Painter's Palette
Again made of plastic, already has "simulated" paint blobs on the palette. Cute, but I am not 100% keen on already having paint on the palette. When I paint, I prefer using palette paper over my palette to keep it neat, but to each their own.

A sketch pad
Love the sketch pad. Very realistic, made of thin drawing paper. My favorite part of the set.

A Portfolio with Five Sketches
I am disappointed the most with the portfolio. It is a file folder more than anything else, rather than a handled portfolio that I commonly use. The sketches are nice though.

Five of her paintings on real canvas
I was expecting the paintings to be on a stretched canvas on a wooden frame, but instead the paintings are on canvas panels. Again, just a personal preference. Still they are nice, but if you are not getting the set for Saige specifically, the lack of blank canvases really hurts the set in my opinion. And with all the finished paintings, I would have expected a frame or two to hang them up.

Overall, I give the set a B. It will certainly get used, especially since Saige is now here, but I guess I had much higher expectations only for AG to fail to meet them. I have a feeling the price ($48) really is what it is due to the finished paintings more than anything else, as I cannot justify the rest of the set totaling $48. As soon as I can, I am going to head to the craft store and pick up some blank mini canvases and make some of my own paintings or half done paintings to increase the variety a bit.