From London to a Watermill in Italy: My Honest Viviva + Fuumuui Travel Watercolor Kit Review

I was invited to spend a creative weekend at the Watermill at Posara, a beautiful place in Italy that runs painting holidays. My flight was London to Pisa, and I really didn't want to check a bag, so I packed light, just a handbag, and decided this was the perfect excuse to travel with my Viviva travel watercolor kit.

Because I was staying somewhere with everything an artist could want, space, light, quiet, a garden full of things to paint, I also brought along a set of Fuumuui travel watercolor brushes to try for the very first time. I'd never used them before, so this trip became a real test: could this combination actually replace my usual studio setup?

I filmed the whole thing for YouTube, unboxing the brushes and painting on location, if you want to watch it in real time:

I opened the Fuumuui brushes first. They're a good size once unrolled, and I have to admit I was surprised, I usually work with big round brushes, so trying flats, quills, and mops for the first time felt like a small experiment inside a bigger one. I did a loose flower painting with my Viviva colorsheets just to show how quickly they rewet and how much pigment you get from something so thin and packable. Then I moved on to a still life of lemons, mostly to put the new brushes through their paces, testing how they held water, how they released color, and how they behaved on a page that wasn't perfectly flat.

Testing my Viviva travel kit poolside at the Watermill.

Loose lemon studies, painted to test the Fuumuui brushes.

By the end of the weekend I'd found what I think is the ideal combo for anyone who likes to paint while they travel. The Viviva kit takes up almost no space and rehydrates in seconds, and the Fuumuui brushes pack down flat but open up into proper, full-size brushes, no compromise on control just because they're travel-sized. Together they're light enough to disappear into a handbag and still capable enough that I never felt like I was "making do."

This post contains affiliate links to Viviva and Fuumuui, if you shop through them I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. My stay at Watermill Posara was gifted in exchange for content. All thoughts, lemons, and wobbly first brushstrokes are entirely my own.