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Gwen John: Strange Beauties - Recreating her Colour Palette

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 20:28:31 GMT

Gwen John was a remarkable Welsh Artist, whose paintings have a strange beauty and, on the surface, may appear deceptively simple, but is in fact subtlety complex. This is the story of how Gwen John's colour palette was recreated.

Gwen John was a remarkable Welsh artist, whose work is possibly unfamiliar to most, and until recently, overshadowed by that of her brother, Agustus John. She was born (22 June 1876) and lived in Haverfordwest, before moving to live in Tenby, when she was eight, where she sketched and painted on the local beaches. From 1895 until 1898, she studied at the Slade School of Art in London, which at the time was the only art school that allowed female students. However, it was in Paris that she had her studio and created the work that we can now see today in the exhibition “Gwen John: Strange Beauties” to honour her legacy and showcase her significant contributions to the art world, in this 150 ^th year since her birth.

To look at a painting by Gwen John is to enter a world of profound stillness and subtle chromatic complexity. As both professional paint makers and practicing artists, we at A J Ludlow, have always been fascinated by her ability to evoke deep emotion through a disciplined, tonalist palette. When the National Museum Cardiff (Amgueddfa Cymru) invited us to develop a bespoke range of exclusive merchandise inspired by the exhibition, we were thrilled at the opportunity to pay tribute to such an influential figure in the art world.

To tailor a collection of watercolour paint and painting gifts, that would mirror Gwen John’s work and reflect the exhibition’s themes, we needed to first define the colours Gwen John used in both her oil and watercolour paintings, To do this we produced a set of swatches with over 50 probable hues to match with the colours used in her paintings, and during our meeting with the curators at the Museum, they allowed us to see and physically compare Gwen John’s sketches and paintings with our prepared swatches and match the colours used in her paintings to ensure that each hue captured the essence of Gwen John's unique style. This not only allowed us to delve deeper into her artistic process but also helped us appreciate the nuances of her technique. So that, we would be able to create a range of bespoke painting materials to bridge the gap between her early 20 ^th century studio and the modern colour palette.

Figure 1: The Science of the Palette; selecting the colours for the Gwen John watercolour paint and painting sets.

Having behind-the-scenes access to Gwen John’s paintings in the National Museum’s collection allowed Andrew to compare his prepared swatches of A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours with the hues displayed. With his knowledge and experience of possible colour mixes, he began to create a possible palette for each of the paintings analysed. This allowed a selection of colours for each of the painting sets, which were refined as the designs were painted and the colour mixes defined.

From the original cat paintings viewed Sepia, Raw Sienna and Cadmium Scarlet swatches were selected, whilst for the foliage and flowers set, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Scarlet and Paris (also known as Prussian) Blue gave the best selection to create matching hues in the two painting on which the set was designed; all these colours are mentioned in Gwen John’s own colour notes.

Figure 2: The many painted examples of the paint-your-own cards painting set designs.

With respect to the painting set, featuring “the Japanese doll” design, the original is an oil painting on canvas, which was painted around 1927 in her Paris studio. Gwen John’s oil palette is known for its muted and subtle tones, no doubt resulting in the extensive use of white in her colour mixes. She did however, introduce a splash of bright colour into her paintings as in the blue and scarlet of the doll’s Kimono-style dress. To recreate this painting, five watercolours are used; Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Scarlet, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna and Sepia. To achieve the subtle, muted tones of Gwen John’s original, the white of the paper is used as the base for thinly applied colour, in keeping with the traditional techniques of watercolour painting.

Figure 3: The many painted examples of the painting set designs, "Young girl in brown hat and coat" and "the Japanese doll".

The 15ml jar and “bijou” six watercolour mixing sets, were also developed from this meticulous work with the emphasis on matching Gwen John’s colour palette as close as modern pigments can allow. Included is a watercolour specially created for the “Strange Beauties” exhibition, “Gwen John’s Green”, which is replicated from colour notes she made on one of her paintings (NMW A 5513) in the National Museum’s collection (see figure 4).

Figure 4: An example of Gwen John's colour notes found on her painting, "Garden with flowers" (NMW A 5513)

A set of six pure pigments, inspired by the paintings of Gwen John, was also produced with some detective work. Unfortunately, very little has been published concerning the pigment’s Gwen John used on her palette, but work behind the scenes at the National Museum Cardiff is helping to shed light on some of the pigments she may have used.

On the reverse of many of the watercolour studies and sketches in the Museum’s collection are notes concerning the watercolours she used in her colour mixes. By knowing the watercolour ranges and brands available in Paris at the time Gwen John was working there, the Senior Paper Conservator was able to get a better understanding of the pigments she may have used. Furthermore, non-destructive analysis of oil paintings in the collection have also yielded an insight into the pigments favoured by Gwen John. From this information, Andrew selected six pigments to reflect Gwen John’s oil colour palette.

Lithopone – barium sulphate-zinc sulphide mixture / Colour Index Pigment White 5

Zinc white (pigment white 4) has been identified as one of the pigments Gwen John used in her oil paintings. However, it has subsequently been proven to be unsafe for long-term archival oil painting due to its tendency to make paint layers brittle and prone to cracking and delamination over time. A safer alternative is Lithopone, which was developed in the 1870s as a non-toxic substitute for basic lead carbonate.

Chrome Rutile Yellow – chromium titanium oxide / Colour Index Pigment Brown 24

Naples yellow has been referred to in colour notes on the reverse of some of Gwen John’s watercolour sketches. The genuine pigment is derived from lead antimonate (pigment yellow 41), but it is possible that her notes refer to an imitation, which was available from the 19th century. Chrome rutile yellow is a modern non-toxic substitute and the pigment included in this selection has a similar hue to genuine Naples yellow dark.

Cadmium Red (Yellow Shade) - cadmium sulphoselenide / Colour Index Pigment Red 108

This pigment is a bright and clean orange-shade red, which has an identical hue to genuine vermillion (C.I. pigment red 106). At the time Gwen John was working in Paris, colours based on red cadmium pigments were offered as imitation vermillion.

Iron Oxide Violet - iron (III) oxide / Colour Index Pigment Red 101

Indian red has been referred to in colour notes on the reverse of some of Gwen John’s watercolour sketches. The colour is named after the rich deep red soil found in India and this synthetic pigment captures the dark bluish red colour associated with this iconic artists’ colour.

Ultramarine Blue - sulphur containing sodium aluminosilicate / Colour Index Pigment Blue 29

Ultramarine blue (also known as Guimet or French ultramarine) was a popular, inexpensive blue in 20th century France. This pigment is lightfast and has an intense red shade blue hue, making it an ideal addition to Gwen John’s palette, as a warm primary blue.

Chrome Oxide Green - chromium (III) Oxide / Colour Index Pigment Green 17

Referred to in her notes as “vert Anglais”, this pigment is an opaque earthy yellowish-green with excellent light fastness. Not to be confused with the hydrated chrome oxide, viridian (pigment green 18), which Gwen John may have referred to as “lac vert” in her colour notes.

Figure 5: Investigating how the watercolour paintings were painted and which techniques Gwen John may have used.

As we developed this range, we did something that many modern artists rarely find the time to do: we painted Gwen John’s subjects again and again. There is a common misconception that repetition in art is a lack of imagination, but by revisiting the same cat or the same figure, we moved past the “what” of the painting and into the “how”. We felt the rhythm of her systematic approach - the way a slight shift in a cool grey could change the temperature of an entire painting. This process was more than just testing our pigments; it was a meditative journey. We realised that by narrowing our focus and returning to the same painting, we weren’t just recreating her art, we were learning her language. The watercolour sets are our invitation for you to join that conversation to slow down and to find the “strange beauty” in the subtle, repeated details of your own world.

As in all journeys, we learnt a considerable lot about Gwen John, whilst developing this range of watercolour products. Although she liked to use muted tones, she was very precise with the colours she painted. She often made notes about the colours she used on the back or the bottom of her paintings. Because she was so precise - literally cataloguing her colours like a chemist might-she is a bridge between the technical world of paint manufacturing and the spiritual world of fine art. Gwen John’s work is deceptively simple. To reproduce it, one can’t just throw paint on a canvas or piece of paper; it requires incredible restraint. Trying to replicate that precise balance between a “warm grey” and a “cool grey” is a master class in subtlety. We have also noticed her paintings are about space between things and the stillness which gives a unique style to her paintings.

Figure 6: The A J Ludlow professional quality Gwen John specially commissioned merchandise is only available to purchase from the museum gift shop at the National Museum Cardiff (Amgueddfa Cymru).

This specially commissioned merchandise to accompany the Gwen John: Strange Beauties exhibition is exclusively available to purchase from the museum gift shop at the National Museum Cardiff (Amgueddfa Cymru). Immerse yourself in the amazing world of Gwen John. Don’t miss this once-in-a-generation opportunity to see the exhibition, it’s on from 7th February to 28th June 2026, bringing together rarely seen work from the collections of the National Museum and others from around the world.

International Watercolour Masters (IWM) 2026: Taking Part and Sponsoring the Event

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 20:51:51 GMT

Watercolour painting and colour making is a serious business.

"Tug Svitzer Waterson off Llanstadwell" by Andrew Ludlow using A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours on Sanders Waterford 425gsm.

A J Ludlow Ltd is proud to be a sponsor of the International Watercolour Masters 2026 Event at Lilleshall Hall, Shropshire. What some regard as a pleasant and pleasurable pastime is very much a serious profession for those that have mastered the medium and present art that is both remarkable and inspiring. It therefore comes as no surprise, that the same degree of mastery and skill has gone into creating A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour fine-art paints, as demanded by the needs of master watercolourists.

Figure 1: A J Ludlow's distinctive packaged Professional Watercolours - "They contain so much pure pigment, they can't be pack in tubes!"

Founded by Andrew Ludlow, a visionary scientist and artist, the A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour brand stands out for its innovative approach to creating art materials that inspire and empower. The most striking feature of his watercolour paints is that, they are packaged in clear glass jars, preserving each pigment’s natural properties and ensuring that each colour is formulated to its full pigment concentration; something that is a major benefit to all watercolourists and the key to his watercolour’s exceptional performance and quality.

Andrew’s artistic journey began in his youth, where painting was a joyful hobby that complemented his inquisitive mind. His academic pursuits led him into chemistry, a field where precision and discovery go hand in hand. However, it wasn’t until he realised the potential of fusing his scientific expertise with his love for painting that he truly found his calling. By developing his knowledge as a Coatings Scientist (specialising in fine arts media) and needs as a professional artist, Andrew set out to create a line of watercolours that are not only vibrant and permanent but also possess an unparalleled flow, enabling artists to bring their visions to life with ease and assurance.

Figure 2: Painting the IWM winning watercolour painting, "Tug Svitzer off Llanstadwell"

(clockwise: (i) The painting's subject is actually the view across the Milford Haven Waterway from A J Ludlow Colours Watercolour Painting-café, in Llanreath. (ii) Working on the shoreline in the studio. (iii) The finished painting.)

The culmination of Andrew’s dedication to excellence was recognised this year when he participated in the prestigious International Watercolour Masters (IWM) contest. His painting, a testament to the quality and potential of his watercolours, was selected to be exhibited alongside other International Watercolour Masters at Lilleshall Hall, Shropshire, in May 2026. This opportunity not only highlights Andrew’s talent as an artist but also underscores the impact of A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours in the art community.

Figure 3: Andrew's Official Winner's Certificate, showing his watercolour painting.

After meeting David Poxon, the IWM Founder, Organiser, and Watercolour Master, he invited the brand to be one of the Art Material sponsors for the IWM 2026 event. This collaboration not only showcases the trust and esteem the brand commands but also offers a platform for artists worldwide to experience the remarkable capabilities of these watercolours.

Figure 4: Publicity for the IWM 2026 event showing that A J Ludlow Ltd is a sponsor of the event.

Visit the website, www.iwm2026.com for more details.

At A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours, we are immensely proud of this achievement. It reinforces our commitment to providing artists with tools that enhance their creative journey, allowing them to express themselves with confidence and innovation. As we look forward to the future, we remain dedicated to inspiring artists to explore the beautiful connection of art and science, just as Andrew envisioned.

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Well, I do hope you found Andrew's ARTicle interesting. In our next feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

Let’s paint a cute snowman Christmas Card

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 11:01:27 GMT

With the season of good cheer coming, it’s the time to have fun as a family and create wonderful memories, so let’s paint a snowmen Christmas card!

Watercolour painting is a relaxing and enjoyable activity for the whole family to do together, especially when the festival season is approaching. Creating your own watercolour Christmas cards to give to relations and friends is a wonderfully personal and heartfelt gesture that makes them feel special. In doing so, you will soon realise that there is also immense joy in engaging your children or grandchildren in the task and spending creative time together.

This snowmen Christmas card is one of the designs in the “All You Need To Paint..” Christmas cards watercolour painting kit. In the kit, we have already drawn the design for you on Saunders Waterford watercolour paper, so you can start painting straight away, with the brushes and the three A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour paints, supplied. We want you to know how easy it is, so we have reproduced the step-by-step instruction below.

So, to start this family painting project, you will need Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red and Phthalocyanine Blue (Green Shade) watercolour paints, watercolour painting brushes for each (including a fine one for detail work), watercolour paper (in the text below, I talk about why I chose the art materials I have used). Obviously, these are all supplied in our kit along with two other Christmas card designs and three blank ones.

The snowmen design is simple, as you can see in figure 1, and can be easily drawn onto the blank cards included in the kit, for the other family members joining you for this piece of creative fun.

Figure 1: The snowmen design can be easily drawn on the blank cards in the “All you need to paint..” Christmas Cards watercolour painting kit.

All the different colours that go into painting this cute design are mixed from the three watercolours listed above. Figure 2 shows the primary, secondary and tertiary hues that are possible.

Figure 2: Mixing chart showing the hues possible when mixing the three A J Ludlow Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red and Phthalocyanine (Phthalo) Blue (Green Shade) watercolour paints.

Using the three single pigmented A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour paints, will help keep the painting bright and giving it a cheerful look, making the snowmen look even more cute!

So let us get started:

Step 1: To start, mix a little bit of Cadmium Yellow with dilute Cadmium Red to make orange and use this colour to paint the carrot-noses of the snowmen;

Step 2: Use Cadmium Red to paint snowmen’s hats and scarves;

Step 3: Mix Cadmium Red with Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) and a little bit of Cadmium Yellow to get a strong black colour. Use this colour to paint the pieces of coal used for the snowmen’s eyes, mouths, buttons and their twig-hands;

Step 4: Wet the background with clean water;

Step 5: Dilute the black mixed earlier to get a bluish grey colour, use this colour to paint the background;

Step 6: Use a stronger bluish grey colour to paint trees in the background;

Step 7: Splash onto the background, some clean water to create snowflakes using the two brushes as shown in the photograph above;

Step 8: Use the same bluish grey colour to add shadows around the snowmen. Then add a few brush strokes to capture the rough contours of the snow-covered ground to finish this design.

The colours I selected for my Christmas-themed artwork are Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, and Phthalo Blue (Green Shade). These three hues create a harmonious colour spectrum, as Cadmium Red and Cadmium Yellow fall within the warm tone range, while Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) adds a cool tone to the mix. Being single pigmented watercolours, it is easy to get the colour mixtures I desired, and more importantly, it also helps beginners to achieve the same result.

The paper I used for painting Christmas cards is called Saunders Waterford, 100% cotton, 190gsm watercolour paper made by St Cuthbert Mill in Somerset. The reason I prefer to use this type of watercolour paper is that it can handle a lot of water. So, when I paint the background using a wet-on-wet technique, the paper stays flat.

With respect to the brushes, I usually have one big brush, which can hold enough water to cover half the paper in one brush stroke and, a fine detailing brush to paint the details.

You can also change the background as in the examples given in Figure 3.

Figure 3: It is fun to change the background and create a unique design.

If you have enjoyed reading this ARTicle and would like to try our “All you need to paint..” Christmas cards watercolour painting kit, it is available to purchase from us. The kit is packed with all the materials needed to create six Christmas cards that are mentioned above. There are also printed step-by-step painting instruction for all three designs or if you prefer there are also video tutorials on our YouTube channel, A J Ludlow Colours, which can be easily accessed using the QR codes provided on the instructions.

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Well, I do hope you found Meiru’s ARTicle interesting. In our next feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

Ten Important Reasons to Use A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour Paints

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 17:47:21 GMT

The most prized properties of A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour paints

There are ten properties that watercolourists prize above all in our Professional Watercolours:

1. Transparency and Opacity: A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolour paints are pure-pigmented and do not include fillers (weak white pigments used to extend the pigment in paint formulations) and as such, our watercolours are either transparent or opaque depending on the natural properties and crystal shape of the pigment used in the formulation.

Watercolourists like the way we show the degree of transparency/opacity as a graduated wash on black watercolour paper, as it shows them the differences at variable film weights (as shown below). These graduated washes are available for all our watercolours and can be found in the individual watercolour descriptions presented in our on-line Art Materials shop on our website.

Figure 1: Assessment washes for Quinacridone Rose (transparent), Pyrrole Red (semi-transparent) and Cadmium Red (opaque). Note that in higher film weights (the top part of the wash), the high pigment loading of each watercolour shows a degree of opacity, which allows our watercolours to be used as a body-colour (or gouache) in watercolour paintings.

2. Permanence or lightfastness: Without exception, each of our Professional Watercolours contain only lightfast pigments. Furthermore, A J Ludlow’s watercolours have been formulated to have the highest degree of lightfastness and permanence, with each ingredient being painstakingly selected to ensure that our watercolour’s quality is truly professional and meets the high standard demanded by the watercolourists who use and trust our Brand.

Each watercolour has had its stability to light tested as graduated washes and each watercolour performed excellently, showing no darkening nor fading, even at lower film weights (the less intense portion of the wash).

Figure 2: Checking Dioxaine Violet watercolour’s graduated wash for any colour changes during the test for lightfastness. Note that there is no difference between the unexposed portion of the wash (under the strip of lightfast black paper) and the exposed portion.

3. Granulation: If any one property defines the uniqueness of watercolour as an artistic painting medium, it is the effect of granulation. Because our watercolour paints are pure-pigmented and contain an exceptional amount of pigment, then each A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour will either granulate or not depending on the natural properties and crystal shape of the pigment used in the formulation. A particular effect that makes our watercolours standout, which is much prized by those that use them, is the way granulation easily occurs when our watercolours are allowed to flow into one and other and discrete clumps of the individual colours are formed.

Figure 3: Detail of a watercolour painting showing granulation created by allowing the watercolours to flow into each other.

4. Staining and non-staining: Watercolourists like the way we show whether our Professional Watercolour paints are staining or can be lifted out. A graduated wash of each watercolour is prepared on Saunders Waterford watercolour paper (cold pressed (NOT) surface and at a weight of 425gms) and allowed to completely dry, then a wet brush or cloth/tissue is used to lift out a portion of the painted colour.

As our watercolours are pure-pigmented, staining is purely dependant on the natural properties and crystal size of the pigment used in the formulation. However, we also appreciate that the surface and type of watercolour paper will also influence the staining and would suggest that if you use only one type of paper, you will most likely only be concerned with how our watercolours behave on your paper, so just paint out a graduated wash and inspect how the colour lifts out at the different graduations.

Figure 4: Assessment washes for Ultramarine Blue (non-staining), Cadmium Red (semi-staining) and Dioxide Violet (staining).

5. Purity of colour: Being pure-pigmented with the finest quality pigments, combined with the exceptionally high pigment loading, ensures that the colour purity of each of our Professional Watercolours is exceptional in both heavily applied watercolour to the most delicate of touches.

Figure 5: Assessing the fineness of grind for a new delivery of pigment.

Maintaining the quality of the raw materials we use is also very important and we have stringent checks in place to ensure that each material meets the high standards expected of a renowned manufacturer of the finest professional quality watercolour, with expertise gained from over 40 years’ experience.

6. Colour intensity or brightness: The A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour range consists of 48 single pure-pigmented watercolours, made from the finest quality pigments, combined with the exceptionally high pigment loading, ensures that the brightness of each watercolour is exceptional. The colours (hues) chosen provide a wide spectrum from which our watercolourists choose their preferred mixing palette. Because of the quality of the pigments and raw materials used, secondary mixtures are often just as bright and intense as their component parts, which is a property prized by many artists who use our watercolours.

In addition, there are a number of mixed pigment colours, which extend the number of available hues in our watercolour spectrum. They have been formulated to retain their brightness when mixed with other colours in the range. To ensure authenticity they have been matched to the traditional hues that were available to watercolour artists painting at the turn of the 19 ^th century.

Figure 6: Comparing Hooker’s Green from A J Ludlow with a hand painted wash (Hooker’s Green No1) from the turn of the 19 ^th century.

7. Tinctorial strength: Having watercolours that have a high tinctorial strength is much prized, as it allows dilute washes to have outstanding colour intensity, a property A J Ludlow’s watercolours are famous for. The watercolours in our range that are semi-transparent and opaque when applied dilute will not only be transparent but are also favoured for their excellent colour intensity.

Figure 7: Comparing the tinctorial strength of another brand’s Prussian Blue against the stronger Prussian Blue from A J Ludlow (the sample with the deeper blue). Both colours have been mixed with the same white gouache in the same ratio.

8. Wet to dry colour shift: All of A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour paints when applied at high and medium dilutions, show minimal colour shift on drying. There is a slight shift with very dilute watercolour (as is the norm and in some cases worst for other artist quality brands).

9. Re-solubility: Our Professional Watercolours are formulated to be easily re-wet after drying out on the palette, a property which is recognised to add to the enjoyment of using A J Ludlow watercolour. It also means that after painting, the watercolours can be left to dry on the palette until the next time. Artists have told us that they have left watercolours out for a few months and they have been fine and easily re-wetted the next time they were used.

10. Wet-in-wet flow: Watercolour is such a versatile and expressive medium, offering endless opportunities for creativity and experimentation, especially with wet-in-wet. Mastery of this technique and understanding the interplay between water, pigment and paper has long been recognised by watercolourists as the way to create dynamic and captivating artwork.

Figure 8: Wet in wet flow; Ultramarine Blue flows into Cobalt Turquoise on Saunders Waterford watercolour paper (cold pressed (NOT) surface and at a weight of 425gms)

It is no surprise that this is one of the most prized ability our watercolour paints have. Each watercolour has unique characteristics and the natural flow of each pigment is enhanced in the formulation, allowing artists to fully experience and manipulate the medium's potential.

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I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

A glance back at the 2024 Living Crafts Festival of Art, Craft and Design

Sat, 01 Jun 2024 13:50:35 GMT

Meeting new people and catching up with old friends in the glorious warm Hertfordshire sunshine.

The calligraphy design above is by Jane Lappage of Calligraphy Arts and is subject to copyright

The weather in May is always a little unpredictable and so when we visit the Living Crafts Festival, we have had some pretty extreme weather, from an almost constant deluge of rain, to glorious sunshine as we did when we attended this year’s festival. Held in the beautiful parkland of Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, returning to Living Crafts is always a little special for us and we enjoy the festival very much. This year however, was even more special, especially for the organisers, as the festival was 50 years old and we were very proud to be part of the community of artists and craftspeople that came together not only for this celebratory year, but every year for this prestigious annual craft event.

We are relatively new to Living Crafts, joining the event in 2021, which was when even covid could not get in its way! Not knowing what to expect, we attended the show and have not looked back since. The warm and friendly welcome from the organisers, and the great sense of community instilled in the event, are what makes Living Crafts special for us. We look forward each year to making new friends and seeing old ones, not only those amongst the artists and craftspeople, but also from the visitors who come to visit us; the show is not just a fun day out for the visitors, but also for us too.

Here are some highlights of this year’s event, starting with the gift set we designed in collaboration with our friend Jane Lappage of Calligraphy Arts, especially to celebrate 50 years of Living Crafts (see figure1).

Figure 1: The Limited Special Edition Gift Set especially designed in celebration of 50 years of Living Crafts

In order to celebrate the first Living Crafts Festival, we were asked to dress the same way people dressed in 1974, so to enter into the spirit of the event, Andrew wore a very colourful shirt and clashing tie, with an exceptionally eye-catching tank top (figure 2).

Figure 2: Andrew looking “dapper” in his 1974 outfit.

The first day started very early, many visitors came to our stand (see figure 3) before 10 o’clock to see and select the expertly handmade watercolours in person.

Figure 3: A J Ludlow Colours stand, displaying a large selection of Professional Watercolours and all the other products made and sold by us.

I once again, took watercolour painting workshops, which are always fully booked and was very happy to see some returning “students” (figure 4 and 5).

Figure 4: My watercolour painting workshops are always well attended and allows visitors to paint with our Professional Watercolours with a range of high quality artesian made Asian brushes on to top notch watercolour paper.

Figure 5: Visitors painting watercolours during our workshops.

All in all, we had a great time and hope that all of you who attended the four-day festival, did too. We saw old friends and made some new ones and we enjoyed the warm early May sunshine. What more could we want.

We look forward to seeing everybody again next year!

“Tell me more about the A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour painting sets?”

Wed, 01 May 2024 18:07:47 GMT

Eight months after launching the A J Ludlow “All you need to paint..” range of watercolour painting sets, they are still causing quite a stir!

In last year’s August ARTicle , I shared the news that we had launched a new product around the concept of painting and having fun, our “All you need to paint..” Professional Watercolour painting sets. Our initial launch designs featured Atlantic Puffins with their large and colourful bills (only in evidence during the breeding season), which gives the birds’ faces the appearance of circus clowns and with their comical antics in taking off and landing (due to their short wingspans), earned them the nickname of “clown of the sea”. The “Puffin” designs have proved very popular not only because the birds are so cute, which they are, but because these painting sets offer more of a challenge and allow room for an artistic contribution from the individual painter.

Even in the December ARTicle , our guest author, Emma Jessen, highlighted another dimension to these painting sets, describing the importance to her well-being, by re-connecting to her inner child through the joy she experienced painting two festive Robins from our Christmas themed “All you need to paint..” set. The therapeutic nature of watercolour painting cannot be underestimated, as it not only provides a creative outlet for self-expression, but it can also help to reduce stress and anxiety levels and so benefits one's mental health and overall well-being.

In my opinion and from the feedback we have had, there is one more important aspect to the watercolour painting sets in our “All you need to paint..” range, but we can come back to that after answering some of the common questions we have been asked about our sets.

“Is the set the same as “paint-by-numbers?”

The short answer is no, the design behind each of our “All you need to paint..” sets is very different from the “paint-by-numbers” concept.

“Paint-by-numbers” is just that, a series of pre-mixed coloured paints, which have allocated numbers that reference areas on the image. Painting involves applying the paint within the boundaries of the correspondingly numbered area. The image is thus developed in the same way as a child’s “colouring-in” book, but without the added artistic input of selecting the colours to use.

Our “All you need to paint..” sets have a very large creative element and the pencil-line drawings, instructions and even the video are only there for guidance and support. The various colours required to turn the 2D imagery into a 3D painting require mixing from the three supplied watercolours, introducing the basics of colour-mixing (figure 1), which is an essential skill that every artist needs to develop.

Figure 1: Each painting set introduces the basics of colour-mixing.

There is also the important distinction, that the “All you need to paint..” sets are composed of top-of-the-range fine-art materials; our Professional Watercolours, the finest artisan made traditional Asian brush-art brushes and Saunders Waterford 425gsm watercolour paper.

“Are these painting sets just for beginners?”

Again, the short answer is no. Although the longer answer requires the definition of a beginner and quantifying that definition by experience, so we have set about designing an inclusive element in each set, which will stretch those watercolourists who have some experience, but just need a little more instruction.

Going from light to dark can seem confusing to some painters, when they experience watercolour for the first time, as it seems a “back-to-front” way of painting. The instruction leaflet and video will help get to grips with this concept and by painting along with the video, will ensure someone who is trying watercolour painting for the first time, creates a painting to be proud of.

For those watercolourists who have some experience already, then there is room to add more complex detail (see figure 2), alternate backgrounds or to add additional watercolours to create more advanced paintings (see figure 3).

Figure 2: In each set there are designs that allow for more complex brush work.

Figure 3: Using additional watercolours to the three supplied in the painting set to create a dramatic evening sky.

We have described our “All you need to paint..” sets as a watercolour painting lesson in a bag, because that is what we believe them to be. Although watercolour painting should be fun, each set has been designed with the serious element of introducing the basics of watercolour painting and the techniques used in the creation of fine-art paintings (see also our two-part ARTicle, ” Tips for Practicing Traditional Watercolour Techniques ”).

Just like any course in watercolour painting, the painting sets introduce and build on different techniques, so they are a “watercolour painting lesson in a bag”, not exclusively for beginners, but also for those budding watercolourists who want to develop their skills further.

“Is this painting set a suitable gift for my friend, who loves painting?”

Yes, it is! In fact, we believe that this gift, is the gift that can be given again.

I know this might sound a little ungrateful, so let me explain. Many of those that have painted the designs from our “All you need to paint..” watercolour sets have been so pleased with the result and proud of their paintings that they have wished to share this and have given the paintings as gifts to their relatives or close friends.

Figure 4: Receiving the painted Puffin design as a birthday gift.

So, in conclusion…

Having reviewed and answered three of the most common questions we have been asked in the eight months since launching our watercolour painting sets, I have busted the misconception that our sets are “paint-by-numbers” in disguise, examined the educational concepts we have incorporated and glimpsed at the creative and artistic challenge each set can provide. I have also drawn upon the feedback we have had and shared the fact that these painting sets have actually been seen as the gift that can be given again, which leads me on to the point I hinted at in the beginning of this ARTicle.

In my introduction, I spoke of a third aspect to the watercolour painting sets in our “All you need to paint..” range, which I believe is the most important. We have found from talking to those that have finished painting the two pencil drawings in each one of our sets, that they have had the great satisfaction in creating beautiful pieces of fine-art, which we are so pleased to hear.

So, maybe we should re-name our “All you need to paint..” to emphasise that it is a fine-art painting set!

Would you agree?

A Tale of Two Books

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 18:43:56 GMT

Turning the clock back to the early days of watercolour paints and pigments.

The first commercial European watercolours were produced in the eighteenth century and consisted of a hard block, which required considerable rubbing to dissolve in water. With the invention of the collapsible metal tube in the mid-nineteenth century, it allowed art material manufacturers to supply watercolour paints in liquid form, which made the medium easier to use and so helped to increase its popularity. At the forefront of this watercolour revolution was the scientist, William Winsor and artist, Henry Newton, who together began to modernise the craft of the Colourman and lay the foundation of modern artists’ colour manufacture.

Winsor and Newton recognised the need to grow their business on the foundations of science, so in 1854, William Winsor bought the rights to George Field’s “A Treatise on Colours and Pigments, and their Powers in Painting”, along with his chemical process to synthesise pigments from the madder root (W&N). Here begins our tale of the first book.

Field’s Chromatography:

Figure 1: Field’s Chromatography, the third edition, published in 1885 by Winsor & Newton

George Field was an English chemist, who is best remembered for his book on colours and pigments, which had been originally published in 1835 (Wikipedia). It became known as “Field’s Chromatography” and it is the culmination of his many years of colour experiments and manufacture. Amongst art historians it is regarded as a seminal nineteenth-century text on colour theory, which help shape the course of British painting. While Field’s colour theories dated very quickly, the detailed information he shared, concerning the available colours and pigments available, was priceless to the artists at that time. The information he provided included which pigments were lightfast and durable and warned, which ones were not (Shires).

Figure 2: A glimpse inside Field’s “Chromatography” at one of the colour plates.

“Field’s Chromatography” was later republished in 1869, edited by T W Salter and again in 1885, modernised by J S Taylor, both times by Winsor & Newton. It is interesting to note that the T W Salter edition was published after William Winsor’s death in 1865, obviously supported by the surviving partner, Henry Newton, who like George Field, felt it necessary to provide the artist with information on the theory of colour and the pigments used.

The third edition, the one I have, was published after the death of Henry Newton and the formation of Winsor & Newton Ltd in 1882, showing that the new management though in a similar way to their predecessor.

For me, this book is invaluable, in that it sheds light on which pigments were found in the classic artists’ colours, which helps me to ensure that my Professional Watercolours have their roots in the traditional and classic ones developed in the mid-nineteenth century. It gives me confidence that my watercolours have authenticity and I can trace their lineage back to source, rather than down a well-trodden path that may not be completely in the right direction.

When I was an integral part of Winsor & Newton in the late 1990’s, I learnt the importance of heritage and the role it plays in the relationship between colourman and artist. It forged and distilled my own ideas of what I should offer my own artists; attention to detail being one of them and a grounding in tradition, another. It was with this in mind that I sought the second book in our tale.

A Descriptive Handbook of Modern Water-colour Pigments:

Figure 3: John Scott Taylor’s descriptive handbook, which is truly a glimpse into watercolour pigments of the past.

As with the third edition of Field’s “Chromatography”, J S Taylor’s “A Descriptive Handbook of Modern Water-colour Pigments” was published by Winsor & Newton. When it was first published in 1887, the credibility of watercolour as a serious art medium was in question due to the use of fugitive pigments. In answer to this the first section of J S Taylor’s handbook deals with questions about the long-term effect of light on watercolour pigments, which is further developed in Taylor’s descriptions of each pigment in section 2.

Figure 4: The “controversy”

However, located at the end of the edition of this book I have, is a 110 watercolour washes hand pained on Whatman paper at the time of publication, and they are as fresh as the day they were painted (see figure 5).

Figure 5: Hand painted watercolour washes.

Using this edition of Taylor’s handbook, I can check the colours of my watercolours with those made in the late-nineteenth century. In figure 6, I am comparing my Hooker’s Green No1, whilst in figure 7, my Payne’s Grey is almost identical to those preserved in the descriptive pigment handbook.

Figure 6: Hooker’s Green No1.

Figure 7: Payne’s Grey

My tale of two books is not over by a longshot, as I will no doubt delve into these two books as I develop new watercolours to include in my Professional Watercolours, either as Special Limited Edition colours or to be included in my core range of single pigmented ones. I believe it is my responsibility to you, the artist, to ensure that my traditional watercolours are the best. That they are true to the past, but as a modern colourman, I must also look to the future and be ready to introduce new pigments too, making sure that only those that have high permanence are used. With this in mind, I too am following in the footsteps of George Field, the outstanding colourman of his time, just as William Winsor and Henry Newton did, all those years ago.

References:

Winsor & Newton (W&N), “Our History”, accessed on 30/3/24

https://www.winsornewton.com/uk/about-us/our-history/

Wikipedia, “George Field”, accessed on 30/03/24

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Field_(chemist)

Linda M. Shires, “On Color Theory, 1835: George Field’s Chromatography“, accessed on 30/03/24:

https://branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=linda-m-shires-on-color-theory-1835-george-fields-chromatography

Building your Watercolour Painting

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 09:12:21 GMT

A step-by-step guide to painting in the Realism style.

In his influential 1984 instructional book for aspiring artists, Catching Light in Your Paintings, Charles Sovek considers most western art from the late-sixteenth century onwards as falling broadly under the approaches of:

Tonalism – using tonal values (the relative lightness or darkness) rather than lines or colours as the dominant feature of the painting;

Impressionism – having much less regard for strong tonal-value structure and instead relying heavily on the loose application of colour (especially the juxtaposition of warm and cool colour) to indicate depth and model form; and

Realism – can be thought of as a later amalgam of, or compromise between, the two earlier movements, incorporating the rich value schemes of tonalism together with the bright colours of impressionism.

When I set out to build a painting, it is this third approach – Realism – that I myself tend towards. This shouldn’t be confused with the genre of Photorealism, where the result is hyper-realistic and in many cases almost indistinguishable from a photograph. Realism, although it is founded on good, credible drawing and perspective, uses the tonal values and hues of the main shapes to provide the overarching, coherent impression of the subject. This overall impression is allowed to do the “heavy lifting” of how the viewer perceives the scene, without the need to resort to overwhelming, fussy detail; instead the realism is enhanced using a few stand-out highlight features.

I use the phrase to build a painting quite deliberately, because there is much work involved in designing, planning and laying the foundations that will determine the success or otherwise of the painting. Painting is not just a motor skill or an intuitive process; it usually requires some considerable thought and planning, particularly so with watercolour since the painting must be tackled in a particular order with only very limited time to work on each stage. Having a plan for the execution of the picture liberates the watercolourist from wasting that valuable time on thinking from scratch, once the paint is on the brush and the water is on the paper.

In this ARTicle I describe the step-by-step process I use to paint in the Realism style and I illustrate this with a watercolour painting of a windmill I recently completed (Figure 1). These steps are well known. They are no doubt taught at Art School, though as a self-taught artist I have no direct experience of that; I have; however, found various online courses and YouTube tutorials to be particularly relevant, alongside the approach of Charles Sovek in the book I referred to earlier.

Figure 1: The finished painting - "The Windmill" a watercolour painting by Jonathan Pullen

Step 1 - Composition

To a large degree, the success of the painting hinges on this crucial first step. Establishing a suitable composition for the picture is an absolute must and if that doesn’t look broadly right, none of the subsequent stages (however competently executed) will remedy that entirely. For this reason I usually produce several simple, rough pencil sketches of alternative arrangements before settling on one composition to take forward.

Don’t copy uncritically the scene in front of you, whether that be a photograph or a real-life view; the composition may benefit from some elements of the scene being altered, added or left out. I find it helps to pay special attention to the following:

Focal points - at this design stage, one can influence how the observer`s initial gaze is likely to travel over the picture and where you wish them to then focus their attention. Very often a particular arrangement of the main shapes and lines (especially the horizontals, verticals and diagonals) in the scene will intuitively look right to you in achieving this. You may wish to also draw on some compositional rules of thumb such as the “rule of thirds” to place some of the focal points within the arrangement.

Simplify – at this stage, your primary consideration should be on the main shapes that make up the scene. Divide your scene into three planes of depth: the foreground, middle ground and background. The shapes in the middle ground should be less detailed and less pronounced than in the foreground and those in the background should be less detailed and less pronounced than in the middle ground.

Figure 2: Anatomy of a watercolour painting.

Figure 2 shows the initial compositional sketch I made to place the main shapes in the scene (showing divided into thirds) and showing the direction of light. It also shows annotations on the tonal values I planned to use in a later step.

Step 2 - Line

Once a suitable composition has been established, I set to work on a preparatory line drawing for the eventual watercolour painting. I tend to produce this on cartridge paper or layout paper rather than on the watercolour paper directly, as that allows for alterations and corrections to be made more easily. I then use a light box to transfer my final preparatory drawing onto my watercolour paper.

When painting using the Realism approach, there is no getting round the fact that the underlying drawing needs to be convincing and credible.

This doesn’t mean the line drawing has to be detailed or elaborate; but it does need to capture the sizes, angles and forms of the main shapes.

Use linear perspective to create a sense of distance and scale using straightforward drawing rules to depict: objects getting smaller and converging the further away they are; nearer objects overlapping objects behind them; and (generally speaking) nearer objects being lower down in the picture than distant objects. When these perspective rules are understood and applied properly, the realism and sense of drama is lifted to another level. My favourite reference on the subject is The Graphic Novelist`s Guide to Drawing Perspective by Dan Cooney, publ. Search Press 2019. Figure 3 shows how I established the perspective in this scene. This particular example, with an inclined ellipse for the windmill sails and a foreground fence ascending a hill, needed a rather more detailed drawing than would most scenes.

Figure 3: Establishing perspective.

Spending the time at this second stage to produce a good underlying drawing with accurate perspective is crucial: it provides a firm structure within which you are able to work looser and more impressionistically at subsequent stages without losing the scene.

Step 3 – Establishing the Tonal Values

Figure 4: Tonal tiles.

The next most important step in planning the painting involves getting the tonal values right. After all, we are able to make perfect sense of old black and white films or photographs despite absolutely no colour information being present; this is because the tonal values in those films and photos are right. In most cases though, you should not need to, or want to, replicate exactly the scene (or photo/ reference image) in front of you - your camera or smartphone could do that in an instant with far better precision! Your painting will instead be a selective interpretation of that scene, which seeks to convey the overall mood, simplify and make clear the focal points and the main, essential elements of the composition. Based on the invaluable guidance in Charles Sovek`s book, the main steps I use to achieve this using tonal values are:

Decide on the degree of simplification you will apply to the tonal scale – at it most simple, the tonal scale could be reduced to black, mid grey and white. More often, however, I will use a five-tone scale (black, dark grey, mid grey, light grey and white), shown in Figure 4.
Decide on the angle and direction of the light striking the objects in the scene. Then decide on the light-mood of the scene – is it to be strong sunlight, hazy sunlight, overcast or night time? The light mood determines which part of the tonal-value scale is used and how big a jump there is between areas in light and those in the shadows. For example, a scene in strong sunlight usually has a two-value jump between the lights and the shadows, i.e. white to mid-grey, and/or light-grey to dark-grey. Black is not used. On the other hand, an overcast scene would have narrower tonal range, with a single-value jump between the lights and the shadows, i.e. light-grey to mid-grey, mid-grey to dark-grey, and/or dark-grey to black. White is not used.
Establish the “home values” of the main objects in the scene, i.e. the relative lightness or darkness of each object overall. It can be helpful to squint at the scene, or to take a photograph on one`s phone and convert it to black and white, in order to judge the home values. To give a couple of examples, when the scene has a mood of direct sunlight then an object that is moderately light would probably have a home value equivalent to light-grey, with shadows and lights on the object set at mid-grey and white, respectively. An object that is quite dark would probably have a home value of dark grey, with shadows and lights on the object set at black and mid-grey.
In Step 1, I had already simplified the picture into three broad planes of depth: the foreground area, the middle ground and the background. A very effective sense of depth can be achieved by using different ranges of tones in these three areas:

Foreground – the full range of tonal values may be used, depending on the home values of the objects and the type of light. For a foreground in direct sunlight this could encompass the full range from white to black.
Middle ground – use a more limited range, with the extremes (black and white) eliminated.
Background – use a more limited range still, anchored around mid-grey.

Look to merge big shapes of similar tonal values, particularly those where the boundary between those shapes is a “soft edge” or a “lost edge”, rather than a “hard edge” or a “firm edge”.

Figure 5: The tonal watercolour painting of "The Windmill" by Jonathan Pullen

At this point I tend to do a monochrome tonal version of the scene, either as a pencil or charcoal tonal sketch, or as a watercolour tonal sketch that pulls together all the preceding steps. Figure 5 shows the tonal painting I made of this scene. I excluded the figures at this stage, for simplicity and to enable me to concentrate on the main, big shapes. I should also note that I used a tonal scale with nine steps spanning black to white to enable the subtle form of the windmill, which had a quite light home value, to be modelled more precisely than if I had used five steps.

If all has gone well, and the monochrome version looks convincing, then I will progress to the colour stage.

Step 4 – Introducing Colour as the Accompaniment to Tone

We make sense of the world mainly through tonal values but we feel the world mainly through colour. Though less important than the preceding steps, colour can elevate the quality of the painting by the sense of mood and feeling it instils. I think of colour as the icing on the cake; however, this finishing touch will only work if the underlying structure of tonal values and foundation of shapes and composition have been properly put in place. It`s easy to get lost in trying to choose “the perfect” hue that matches exactly the reference, at the expense of the tonal values, resulting in the structure of the painting falling apart. Most of the time all that`s really needed is a colour that is roughly the right sort of hue for each shape or object. Provided that hue is of the correct relative lightness or darkness (i.e. tonal value), then the painting should work well enough. The primary concern at this Step 4 should, therefore, be matching whatever colours you decide to use, to the correct tonal values. Once again, the usual way to achieve this is either to squint, or to take a photograph of the colour mixes on one`s phone and convert them to black and white for easy comparison with the tonal scale.

To simplify matters, I usually limit the colours in my palette to the following: a warm and a cool version of each the primary colours red, yellow and blue; plus neutral tint* to assist with darkening (used sparingly and only where needed). These seven hues allow me to mix a wide variety of hues at different tonal values. Using a limited palette helps the colour harmony within the painting. Furthermore, I find it easier to become familiar with the mixing than if I had an extensive range of colours. Paint quality is, however, something I do not limit: I use only good-quality professional watercolours, such as those produced by A J Ludlow Colours.

As was the case when establishing the tonal values in Step 3, you should not need to, nor want to, replicate exactly the colours in the scene (or photo/ reference image) in front of you. Being selective in your use of colours can be used as a compositional tool to enhance your scene. For example:

Colour balance - the actual, real scene may lack colour balance, for instance a group of red objects may be in one corner of the scene only. In your painting you have the opportunity to remedy that (assuming such an imbalance is not your deliberate intention) by altering the colours of some objects or areas in the scene to enhance the colour harmony of the picture as a whole.
Colour contrast – placing colours next to each other that are opposites (or nearly opposites) on the colour wheel, can suggest vibrancy, tension and drama in that area of the painting, drawing the viewer`s gaze. You can see this on the finished, colour painting in Figure 1, where the yellowish sunlit face of the windmill contrasts with the violet-tinged shadow cast by the sail.

The ability to mix hues from warm or cool versions of the primary colours is a further refinement:

If the light-mood of your painting is a bright sunny day, then the colour of the daylight will have a hint of yellow. Objects facing the sun will tend to have hues mixed from warm colours, the shadows will tend to be mixed from cool colours and the halftones may be neutral. You can see this in Figure 1, where the yellowish sunlit face of the grey windmill was mixed from the warm primary colours in my palette: This warm sunlit face contrasts with the cool, violet-tinged grey of the shaded side of the windmill and the shadow cast by the sail, which were mixed from the cool primary colours in my palette.
If, on the other hand, the light-mood of your painting is overcast, then the colour of the daylight will have a hint of grey-purple. Objects facing the light will tend to have hues mixed from cool colours and the shadows will tend to be mixed from warm colours.
It is useful to know that a hard edge in the picture will be further emphasised if it is formed from a warm hue meeting a cool hue and this can be an effective way of drawing the observer`s gaze towards a particular part of the picture.
Cool and warm versions of the same hue can be used to add variation to interest to objects and features in the background and middle distance that have been quite deliberately (see Step 3) painted with a narrow tonal range. You can see this on the buildings behind the windmill in Figure 1.

I tend to try out the colour combinations in a quick watercolour sketch, or several sketches each focusing on particular areas of the scene, before I commit to the full painting. This enables me to practise the most challenging elements.

Step 5 – Pulling it all Together

Trying to remember all the above factors can be daunting: some people seem to be able to produce apparently effortlessly a finished painting that brings all these steps together; however, I am not one of them and I need to rely on a liberally annotated sketch showing in what order I will tackle the main elements of the painting, what are the tonal values, and whether particular areas are warm or cool. Figure 6 and Figure 7 give you some idea of the order in which I progressed the windmill painting.

Figure 6 and 7: Progressing the painting

I even prepare a quick painting plan when painting en plein air and I have found this helps prevent me from being overwhelmed by the size, complexity and detail in the vista. For similar reasons, I never paint a scene directly from a photograph.

Conclusion

Many people consider watercolour to be the most difficult of painting media to use effectively due to both the limited time it remains workable on the paper and the not-entirely predictable effects that are obtained. All the more important then that the watercolourist has planned from the outset the execution of the picture. This article has described the step-by-step process I use to paint in the Realism style. It`s certainly not the only approach and beautiful paintings may be created by alternative routes. I do hope though that this ARTicle will be of interest and perhaps aid you in your own painting process.

*It is possible to mix an equivalent of neutral tint from phthalo green (blue shade) with quinacridone rose.

Please note that all the images used in this ARTicle are from original watercolour paintings by Jonathan Pullen and are subject to copyright and so, may not be used without the artist’s permission.

***

Well, I do hope you found Jonathan's ARTicle interesting . Look out for next month’s issue, when we will be looking into another aspect of watercolour and watercolour painting.

Looking back over a busy year of watercolour painting

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 10:46:47 GMT

In last month's ARTicle, we looked at starting the new year with a new creative hobby, watercolour painting. For those of you who did just that, we hope you are enjoying the excitement and positivity that learning something new brings into our lives. For those that have already embraced watercolour painting and are thinking of developing it from a hobby to something more, it is great to hear from artists that have done just that and are enjoying the success of their endeavours, so we asked Lesley Linley to come back and tell us what she has been doing over the past year and whether A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours are still “cutting the mustard!”

Over to you Lesley…..

It’s a little over a year since I began using A J Ludlow (AJL) watercolours; it seems a good time to give an update on my experiences of using them and to tell you what I’ve done over the year.

I’d been interested in joining Peak District Artisans (PDA) since seeing members’ work in 2018/19. I visited their exhibition in the Stables Shop at Chatsworth House early in 2023 and was impressed by the quality of work and the ‘feel’ of the group; I knew that I wanted to be part of it. A few frantic months followed as I prepared some new work (using AJL watercolours of course) that featured the Peak District landscape for my interview. My application was successful, I joined in June and I’ve taken part in various activities since then; I’m currently part of this year’s group exhibition at Chatsworth (running until March 3 ^rd ) and will take part in other events over the year.

Apart from the exhibitions, I joined some outdoor painting days. The first of these was part of ‘A month of Art’ at Hopton Hall in July, which was held in some lively weather – bright sunshine was interrupted by gusts that blew down easels and filled eyes with dirt. My jars of AJL watercolours attracted interest and the two paintings I produced as a result of the painting day were soon sold. I also made some useful contacts.

July was extremely wet, it’s never good for exhibitors to be loading and unloading their precious cargo in such weather. I took part in my first event with PDA at Haddon Hall Gatehouse in early July, one of the group’s smaller events but a lovely location. Shortly afterwards I exhibited at a non-PDA event, Patchings Festival. The weather had been hot and dry at the festival for a few years, but not so in 2023; my demonstration waterfall painting could have been the rain running off the marquee roof and paintings had to be moved to protect them from rain which made its way into the marquee. A few days later came The Great Dome Art Fair in Buxton with PDA. After a ‘smashing’ preview night when one of my easels collapsed, leaving the glass from a large painting in thousands of pieces, things could only improve. The event gave me a new audience and some nice sales.

In September I gave a demonstration on painting waterfalls in watercolour to an art group in Chester, a long drive but a great welcome and a very enjoyable session.

The Autumn Art Fair at Darley Dale was another PDA event which took place during atrociously wet weather. A highlight of this event was meeting a collector of my work who I’d never met before, it was good to meet the buyer and have a chat.

In early December the last PDA event of the year was held at The Gasworks in Sudbury; this was a new venue, recently refurbished. We had a change of weather for this! Light snow was forecast but 4” snow had to be cleared before I could set off for Sudbury. Fortunately, the travelling was trouble free, there was a little less snow at the venue and there was a good number of visitors, especially locals enjoying a walk in the snow.

Over the summer and autumn I went out on several sketching and painting days with other artists, enjoying the best of the British weather, experiencing everything from heatwaves to downpours, high winds and frost. I’ve little experience in painting outdoors away from home and only produced scribbles and sketches on the day, but the outings were very useful, and the sheer relaxation of being outdoors, absorbing nature, getting sun/wind-burned (I must remember to take my sunhat from my bag) or very cold, have all been enjoyable (yes, really!).

The much-needed end of year rest didn’t happen as I tried to catch up on admin tasks, proposals and plans, work that would ideally have been completed in 2023. I’m looking forward to be able to spend much more of my time painting over the coming months.

I produced three small paintings over Christmas and New Year; “Minninglow”, “Burbage Brook at Padley Gorge” and “Burbage Bridge” (shown in the figures below).

Over Christmas I emptied my first pot of AJL watercolour (Ultramarine Blue, of course), there was no struggling to squeeze the last paint from a tube, I just added a little water to the pot and used every last drop! In the spring blog I listed the colours that I was trying. People who have seen me using AJL paints have asked which 6 colours form my basic palette. Although I don’t use many colours I struggle to reduce the number to just 6; this is largely down to the fact that all the AJL colours that I use are single pigment, whereas in my old brand two of the colours I used often were each a mix of three pigments. My six most used colours in landscape painting are probably Ultramarine Blue, Prussian Blue or Phthalo Blue (GS), Transparent Iron Oxide Yellow, Azomethine Green, Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna, Quinacridone Rose, I use Transparent Iron Oxide Red less often but love its clean fresh colour. I’ve prepared a palette using only these colours in readiness for my next outdoor painting day and will be interested to see if I’ve chosen well.

I added Raw Sienna and Burnt Sienna to my initial selection of colours in order to compare them with the Transparent Iron Oxide Yellow and Transparent Iron Oxide Red. I’ve used the Raw Sienna very little because I just love the Transparent Iron Oxide Yellow but I think I still need Raw Sienna. I use the Burnt Sienna quite often, it’s a useful red/brown on its own and when I need something warmer than Burnt Umber. I’m happy with the handling characteristics of them all.

When I began using AJL watercolours I decided that I would use only this brand for a year before making a decision about whether to continue; I’m happy to say that I will continue.

What Next?

I’m currently working on Chatsworth themes, there’s a lot to inspire with the house, the huge estate, architecture, sculptures etc, but the deer and the weir appeal, so I’ll explore those subjects to begin with and aim to include more of the Peak District landscape as we move through the year.

Other News

My book has now sold out with the publisher but I still have some signed copies for sale.

Here are some of the paintings produced over the last few months with A J Ludlow Professional watercolours:

Figure 1: "Lumsdale Revisited", a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley.

Figure 2: "Sowter Stone, Chatsworth", a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley.

Figure 3: "Minninglow", a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley.

Figure 4: "Burbage Brook at Padley Gorge", a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley.

Figure 5: "Burbage Bridge", a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley.

Figure 6, 7 and 8: "Burbage 1, 2 and 3", three watercolour paintings by Lesley Linley.

Figure 9: "Cat", a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley.

Figure 10: "Hopton", a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley.

***

To see more of Lesley’s amazing work or to learn more about her paintings for sale and tuition, visit: www.lesleylinley.co.uk

Please note that all the images used in this ARTicle are from original watercolour paintings, painted using A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours by Lesley Linley and are subject to copyright and so, may not be used without the artist’s permission.

New Year - New Creative Hobby

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 13:18:20 GMT

Making New Year’s Resolutions is traditional at this time of year, so why not start your list with taking up watercolour painting as a new hobby!

New year, new hobby! Which new hobby are you going to start?

Well, there is quite a few to choose from; at one end there is “extreme ironing” for those who like to push themselves to the limit and the routine of pressing a shirt, to the next level, whilst at the other, there are hobbies that promote well-being and are safely done at the kitchen table. Taking up watercolour painting comes under the later type of hobby, but of course there is nothing stopping you from painting a watercolour whilst sky diving or water skiing….if a rush of adrenalin is your thing!

Joking apart, starting a new hobby can be a great way to bring positivity and excitement into your life, especially at the beginning of a new year. Watercolour painting, in particular, has been found to have numerous benefits for one's mental health and overall well-being. Not only does it provide a creative outlet for self-expression, but it can also help to reduce stress and anxiety levels.

Figure 1: Using my little red hair detailing brush to add the first few watercolours to my puffin painting

Those of you that are lucky enough to be able to incorporating watercolour painting into your daily routine, will find that it can also help to improve focus and concentration, as it requires a great deal of attention to detail and precision. Additionally, it can be a great way to connect with other like-minded individuals and build a sense of community through art classes or online forums.

Whether you are a beginner or an experienced artist, taking up watercolour painting as a new hobby is a great way to challenge yourself and explore your creativity. So why not give it a try and see how it can positively impact on your life?

Figure 2: Adding the finishing touches to the pair of puffins I am painting, with the ceramic tile I use as a palette in the background.

Aside from the joy of creating something beautiful, there are many other benefits from taking up watercolour painting. It is a great way to de-stress and unwind after a long day, and can even have therapeutic benefits, as Emma Jessen pointed out in last month’s ARTicle. Plus, it can help to improve your hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, as well as your ability to focus and concentrate. It can also give you that creative-buzz, that is so important to us as discussed in last September’s ARTicle. So, there is a lot of “under-the-surface” well-being aspects going on, as well as “up-front” enjoyment in spending time painting.

Watercolour is a beautiful and versatile painting medium that allows you to create stunning works of art using a range of techniques. From soft washes to bold brushstrokes, there are endless possibilities when it comes to watercolour painting. Furthermore, it is a relatively affordable hobby, as you don't need a lot of equipment or a big space to get started (as you can see from the photograph of my painting table, shown in figure 3). With regards to selecting the right watercolour paints, paper and brushes, please see our ARTicle from June 2022, “Revisiting ‘Watercolour Choices for the Budding Watercolourist’” and the ARTicles from January and February 2023 .

Figure 3: My painting table with some of my in-progress paintings, my favourite brushes, jars of watercolour paint, and few other odds-and-ends I regularly use.

Does it still sound difficult to try? I understand your apprehension. It is hard to know where to start, but don’t worry I have a solution.

Have you heard of the “All you need to paint..” watercolour painting sets designed and made by A J Ludlow? This could be a good place to start, as each painting set contains all the materials and instructions to allow you to try watercolour painting straight away. These painting sets were launched last August (as featured in August 2023’s ARTicle ) and as it says on the label (see figure 4), contain all you need to paint in watercolour; pencil drawn designs on 425gsm Saunders Waterford 100% cotton watercolour paper, two high quality brushes and three professional quality A J Ludlow watercolour paints. There are also painting videos to help you complete the paintings in each set, which you can do at your own pace.

Figure 4: The “All you need to paint..” watercolour painting sets and the four Puffin designs available in the three different sets.

So why not pick up a brush and some watercolours today and start exploring your creative side? Whether you paint for fun or decide to pursue it more seriously, you are sure to enjoy the process and the beautiful results that watercolour painting can produce.

New year, new hobby! Are you inspired to take on Watercolour as your new year’s hobby?

***

Well, I do hope you found Meiru's ARTicle interesting, Why not visit our "All you need to paint.." range of watercolour painting sets and see for yourself, why Meiru thinks it is a good place to start.

I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

Watercolour Therapy

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 10:51:07 GMT

Discover the art of healing through watercolours; reduce stress and reconnect with your childhood joy through painting

In today's fast-paced world, it's easy to feel like time is slipping away and we've lost touch with the simplicity of childhood. But here's the thing: we have more time than we think.

Consider those hours spent checking our phones and watching TV? They add up. And they don’t always do a lot for us. We compare ourselves to supermodels, to the rich, to marathon runners or to the unemployed friend who always seems to be in a new country. The result? We feel old, drained and cheated by the end of the week, and 'I wish I could feel like a kid again,' is something we find ourselves constantly wishing for. Well, here’s the good news: We hold the secret for recapturing childhood magic... By redirecting the time you spend on devices, you can heal yourself through the playfulness of art.

Reconnecting with Your Inner Child Through Watercolour Painting

There is something incredibly nostalgic, playful and healing about working with watercolours. The vibrant colours, the sense of freedom, the splodges of stray paint that work their way up your arm, it all makes you feel exactly like a kid again.

Where To Start?

A J Ludlow’s Exclusive Watercolour “All you need to paint” sets have everything you need to tap back into these childhood memories and take you back to the simpler times that you are missing. Each set has two charming pencil-drawn designs — You can choose anything from festive robins, puffins on holiday or scenic castles. It also includes 3 eco-friendly, professional-grade watercolours and two top-quality brushes. Whether you have experience in painting or not, these sets are perfect for anyone. The sets also come with step-by-step instructions!

The Benefits of Painting Nature

Reconnect with a youthful sense of wonder by painting natural scenes and take a rest from life’s chaos. Pick up A J Ludlow's robin or puffin set and the worries of adult life melt away through painting.

How to Achieve Mindfulness through Art

Becoming conscious of the way the brush feels in your hand, noticing the smell of the paint, watching how the colour glides across the page, and paying attention to your senses are all ways you can achieve mindfulness through art.

Sustaining the Hobby

A J Ludlow's secret sauce? It's all about keeping the hobby spark alive! With a focus on the creative journey, top-notch materials, and the sheer joy of it all, they make sure your artistic passion never dims. Your hobby, your purpose, your endless joy – A J Ludlow's got it all covered!

Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Just starting out? Here's a couple things to remember:

Firstly, it is important to remember: your art is Good enough Relax. Enjoy the process.

Secondly: don’t forget ‘wet on wet’. Wet the paper and the brush and watch the colours infuse with each other.

Lastly: paintbrushes and paper make a difference. Luckily, we have provided you with the highest quality but be mindful of this for future endeavours.

***

Well, I do hope you found Emma's ARTicle interesting, Why not visit our "All you need to paint " range of watercolour painting sets and see for yourself, why Emma thinks they are a good place to start to reconnect with your inner child.

We at A J Ludlow Colours would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Look out for next month’s issue in the new year, when we will be looking into another aspect of watercolour and watercolour painting.

A Colour Palette for Painting the Scenery of Autumn

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 14:23:18 GMT

Whether you are a seasoned artist or just starting out, painting the autumn scenery can be a fun and rewarding experience.

Autumn is a season that is known for its beautiful colours. It is a time when the leaves change from green to a variety of warm colours like red, orange, and yellow. Painting the autumn scenery is a popular activity among artists and art enthusiasts alike. To create a stunning autumn landscape, it is important to have a good selection of colours to work with.

When it comes to painting the autumnal scenery, there are several colours that are essential to have in your palette. These include warm colours like Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Isoindolinone Yellow and Transparent Iron Oxide Red. These colours will help you capture the vibrant and rich hues of the autumn leaves. It is also important to have some cool colours in your palette too, such as Antwerp Blue and Phthalo Green (YS), to help balance out the warm tones.

Figure 1: The watercolours in Meiru's autumn palette; Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre. Isoindolinone Yellow, Transparent Iron Oxide Red, Phthalocyanine Green (Yellow Shade) and Antwerp Blue.

In addition to having a good range of colours, it is also important to consider the quality of the paint. Investing in high-quality paint will ensure that your watercolours are vibrant and true to life. It will also make it easier to blend and layer colours to create depth and texture in your painting.

Figure 2: Using A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours on 425gsm Saunders Waterford CP (NOT), gives amazing results, especially with an exquisite "Purple Tip" Chinese Painting Brush.

To create a beautiful and realistic depiction of the stunning autumn landscape, the best way is to get outdoors and enjoy the natural surroundings. Having a walk in the park or going on a hike can stimulate inspiration for our next painting. The crisp air and the crunching sound of leaves under foot can help us connect with the season and capture its essence in our artwork.

Figure 3: Meiru out and about, enjoying the crisp autumn air and the myriad of beautiful colours, whilst painting en plein air .

When painting autumn landscapes, it is important to pay attention to the details. The texture of the leaves, the way the light filters through the trees, and the subtle changes in colour can all add depth and interest to your painting. Don't be afraid to experiment with different brush strokes and techniques to create the effects that you want.

Another important factor to consider when painting autumn landscapes is composition. By carefully selecting your subject and framing your painting, you can create a sense of depth and balance that draws the viewer in. Consider using the rule of thirds or other compositional techniques to guide your painting.

Figure 4: Putting the finishing touches to some silver birch trees in autumn.

Whether you are a seasoned artist or just starting out, painting the scenery of autumn can be a fun and rewarding experience. With a little practice and patience, you can create a stunning work of art that captures the beauty and magic of this special season.

If you would like to share your artwork with us, please use the hashtags of #ajludlowcolours and #paintingautumnscenery on Social Media. We are looking forward to seeing your paintings.

***

I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

Buyer Beware!

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 13:50:14 GMT

Sad tales of buying cheap watercolour paints.

One morning at breakfast, Meiru drew my attention to a Facebook post she had seen in her feed. It had been posted on a US watercolour group page by a watercolourist who had bought a “bargain-brand” 50 tube paint set to fill into pans and was alarmed by the results. The watercolourist (post author) was asking if anyone in the group could shed some light on what was going on with the watercolour paints in question. I certainly could and thought that you as well as the artist would be interested in the answer. But before we get too ahead of ourselves it might be best to share the post.

Figure 1: A screenshot of the “Watercolor for everyone” Facebook post*.

The post reads, “ I hope there might be someone here that can help me with my question. After purchasing a bargain-brand 50-tube paint set, I began to fill my pans to set up my palette for drying. I could hear the paint very liquified in the tubes and I shook them to make sure the settled pigments and binders were thoroughly mixed before filling the pans. Some of the paints flowed out of the tubes as thin as liquid acrylic, others came out blobby and gloppy as if it had tried to partially dry in the tube; I used toothpicks to then stir the paints smooth and bubble-free in the pans. I filled each pan to a generous fill, knowing there would be shrinkage to backfill. Now I was not expecting these paints to be Daniel Smith, A Gallo, or even Windsor(Winsor)&Newton quality. I also know to expect to get what you pay for! BUT HEAVENS TO BETSY!!!! This is ridiculous!! Could anyone please tell me what’s going on with these paints?!?!?!?!? I have not vet tried to rewet or use them at all – I’ve just been aghast at the loss!! There is barely a film over most of the pan bottoms!! I’m just very shocked and would love some answers!! Thank you all in advance for your help and consideration!! ”

Figure 2: Detail from the original Facebook post, showing the low yield of dried watercolour from the bargain-brand 50-tube paint set

The original post was posted on 20 September and since then, there have been 50 plus comments, none of which completely answer the question posed. The author has subsequently identified the brand and how much the 50 tube watercolour paint set cost, but I have chosen not to report this information, as I don’t think it adds anything further to this ARTicle.

Before I start to answer the “ what’s going on with these paints?!?!?!?!? ” question, I want to make it clear that I have no experience or knowledge of the bargain-brand itself nor the specific paint set mentioned by the post author in the comments to the original post. But what has been reported does resonate with my experience and has become standard practice, at the very low-quality end of the art materials market. However, the point I am more alarmed about is that these watercolour paints have obviously been marketed at a segment of consumers, who expect and require better quality paints.

So, in answer to “ what’s going on with these paints?!?!?!?!? ”, the answer is quite simple as someone in the post’s comments stated “ Cheaper paints are mostly filled with water as the water has evaporated you(‘)re left with not much at all ”. In my opinion this is correct, the fact that the once full pans on drying have very little left in them would indeed support this. Sorry to reiterate the obvious, but let us now focus on why these paints have been made this way.

As water tends to be the lowest cost raw material, it makes sense to add as much as possible to bring the cost down. However, with respect to a pigmented water-borne paint, it is not an easy thing to do. Addition of water will thin the paint out allowing pigment (which remains as heavy particles) to separate and settle. Therefore, for low-cost water-borne paints the tendency is to use thickened water, using similar formulation techniques as those used to stabilise gels, such as anti-inflammatory creams, hand sanitisers, etc.

From the author’s comments, some of the paint in the tubes were liquid, whilst others were “blobby and gloopy”, suggesting that the manufacturer had tried to use thickened water, but it hadn’t been completely successful. In most cases, cellulose derivatives are used to thicken water-borne coatings and the degree and stability of the thickening will depend on the amount used and their quality.

Again, apologies for stating the obvious, but I think this bargain-brand 50-tube paint set has been designed for the low-quality end of the watercolour market. The chalkiness of the dried paint in the pans suggests it is loaded with an extender (inexpensive, usually white powdered mineral) with very little binder and coloured pigment. The appearance of the dry paint suggests to me that the binder may not even be gum Arabic, but another less expensive and inferior quality water soluble gum. These are all standard formulation practices for children’s products, where the artist (child) is not too worried about the quality as long as it looks good on the fridge (gallery) before throwing in the recycling bin and the consumer (parent) is only concerned about the price and if it keeps the little artist amused for short while.

But why make such low-quality products? The answer is to meet a commercial price-point, which ultimately is dictated by the retailer! Large retailers have considerable power and often dictate how much products must cost, with little or no regard for the actual cost to the manufacturer. The retailer argues that it is a competitive market and so, squeezes the manufacturer, who either supplies at the retailer’s price-point or looses the business and so putting jobs at risk. Technology and formulation skill then comes in to play to reduce costs, but there will come a point where no further costs can be saved. So, then the retailers may turn to foreign manufacturers, who are no different, relying on orders to keep their factories going and their workers relying on their employers for their living and survival. Their products may initially be less expensive, but they will still be expected to reduce their price to meet the retailer’s new competitive price-point, or to compensate for cost rises in transport and import duties. But unlike the first group of manufacturers, their formulation expertise and ability to use technology to cut cost is often their biggest weakness and so product quality generally suffers, but this is not a big deal with regard to children’s paints, where cost is the primary focus for the consumer.

However, the author does state in a later comment to her original post that they did do some research before ordering the paint set, “ watched videos on other(s) using them and really expected them to be at least as good quality as the Daler & Rowney, Walmart sells in their stores .”

For me, the fact that the author had done research and there were videos to watch, suggested that the bargain-brand were marketing these watercolour paints at a different consumer segment (as paints for adult watercolour painters), other than parents (as paints for young children). This is the most alarming aspect of this sorry tale, as the bargain-brand is being less than honest about their watercolour paint set, obviously marketing it above its true quality position.

The problem with competing on price and not quality, is ultimately a race to the bottom! In this race there are casualties, as certain parts of the market makes sure that they keep their margins and so maintain their profits. Generally, this is at the expense of the manufacturers and the consumers (as in the case of the Facebook post author). Another important factor in this affair is the one that is often overlooked, the impact on the environment.

Each one of the millions of tubes of watercolour supplied in this 50 tube watercolour paint set and others like it, have required resources, such as energy, natural and man-made materials, which may or may not be renewable. In terms of money, these products may be inexpensive, but in reality they could be costing us all dearly.

It is difficult to suggest an alternative, one that would be acceptable to all. I personally am mindful of what this throw-away society means to our environment. What we purchase by mistake, we have to dispose of, which is another issue that is often overlooked. To buy the best you can afford is often sound advice as in the long run it can work out less expensive. With regards to watercolours, I have written a number of ARTicles, in which I discuss aspects of quality and how important it is to start with the right paints and tools, how product marketing can be deceptive to the unwary and what to look out for in performance and watercolour properties (see the links below). I hope you the readers, never get hoodwinked like the subject of this ARTicle did.

https://www.ajludlow.co.uk/testing-and-assessing-the-properties-of-watercolours-part-1

https://www.ajludlow.co.uk/testing-and-assessing-the-properties-of-watercolours-part-2

https://www.ajludlow.co.uk/revisiting-watercolour-choices-for-the-budding-watercolourist

Notes:

*In sharing this post here in this month’s ARTicle, I hope I have not broken any copyright laws. I have taken that because, the artist has posted on a group page we are members of, it allows me to share the post as other Facebook users can in their feeds and amongst their FB friends, except of course, I am sharing it elsewhere. However, I felt it more appropriate not to share the artist’s name.

Watercolour Painting – Food for the Soul

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 09:22:35 GMT

Where has all that creativity gone?

As children we all enjoyed creating art, either as paintings or drawings. It was fun and seemed to supercharge our imagination and storytelling, helped us to express what was important, maybe even find context for what appeared at the time to be abstract concepts, or to take our first tentative steps into creative problem solving……but then some of us just stopped!

So why did some of us stop painting and drawing?

Looking back to my early school years, there was always a time when drawing or painting featured heavily in our learning. A story would always be illustrated, factual essay or class project always included a drawing of the subject we were studying. Nobody complained that they couldn’t draw or paint, everyone (especially in my class) just got stuck in and created something, giving us so much pleasure to do so. It seemed that there was an overwhelming need to create that flowed through all of us, but then, it changed.

As I progressed to a higher school and learning became less fun and drawing and painting were confined to art classes, painting and creating art became part of the “curriculum” and somehow some of the fun and enjoyment was lost, along with the buzz from pure creativity.

Being creative is essential and part of our natural development as individual. It can be risky, but we depend on it and our brains reward us for trying by making creativity fun and stimulating. This is why I think drawing and painting was so important to us in our early school life and was encouraged as part of the learning process. It is why I continued to do so and I am sure this is the same for some of you too.

According to Sheila Pinion (Bupa UK) being creative is good for the wellbeing of the individual. It can also boost mental and emotional health, as it helps to reduce feelings of stress and loneliness, which in turn can improve our mood. She goes on to say that “whether it’s drawing, singing, playing music, writing, baking, dancing or gardening, having a creative outlet can work wonders for your mind.”

As watercolourists we often find ourselves teaching and so I would argue that this is where we need to subtly unlock our students’ inner “creative” child, the one that loved and enjoyed creating art, the one that never complained that they couldn’t draw, or couldn’t paint and gently nurture their creativity, rather than get too carried away with the technical stuff; as good materials (watercolour paints, paper and brushes), can go a long way with helping the student with the technicalities of watercolour painting, but that creative buzz will keep them coming back for more.

In an earlier ARTicle, “ Watercolour Choices for the Budding Watercolourist ”, I discussed the need to overcome certain negative preconceptions that we all have, which our inner “creative” child didn’t; one of which is the notion that our art is “not good enough”! In the ARTicle, I state that I believe everyone can paint or draw (certainly this is true for all children), but what stops us enjoying it is our own perception of the required level of skill and so are disappointed with the results, making the creative pastime a source of stress!

However, if our students are willing to accept whatever they create and see it as fun and a way to gain what was lost in going from a child to an adult, then their enjoyment will grow, just as their skills will grow. We as artists have found that to let go and be creative, completely focusing on what we are creating, can help us to think less about the things that are worrying us, but more importantly, it can be rewarding and enjoyable, especially as it can become absorbing and is challenging enough to allow us to pass into a “flow” state, or a form of very active, moving meditation.

Painting in watercolour can be an easy creative pastime to take up and it is why it is usually the first choice of “those who want to get back into painting”. It can be practised anywhere in the home, requiring little space, but as we know, it is possibly the most challenging of the painting arts. So, as practitioners of this technique, we have a duty to encourage those that wish to learn and remain mindful that painting in watercolour or more precisely, being creative is good for the wellbeing of the individual and not just a set of techniques to be passed on.

Reference:

“How do creative hobbies benefit your health?” by Sheila Pinion, accessed on 29/08/23:

https://www.bupa.co.uk/newsroom/ourviews/creativity-hobbies-benefit-health#:~:text=Creativity%20can%20reduce%20stress%20and%20improve%20mental%20health&text=You%20may%20find%20that%2C%20after,a%20positive%20and%20productive%20way.

*****

I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

Painting Atlantic Puffins in watercolour.

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 18:57:12 GMT

Puffins breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands along the British and North European coastlines and so are frequent visitors to Skomer and Skokholm Islands, off the Pembrokeshire coast. It is therefore fitting that the “clown of the sea” should be the first subject of our new range of watercolour painting sets.

The puffin photograph above is by David Hatton and is subject to copyright

Also known as “sea parrots”, puffins are stocky, short-winged, and short-tailed birds, with a distinctive black and white plumage and bright orange feet. Although there are three species of Puffins (two are found in the North Pacific), it is the Atlantic Puffin ( Fratercula arctica ), which frequents our coastline and offshore islands, in the British Isles. It lives in the North Atlantic and only comes landward to breed, which it does in large colonies, nesting in crevices among rocks or in burrows in the soil, forming lifelong relationships (where life expectancy can be as old as 25 years) and both parents take turns to incubate the single egg and feed the young puffin (“Puffin”, Wikipedia).

During the breeding season, the bird’s bill appears large and colourful, giving its face the appearance of a circus clown and its comical antics in taking off and landing (due to its short wingspan), earned it the nickname of “clown of the sea”. However, after the breeding season is over, the birds’ coloured beaks are shed, revealing a small and duller bill beneath and when they return to the sea, their wings come into their own as they have been adapted to help the Puffins "fly" underwater.

It is possible to see the birds nesting on Skomer Island, off the Pembrokeshire coast, as regular boat trips are available from when they arrive around April, to when the Puffins leave, in July-August. The visiting Atlantic Puffins, have therefore become quite a tourist attraction and a "must see" sight when visiting Pembrokeshire. So we, at A J Ludlow Colours decided that as they are honoured guests of the county in which we now call home, they should feature in our new watercolour painting sets and, …....

.........they are so cute!

It was Meiru who first painted a single Puffin, then it became two Puffins and few more puffins, as it became obvious that painting them was fun. “Fun” was the concept around which our watercolour painting set was born and the first subject, selected. There was one more important factor that we wanted to build into our painting sets, something special and a complete experience, so in order to do this, we included in each set, the best materials and tools as standard.

Our “All you need to paint..” watercolour painting sets do contain all that’s needed to paint the two pencil drawn puffins on Saunders Waterford 425gsm watercolour paper. By using Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Ultramarine Blue and Transparent Iron Oxide Red Professional Watercolour and 2 of our finest Chinese brushes, a traditional sable painting brush and detailing brush, both designs can be expertly painted following our individual 12-step printed painting instructions. There are also video painting demonstrations for each design available on our Youtube channel, which can be reached via dedicated QR codes. If you are a bit of a “Maverick”, then there is scope for you to include your own choice of background, but the important aspect of the painting set is the opportunity to try top notch materials and see what a difference it can make to your watercolour painting.

Figure 1: An alternative background, also painted with the three A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours: Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Ultramarine Blue and Transparent Iron Oxide Red.

Meiru, has designed each painting to include some of her favourite watercolour techniques and also by limiting the number of colours, includes aspects of colour mixing as well (as can be seen in the chart below).

Figure 2: Chart showing the hues possible when mixing the three A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours, Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Ultramarine Blue and Transparent Iron Oxide Red.

She is affectionally calling these painting sets, a ”watercolour lesson in a bag” not just because of their potential for developing your watercolour painting skills, but also because the sets are presented in a paper envelope (keeping the packaging’s carbon foot print low).

So to give you a taste of our new “All you need to paint..” Professional Watercolour Painting set, have a go and paint an Atlantic Puffin with Meiru:

The image above is the single Puffing outline, which in the set, comes as a pre-drawn pencil drawing on Saunders Waterford 425gsm paper.

1. Use a wet brush to paint Cadmium Lemon Yellow in the beak area and on the right foot.

2. With clean water, use the big sable brush to wet the areas where the dark feathers will be.

3. Use the same detailing brush as previously (containing Cadmium Lemon Yellow) to take a little bit of Trans. Iron Oxide Red and then paint the beak, under the eye and the feet.

4. Mix Trans. Iron Oxide Red with Ultramarine Blue to get a deep black colour to paint the puffin’s feathers.

5. Use the black colour to the paint the areas where dark feathers are on the puffin.

6. Use the same mixed black colour to paint eye, dark strips on the beak and outline of the bird’s breast.

7. Use a clean and damp brush to blend the outline on the Bird’s breast to give it a softer edge.

8. Use clean water with the larger sable brush to wet the background area. Make sure the brush is clean before using.

9. Use a diluted Ultramarine Blue wash to paint the background.

10. Mix Cadmium Lemon Yellow and Ultramarine Blue to get a green, then use it with the small detailing brush to draw the outline of the rocks and grass the puffin is standing on.

11. Paint the ground with light wash of colour first.

12. Finally, darken up the area to create shade and shadows.

Incidentally, the set is designed to have more than enough A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour to paint both designs and have some left over for other paintings. You can also add to these three watercolours from our range of 48 single pigmented professional quality watercolours and the new Special Limited Edition ones. We also have stocks of other brushes and Saunders Waterford watercolour paper available from our on-line shop (on our website), and if you need inspiration or encouragement there’s the painting videos on our Youtube channel, A J Ludlow Colours.

So, what are you waiting for?

References:

Accessed 26/07/2023:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffin

***

I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

Adding life and movement to paintings by introducing supplementary figures.

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 05:42:54 GMT

Believe it or not, producing convincing figures is not as straight forward as one would think, but with practise and a trained eye, the task becomes easier and the results can turn a static image into a painting full of life and activity.

I have found that introducing supplementary figures into a painting changes the whole dynamic, it can turn an otherwise “flat” or seemingly “static image” into one that seems to depict life and movement. A painting of a desolate beach can go from just another painting of a delightful beauty spot to an interesting and captivating day at the seaside, just by adding a few figures.

In my painting “Landing Craft Infantry 375” (see figure 1), I carefully included the numerous personnel who were on deck at the time when the original photograph was taken and included a few others, when it was difficult to make out exactly what the image was showing. In the painting, the figures are hard to notice and do not stand out, because they have a natural synergy with the rest of the painting. That is why I used the phrase “carefully included” as the result could have been very different.

Figure 1: “Landing Craft Infantry 375”, a watercolour painting by Andrew Ludlow

To leave the figures out would obviously have been easy to do, but the bridge and deck would have been empty and I am sure that would have given the painting an un-natural feel, as the craft is under full speed, heading for the Normandy coast on the morning of D-Day. So, adding the figures was certainly necessary. However, just by adding a few unconvincing figures would equally have create an un-natural feel and look about the painting.

So, what is a supplementary or synergistic figure in a painting, how can it be created and more importantly, what is an unconvincing one and how can they be avoided?

The beach scene in figure 2 is a detail from an abandoned watercolour painting and is a good example of getting it wrong and creating unconvincing figures. It shows a family on a wind-swept beach; an over turned deck chair and the woman’s hair provide movement, the posture of the figures is what you would expect from a family trying to shelter from the wind, but there is something visually that is not quite right. The woman and man are the focal point and this was true for the whole painting, because the figures look un-natural and stick out. It is not just a matter of making sure that the subtle nuances of the human form are accurately depicted (and so avoiding distorted or wooden figures), too much defined detail can also have an impact too, as in the case of this painting. My opinion as to why this grouping did not work is because the man’s face and the woman’s sunglasses are too well defined.

Figure 2: Detail from an abandoned watercolour painting by Andrew Ludlow.

It follows then that a convincing figure is one that is in harmony with the rest of the painting, as in the case of the figures on the deck of “Landing Craft Infantry 375” (shown in detail in figure 3). What is evident with these figures is that their stance, posture and shape are accurately depicted in the painting but there is very little defined detail, which is correct, as the craft is some distance from the observer. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the rules of perspective and distance must apply to the figures equally as it does to the surroundings.

Figure 3: Detail of the figures on the deck of “Landing Craft Infantry 375”.

In the watercolour painting “Miss Lace Receives Some Tender Loving Care”, the Boeing B-17G (42-97976) “Bit o‘ Lace” is being repaired/serviced in a hanger by USAAF ground crew (figure 4). What makes this painting so interesting is the ground crew going about their jobs repairing the aircraft.

Figure 4: “Miss Lace Receives Some Tender Loving Care”, a watercolour painting by Andrew Ludlow.

The painting works well because the figures are accurately depicted, with the right amount of definition (see figure 5). Again, the incidental figures are in synergy with the rest of the painting.

Figure 5: Detail from “Miss Lace Receives Some Tender Loving Care” by Andrew Ludlow.

Likewise in the oil painting “Great Yarmouth 2” (figure 6), the figures show just the right amount of definition, even though they are the focal point of this colourful hot summer afternoon on the beach at Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.

Figure 6: “Great Yarmouth 2”, an oil painting by Andrew Ludlow.

To create convincing figures is not a difficult task, but can be fraught with frustration. To succeed requires a concerted effort in observation and practice.

A big generalisation here: everyone knows that formal art training includes life drawing, working from the nude figure as a means of observing and understanding the nuances of the human form and thus develop the untrained eye into one that can detect the subtleties of the human figure at rest and in motion and so be able to depict it in their work with convincing accuracy. I think the important aspects here are observation and the existence of the untrained eye.

I read an article a long time ago in one of the painting magazines by Gerald Green (unfortunately I no long have the reference, but do have a photocopy to refer to), who suggested keeping a sketch book of drawings made of people going about their day. He recommended that the sketches be quick, with the minimum amount of drawing but a lot of observation. He would then use these studies to add figures to his own paintings. He also suggested experimenting by making, what he called brush “doodles”, which I have followed and the results are shown in figure 7.

Figure 7: Brush “doodles” in watercolour (after Gerald Green).

I found the brush “doodling” quite interesting and rewarding. In the article he suggests “letting go” and working from our imagination, it was this aspect that I found liberating.

Photographs are also a good way of capturing the human form, although one must be careful as many among us do not like our photographs being taken! There is also another potential hurdle with photographs if you have an untrained eye and your observational skills are not quite up to it. The danger is painting what you think is there based on your understanding of what you see in the photograph and not what is actually present or what you are seeing. This could also be true when you are sketching, but I agree with Gerald Green’s article, the sketching from life method will develop your observation skills quicker, especially if you follow his method of observing once and then drawing what you remember.

To master the art of observation is to master one of the fundamentals of painting (realistically) and with practice, and a lot more practice, the task of adding figures to give your paintings that je ne sais quoi will, I am sure, enhance your painting skills and increase your enjoyment.

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I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

What’s been going on at A J Ludlow Colours?

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 14:58:54 GMT

Launching the new iridescent and metallic Professional Watercolour range and the introduction of some interesting Special Limited Edition additions.

I am happy to share that over the last month, the Colours of the United Kingdom watercolour set has gathered a considerable amount of interest amongst you all. The set was created in celebration of the Coronation of His Royal Highness King Charles III, as detailed in last month’s ARTicle. It was composed of six watercolours not found in my range of 48 and it was these that got you excited and asking the question, will there be any more new colours?

Well, the answer is, yes there will be, or more accurately, yes there are!

Those of you who visited us at the Living Crafts Show in Hatfield Park over the Coronation weekend (5 ^th to 8 ^th May), will know that we were show casing our new range of iridescent and metallic effect watercolours. These watercolours have been formulated to the same high standard as our Professional Watercolour range and are available packed in 15ml jars, for the same reasons as our conventional watercolours; convenience of use, easy to “squeeze out the last drop”, the watercolour’s hue can be seen through the jar wall, the colour can be easily transferred from the jar to the palette with a palette knife, it can be easily inspected and if necessary mixed if separation occurs or if the colour dries, etc, which I am sure you are all aware of and don’t need me to tell you. Of course, you can still purchase the pigments and our Watercolour Binder and Painting Medium and make your own, which is so easy to do.

So, let us have a little look at what’s now in this range:

There are five iridescent watercolours based on the five high-performance interference pigments (also available in our range of Pure Pigment Powders), now identified by their colour flop, as you can see in figure 1.

Figure 1: The five iridescent Professional Watercolours.

Show cased in figure 2 are the four gold effect metallic Professional Watercolours. Although available in the Colours of the United Kingdom Gift Set, Celtic Gold and Sovereign Gold also form part of the new metallic watercolour range as does Lemon Gold and the rose coloured Welsh Gold, which was matched to a real example.

Figure 2: The four gold effect Professional Watercolours.

There are other metallic effect watercolours included in the range; Brass, Copper and a cream-shade Silver (again matched to a real example), as shown in figure 3, whilst in figure 4 the two shimmer effect watercolours are shown, based on the gold and silver twinkle effect pigments (also available in our range of Pure Pigment Powders).

Figure 3: Brass, Copper and Silver effect metallic Professional Watercolours.

Figure 4: Gold and silver shimmer effect metallic Professional Watercolours.

The final two Professional Watercolours in the range are in my view quite innovative and in a small way experimental. They are coloured metallics, using both metallic effect and conventional pigments. There are only two available at the moment, Emerald and Steel Blue, but I am open to new colour suggestions and will be happy to extend the number of these coloured metallics to five in the future.

Figure 5: Coloured metallic effect Professional Watercolours.

For those of you who prefer the conventional type of pigmented watercolours, I have some good news for you too. Over the coming months I will be launching Special Limited Edition watercolours to add to your palette. Each one of these new Professional Watercolours will be formulated with the highest degree of lightfastness and permanence in mind. Their brightness, intensity and hue will be uncompromised; qualities that you expect from us and these new watercolours will be made from the same pure pigments and fine ingredients as our current colour range of 48 single pigmented Professional Watercolours. So, June’s new watercolour is Hooker’s Green.

Figure 6: A J Ludlow Hooker’s Green Professional Watercolour.

According to the “Field’s Chromatography” as revised by Thomas Salter, Hooker’s Green was a compound of Prussian blue and gamboge. He notes that there were two variants in common use in 1869, “-No1, a grass green, in which the yellow predominates” and “No. 2, a deeper and more powerful green, with a larger amount of blue”. In the Winsor & Newton publication, “A Descriptive Handbook of Modern Water Colour Pigments” by J Scott Taylor, colour washes of both Hooker’s Green No1 and No2 are provided, which supports Salters colour descriptions. Furthermore, in the “Pigment Compendium” (page 192) Hooker’s Green is referred to as belonging to the category of mixed greens, which was coined by art material commentators in the 19th century.

The hue that I chose for my Hooker’s Green is the No1 “grass green” variant. The original pigments listed in its composition would not give a satisfactory watercolour for inclusion in my professional range, as gamboge has very poor lightfastness and is derived from the poisonous exudate from the clusiaceae tree (found In Cambodia). I have therefore matched the original hue with lightfast and non-toxic pigments, to give a bright and permanent colour, worthy of incorporation in the A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour range.

Out of curiosity (and to provide a more complete colour story), I searched the internet for reference to the artist who lent their name to this bright and fresh green and found that I was not the only one to do so. I came across a blog written by OrbisPlanis looking for the very same information as I was. He discovered that the Hooker in question was a William Jackson Hooker, an English botanist and botanical illustrator, who became the first director of Kew Gardens. Hooker’s Green, was the colour he mixed to capture the hue of the leaves in his paintings.

It is an attractive and bright mixed green, which I hope you will find a useful addition, so, please do add A J Ludlow Hooker’s Green Professional Watercolour to your palette.

And finally, don’t forget each month will see a new Special Limited Edition watercolour becoming available to purchase directly from A J Ludlow Colours, via our on-line shop. If you keep in touch through our newsletter, you will receive the news directly. So, if you haven’t already subscribed to our newsletter, please do so.

References:

Salter, TW, “FIELD'S CHROMATOGRAPHY; OR TREATISE ON COLOURS AND PIGMENTS AS USED BY ARTISTS. AN ENTIRELY NEW AND PRACTICAL EDITION; REVISED, REWRITTEN, AND BROUGHT DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME. SALTER'S EDITION”, Winsor and Newton, London, 1869

Scott Taylor J, “A Descriptive Handbook of Modern Water Colour Pigments”, Winsor and Newton, London, 1887

Eastaugh N, Chaplin T, Siddall R, Walsh V, “Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary and Optical Microscopy of Historic Pigments”, Routledge, Abingdon 2013

Accessed on 31/05/2023 - http://orbisplanis.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-is-it-called-hookers-green.html

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I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

In Celebration of the Coronation of King Charles III.

Mon, 01 May 2023 12:35:48 GMT

How I went about creating a special watercolour gift set.

The Coronation of a Monarch is full of pomp and ceremony and the crowning of King Charles III will be no different. For me, it will be the first time to see the coronation of a British Royal, but for some, who witnessed his mother’s in 1953, it will be their second. It is too this end, that I set about creating a set of six professional quality watercolours that would reflect this auspicious occasion and be full of symbolic meaning.

The fact that the gift set will be watercolours is fitting, as HRH Charles III is an accomplished watercolourist and honorary member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours. I first saw some of his work during an exhibition of the Royal Institute at the Mall Galleries in 1997 and remember seeing photographs of the then Prince of Wales painting whilst on holiday at Balmoral. Hopefully he will still have time to relax and paint and maybe even try some of my watercolours.

Figure 1: The Coronation 2023 emblem designed by Sir Jony Ive KBE, incorporating the colours of the Union flag; red, white and blue.

Since announcing the date of the Coronation, many suppliers to the retail companies have been producing special gifts and even an emblem is available to use free of charge for all activities, events and merchandising associated with the event (see figure 1). I also consider to produce a special watercolour gift for the occasion and so set about defining the colours I would include.

I had previously used three special colours as part of the Platinum Jubilee set, where I wanted a blue and red that matched the colours of the Union flag (see figure 2) and created a gold watercolour, to symbolise the crown. I decided to include these three colours in my Coronation set and so set about looking for another three, that would be equally symbolic.

Figure 2: The Union Flag painted using Regal Red and Royal Blue for the sleeve design for the Platinum Jubilee gift set

Symbolic is quite an interesting concept, especially when looking for colours that represent meaning, but what meaning should I be looking to symbolise?

In other words, what was going to be the underlining them of my set, one that would continue well after the King had been crowned and the celebrations, a distant memory. It was at this point I started to think about the Royal family and what they might regard as an important symbol of the Coronation. One thought led to another and finally I came up with the idea of the colours of the United Kingdom. So, what colours best symbolise each of the four geographic and historical Kingdoms of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

Well, there is the red white and blue of the Union flag, including the of the cross of St George and the blue of St Andrew. The yellow of the Welsh daffodils worn on St David’s day and the background of the Royal Standard. The red of the English rose and Welsh dragon. The green associated with the Emerald Isle, shamrock and the green found on the Welsh flag. The violet of the Scottish thistle and not to mention the abundance of coloured threads of Scottish tartan.

Then what of HRH Charles III himself, what colours best symbolise him? The gold and purple of the crown he will wear or the colours of the Royal Standard, blue, red and a rich golden yellow. In the end I settled for six colours, which I believe instil the colour essence of the Coronation and celebrates the United Kingdom too (see figure 3).

Figure 3: The A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours, presented in the Limited Edition Gift Sets to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III.

The six special colours, I finally chose for their association with the Crown and the United Kingdom are :

Regal Red - a cadmium based red, its colour is closely associated with the red rose of England, the Welsh Dragon and the red colour of the flag of St George and the Union flag;

Imperial Purple - a strong organic purple, whose colour resembles the velvet of the Crown Charles will wear when he is crowned;

Royal Blue - a rich, strong violet shade blue, chosen for its association with the blue in the Union Flag and St Andrew’s Flag;

Seamair Green – a beautiful yellow shade green, its name derived from the Irish tongue, (meaning shamrock or young clover and pronounced SHAM-ur). This colour was chosen as it is closely associated with the giving and receiving of shamrock on St Patrick’s Day.

Sovereign Gold – one of the two metallic-effect gold watercolours presented in this gift set, the colour of this is a reddish gold hue;

Celtic Gold - the other metallic-effect gold watercolour presented in this gift set, the colour of this is a lemon gold hue. Both golds symbolise the St Edward's Crown, which King Charles III will wear when he is officially declared as King during his Coronation.

My next task was to distilling all these ideas into a painting that I could use as artwork for the gift set sleeve and label design. I opted to paint a shamrock, thistle, rose and dragon in the four corners, with St Edward’s crown in the centre, superimposed on a Union flag as shown in figures 4. Figure 5 shows the work in progress in my studio and figure 6 is the finished painting.

Figure 4: The four “Kingdoms” are done, just adding details to the Crown of St Edward

Figure 5: A work in progress. The artist and author in his studio.

Figure 6: “A United Kingdom”, a watercolour painting by Andrew Ludlow, using only the six Special Limited Edition Colours.

And finally……

Figure 7: The Colours of the United Kingdom Special Limited Edition Professional Watercolour Gift Sets.

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Well, I do hope you found this ARTicle interesting, I certainly found preparing for it and writing it most enjoyable. Look out for next month’s issue, when we will be looking into another aspect of watercolour and watercolour painting.

Painting with A J Ludlow Watercolours.

Sat, 01 Apr 2023 08:44:21 GMT

Watercolourist Lesley Linley, puts A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours through their paces.

Hello; we’ve not met here before so here’s an introduction.

I’ve always been involved in art; my first career was Graphic Design, my second was teaching in Adult Education (calligraphy, painting, drawing) along with some freelance painting and calligraphy work.

In 2004 I moved to the Isle of Skye and eventually opened a studio and began full time self-employment. The studio was perfect for producing and exhibiting my paintings and running watercolour workshops for local people and holidaymakers from all over the world. In 2017 I began work on my book Mountains in Watercolour (Search Press), which features the area around my home on Skye, as part of their popular series ‘Ready to Paint in 30 minutes’. I moved back to Derbyshire in 2018; the road has been a bumpy one since then, with family health, injury and the pandemic disrupting plans.

In 2019 I met Andrew and Meiru (A J Ludlow) at Patchings Festival; I’d not heard of the company before – not surprising as it was so new - and took the opportunity whilst there to ‘have a dabble’ with their watercolours. I’d fallen out of love with my old brand when manufacture moved overseas; later changes further diluted my enthusiasm for the product and my confidence in it. I liked the A J Ludlow colours and was thrilled to find a British manufacturer but I had a lot of my old brand which I felt I couldn’t discard. A few weeks later I broke my back and briefly wondered if my painting days were over; fortunately the break was stable and I completed physiotherapy just before Covid entered UK life.

My book was published in March 2020 as lockdown began and my book promotion events and classes were cancelled. I couldn’t visit the waterfalls that I wished to paint and had to search for inspiration at home. I began a series of paintings featuring glassware, shadows and flowers, quite a change from landscape painting but I enjoyed it. I also wrote a few articles for Leisure Painter, another new venture.

In March 2021 I needed surgery to repair a cut tendon in my right (painting) hand; months of physiotherapy went into restoring function and, once more, I found myself wondering how the injury would affect my ability to paint. Over the summer I became a stranger to my craft. When I began painting again I started with small pieces; I found that I would need to make some adjustments to how I work, but I could paint. Fate intervened again a few weeks later as I became a full-time carer and painting was once more set aside.

2022 saw the return of Patchings Festival and I met Andrew and Meiru again, but I still had all that old paint and no time to use it! Bereavement a few weeks later meant that I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. When I did get the paint out I found that much of it had hardened in the tubes; it can be extracted but it’s not the best use of my precious hands.

Painting with A J Ludlow Watercolours.

In December I was reminded about A J Ludlow Colours. Within minutes I was studying the list of colours available. I began to feel a buzz of excitement and anticipation for painting that had been missing for a long time. I chose colours that were close to those of my old brand where possible and a few new ones.

The arrival of my A J Ludlow Watercolours just before Christmas was a huge pick-me-up and an excuse to play with the paint. I made a colour mix chart so that I could get a feel for the paint and compare the new range with my old colours; my choices worked out quite well and I found some promising new combinations.

“Gardening Gifts” a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley - This was my first painting with the AJL colours.

I’d switched from pans to tube colours in my old brand soon after I began to paint professionally as it’s quick and easy to get a good volume of concentrated colour to the palette. I find that tube paint remains clean and fresh, whereas pans can (in some hands at least) become contaminated. How would I like these colours that come in jars? It was certainly a form of presentation I’d not encountered before.

I actually find the jars quite handy and it’s easy to keep the colour fresh and clean; I use a palette knife to take paint from the jar and wipe the knife immediately so that I don’t contaminate colours. The label is easy to read and the glass jar provides a window to the contents. There’s no ooze of binder from the colour as sometimes happens with tube paint. I replace lids immediately so that colours don’t dry out, just as I would replace a lid on a tube and I leave unused colour on my palette for future use, just as I would with tube colour. In practice, the change from tubes to jars has been no problem at all. So far so good, I like the packaging, but what do I think about the contents?

“Bud Vase” a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley - A painting using those two ‘must have’ colours (Burnt Umber and Ultramarine).

I love the tonal range of the Burnt Umber, which unlike my old brand, is single pigment and much darker. Burnt Umber is one of my two ‘can’t be without’ colours. I mix it with Ultramarine (the other colour that I couldn’t be without), varying the quantities of each for a wide range of warm, cold or neutral greys. I’ve found that I can easily mix the Umber with Burnt Sienna and/or Raw Sienna (or Transparent Iron Oxide Red and/or Transparent Iron Oxide Yellow) if I wish to get close to the colour of my old brand. (I doubt that I need to have the Transparent Iron Oxide colours as well as Raw and Burnt Sienna but I’m curious to compare them and ordered the Siennas after initially trying the Iron Oxides). I’ve used Raw Sienna a lot in the past, but I’m currently using Transparent Iron Oxide Yellow often; it has a strange look when taken from the jar but dilutes smoothly. The Burnt Sienna is less ‘orange’ than my old range but is a lovely warm brown. I have more experimentation to do with these Oxides and Siennas; the handling characteristics of a colour are as important to me as the colour itself.

I thought I would miss Quinacridone Gold which I used to use with Prussian Blue for a deep rich green but I’ve found that a tiny amount of Quinacridone Rose added to Azomethine Green gives me something close enough, for my needs, to Quinacridone Gold. I haven’t bought greens for many years but I have Azomethine Green in my palette of A J Ludlow Watercolours; I regard it as a yellow and find it particularly good when mixed with Prussian Blue or Phthalo Blue GS for rich greens (and with a tiny amount of Quinacridone Rose the green is neutralised a little). Most of my colours are transparent and stain to some degree. I’ve used Cadmiums very little in the past because of their opacity but I now have three, I’ve not used them much yet but have found them surprisingly pleasant to use.

I rarely paint people but was keen to check possibilities for skin tones and successfully mixed colours near to those of my own skin from various combinations of Transparent Iron Oxide Red, Transparent Iron Oxide Yellow, Ultramarine and Burnt Umber; substituting the oxides for the siennas seems to work well too.

I was very happy with my initial selection of colours for landscape painting. I have added Anthraquinone Crimson for flowers and still life, and Isoindolinone Yellow because I wanted to try an additional transparent yellow. Some colours are very strong and I’m still getting accustomed to just how little I need to use.

Don’t be put off by the long, perhaps unfamiliar names of some A J Ludlow Colours; I shorten the names in my own notes and those for students, there’s nothing scientific about it, just my own abbreviations for which I provide a key (for example, Azomethine Green becomes Azo). If you’re unsure which colours to choose you can ask for advice or choose a starter set; you might discover some lovely new mixes, as I have.

I have 16 AJL Colours in total, but rarely use more than 6 in a painting, often only two or three.

So, after trying a new brand after 30+ years, what do I think? I’m very pleased with the A J Ludlow Watercolours and I love the fact that I’m, once again, using a quality British made watercolour paint, following in the tradition of watercolourists for around two hundred years.

My A J Ludlow watercolours to date are:

Here are some of my pa intings with these colours; a range of subjects and I’m happy with how the paint performs on all.

“Christmas Shadows” a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley - I set about this painting purely because I loved the shadows cast by the decorations. I found that I needed a little crimson for the shadows on the red fabrics, I didn’t have this in my AJL colours but I do now.

“Frozen II (Waterfall)” a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley - I’d painted a similar icy scene a few years ago and painted this purely to see how my new colours compared. There were no disappointments.

“Hare” a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley (LHS) and “Gran’s china” a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley (RHS)

These damaged pieces were heading for the bin but I decided they could be used in paintings before they met their fate. When painting ‘just for fun’, the results are often fresher than a subject which has been laboured over for too long.

“Lumsdale” a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley - I was becoming known for waterfall paintings before lockdown, this is taken from an old photograph.

“Sunlight glass at the window” a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley - This was more effective several hours before I put my brush down; annoying but that’s life!

“Tulips” a watercolour painting by Lesley Linley - This ideally needs a few darker tones but as I’d spoiled the previous painting by overworking I decided to leave this well alone - for now. The tulips showed a remarkable capacity for recovery, drooping every day and recovering every night. A metaphor for perseverance?

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To see more of Lesley’s amazing work or to learn more about her book, paintings for sale and tuition, visit:

www.lesleylinley.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/PaintSkye

Colour Mixing – a Personal Reflection.

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 13:36:01 GMT

Are there really hard and fast rules when it comes to colour mixing for watercolour painting?

There are quite a few books, web posts and video tutorials concerning colour mixing, which I am in no doubt, have been produced to help explain the "dos and don’ts" of mixing colour. They all seem to have the same formula: introduction to colour theory, warm and cool colours, base their guidance around a limited palette and invariably use colour names for watercolours that are made and sold by one particular brand of art materials. Most, if not all are aimed at beginners, who soak up all this advice and leave with the idea that there is “no other way” to mix colour and paint in watercolours.

However, before we look more closely at the "dos and the don'ts" of colour mixing, I thought it would be good to touch on the technique of mixing watercolours, as it is often forgotten that the resultant colour can be slightly different, depending on how you mix (see figure 1). In my experience as a watercolourist, there are three ways to mix watercolours:

On the palette;
On the painting;
Over laying transparent washes.

Figure 1: The three mixing techniques: (a) mixing on the painting, (b) mixing on the palette and (c) over laying transparent washes

Mixing on the palette, is generally the most common method. It can lead to a fairly messy paint box, if your preference is to use pan colour. When using moist watercolour, mixing can be done at full strength (actually blending the moist watercolours together), or diluted (dipping a wet brush from one colour to another). Mixing on the painting itself, whilst the watercolours are still wet, keeps the paint box and palette relatively clean and can best be done by loading different brushes with the chosen watercolours, then bring them together on the painting. The technique of overlaying transparent washes produces the cleanest colour mix, but requires that the first watercolour down is completely dry before applying the next (and so on). It also requires that transparent or semi-transparent watercolours are used, although semi-opaque and opaque colours can be used but these need to be the first ones applied.

Let me now turn my attention to colour mixing and through a number of questions, reflect on what I think is useful, helpful, and important. Colour mixing can seem a little daunting at first, but becomes second nature with experience.

Do we really need to know about colour theory?

Colour theory is a fairly complex series of ideas, which describes all aspects of the science of how light interacts with coloured surfaces and how the human eye sees colour, through to the more sensory aspects (Wikipedia - Color Theory). As artists, not all aspects of colour theory are relevant, but knowing a little can help, especially when we are trying to describe our colour perceptions.

So, for me it is useful to know and speak of each colour in terms of:

Value – describing a colour’s lightness or darkness;
Chroma – describing the colour’s saturation, purity or intensity;
Hue – is the “colour’s” name, for example is it a red, yellow, blue, etc.

Another concept worth keeping in mind is that we painters use subtractive colour mixing, in that when we mix the colours of the rainbow together, we don’t end up with white (additive colour mixing), but black! Similarly, the Wikipedia article points out that even with three “pure” primary colours, it is not possible to mix all possible colours, but only a limited range. The failure to achieve all possible colours has often been described as being due to impurities or imperfections in the colourants used, but the fact is, that only the “imaginary primaries” used in colorimetry can achieve this (Wikipedia – Color Theory).

Figure 2: The watercolours used to paint this colour wheel, were all single pigmented; Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Red, Manganese Violet, Ultramarine Blue and Phthalo Green (YS) from the A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour Range.

The use of complementary colours is another aspect of the theory, which among artists, is considered important to use. Basically, complementary colours are those that cancel out each other’s hue, thus producing grey or black (subtractive) or white (additive). Often explained using a six segment colour wheel made up of the primary colours, red, yellow and blue, separated by their secondary colours, purple, green and orange (see figure 2). The complementary colours are those opposite each other: yellow and purple; red and green; blue and orange.

Here is a question for you the reader: is the result of mixing a primary with a secondary to cancel each other out as predicted by this complementary colour concept, or just the fact of mixing three pigments together?

The results of a two pigment “complementary mix is very different to a three pigment mix as can be seen in figure 3. The Cadmium Red - Ultramarine Blue - Cadmium Yellow mix has resulted in a dark brownish grey, where as the Cadmium Yellow - Dioxaine Violet mix does not. This would suggest that the presence of the additional pigment in the three pigment mix is the determining factor resulting in cancelling the hues and not the complementary colour concept.

Figure 3: A comparison between (a) mix of Cadmium Yellow with Dioxaine Violet (a “complementary” mix of two single pigmented watercolours) and (b) mix of Cadmium Yellow (primary) with a purple (composed of Cadmium Red and Ultramarine Blue) secondary colour.

The colour theory also defines the abstractions of Shade (darkening of colour value) and Tint (to lighten colour value). Changes in colour value by the addition of black in order to darken and water (in watercolour painting) to lighten, can unfortunately result in a hue shift in the original colour. These colour shifts can be neutralised in both shade and tint (as can be seen in figure 4), by using the complementary colour to produce shades and addition of a small amount of the adjacent colour (with respect to the colour wheel) to create a tint (Wikipedia – Colour Theory).

Figure 4: (a) Cadmium Yellow shades with (LHS) Ivory Black (showing a green shift) and (RHS) Dioxaine Violet (showing darkening but no hue shift) and (b) addition of Isoindolinone Yellow (LHS) to Anthraquinone Crimson (showing no hue shift to the tint) and the blue-shade wash with just water (RHS).

Are warm and cool colour classifications useful?

As watercolourists, we often talk about warm or cool primary colours, as these are often considered to be the foundation of our colour palette and the building blocks of colour mixing. Sometimes they are also referred to as split primaries and by using both cool and warm yellows, reds and blues (six colours in all) the range of colours that are possible to mix, is much larger than with just the three “pure” primaries discussed above. In my Professional Watercolour range, I have designated Cadmium Lemon Yellow , Anthraquinone Crimson and Phthalocyanine Blue (Green Shade) as my cool primaries, whilst my warm ones are Cadmium Yellow , Cadmium Red and Ultramarine Blue . Even with these six single pigmented watercolours, I would be inclined to add Phthalocyanine Green (Yellow Shade) , Dioxaine Violet and maybe one or two earth colours to my regular palette, just to have a wider selection of single pigmented watercolours to draw on.

Is it important to use a limited palette?

I’ve mentioned single pigmented watercolours for a reason, as this is generally the part of the colour mixing equation that gets neglected in the pursuit of achieving the “holy grail” of a limited palette, that doesn’t limit the number of achievable colours.

With watercolour, chroma is greatly affected by the number of pigments in each of the paints used and this in turn is related to the shape of the pigment’s absorption spectrum; the sharper the absorption spectrum, the brighter and purer the colour. It therefore follows that in pigment mixtures each pigment will obviously absorb light and so there are a number of absorption bands, which broadens the spectra and so results in a distinctly duller hue (see figures 5 and 6).

Figures 5 and 6: Spectra of a composite green and how it compares to a spectral green (as discussed in the previous ARTicle “ Pigment Stories – Ultramarine and Cobalt Pinks, Manganese Mauve and Manganese, Cobalt and Dioxaine Violets ” published in September 2021).

Therefore, the use of a limited palette is at odds with bright and vibrant colours. In my opinion one of the most important aspects of colour mixing is to try to keep the number of pigments in each colour mix to a minimum, two if possible, with three as a maximum, in order to maintain bright colour mixtures.

Do we all use the same brand of watercolours?

Using the same brand of watercolours, would limit our choice of hues and may even affect the results of our colour mixing. I formulated and developed my own range of 48 single pigmented professional quality watercolours, because as a watercolourist, I was looking for something more than was available in the market place. I am proud of what I have achieved and passionate about encouraging other watercolourists to experience the same joy when painting with them. So if you have tried the colours in the A J Ludlow watercolour range, then please share your thoughts and help spread the word.

In conclusion, it is my opinion that colour mixing is made more difficult with a limited palette of yellow, red and blue, whether they are cool, warm or a mixture of both types of colour bias. By stretching my watercolour palette to include other hues, I can mix a larger variety of colours (keeping them to mixtures of two to three pigments at the most) and not sacrifice the brightness of the mix too much. When selecting your core hues, it doesn’t hurt to take advice from an experienced watercolourist, but please be mindful that there are a number of watercolour ranges in the market place, including the A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour range, which have similar hues and beneficial properties, so try not to get blinkered. as it may hamper your style.

***

Reference

Accessed on 28/02/23 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory

Further Reflections on Whether Traditional Chinese Painting Brushes are suitable for Watercolour Painting.

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 09:36:38 GMT

Following on from last month’s ARTicle, we look to embrace the qualities of traditional Chinese Painting brushes and see what they can do for our watercolour painting.

After the “cliff hanger” of an ending to January’s ARTicle, “ Are Traditional Chinese Painting Brushes suitable for Watercolour Painting? ”, I waited with “bated breath” to see if the oldest member of the “Four Treasures of the Study” could be used to paint watercolours. Hopefully this was also true for you, the reader.

In last month’s ARTicle, I demonstrated that each one of the chosen Chinese brushes formed a point when dipped into water and so springing back into shape. This indicated to me that the hair was of a high standard and had been dressed skilfully during the brush making process and thus meeting two of the criterion that we watercolourists are looking for in a brush. The other criteria I considered in that ARTicle included the ability of the brush to “hold and release” water and distribute the watercolour evenly on the surface of the watercolour paper, which I stated, contributed to the suitability of the brush for painting out free flowing water-based paint. It is these criteria that I shall use to assess my selected Chinese brushes in this month’s ARTicle.

To assess and show the brushes’ ability to “hold and release” water, I decided to use a Brush Art practice cloth , which changes colour when it is wet and can be re-used over and over again once it has dried. It is commonly used in Chinese schools to practice calligraphy and perfecting brush strokes for Chinese painting and is considered eco-friendly as it requires only clean water to create a mark. With regards to the size of cloth I used and to provide a frame of reference for the following photographs shown in figures 1 to 6, the cloth measured 41 x 35.5 cm, thus giving a surface area that’s approximately 17% larger than a sheet of A3 paper.

I performed the test by allowing the brush to pick up its fill of clean water, removing any excess droplets, by gently touching the brush hairs to the water container’s lip, and then with a single stroke, paint the surface of the practice cloth until the brush become dry.

Figure 1: Painting out using a large calligraphy brush made from a combination of yellow weasel hair surrounded by white goat hair; the process follows from (1) clean dry practice cloth, to (4) completely covered.

Figure 2: Painting out using a large calligraphy brush made from pure black rabbit hair; the process follows from (1) clean dry practice cloth, to (3) completely covered.

The results obtained using the large calligraphy brushes (figure 1 and 2), show complete coverage of the practice cloth (approximately equivalent to a flat wash over an area larger than A3) in a single stroke. After painting out, the mixed hair brush still contained a lot of water, whereas the rabbit hair brush was reaching its limit.

Figure 3: Painting out using a large painting brush made from a combination of black rabbit hair, surrounded with white goat hair; the process follows from (1) clean dry practice cloth, to (4) where the brush became dry.

Figure 4: Painting out using a medium painting brush made from a combination of black rabbit hair, surrounded with white goat hair; the process follows from (1) clean dry practice cloth, to (3) where the brush became dry.

The brushes in figure 3 and 4 are made in an identical fashion, except the one used in figure 3 has a larger head and so has more hair. The amount of coverage in figure 3 when compared to figure 4 is approximately twice. In my opinion, both brushes hold a fair amount of water, which could deliver a good deal of watercolour in one stroke.

Figure 5: Painting out using a medium sized painting brush made from white goat hair.

The medium sized white goat haired painting brush (shown in figure 5) did not hold as much water as the medium sized one in figure 4. This may be due to the combination of hair used in the brush, helping the water to flow out better than the pure white goat haired one. Both brushes are capable of drawing fine lines, as can be seen in figure 4(3) and 5(2), which would be beneficial for intermediate detail and where fine control is needed.

Figure 6: Painting out using a large painting brush made from yellow weasel; the process follows from (1) clean dry practice cloth, to (4) where the brush became dry.

The yellow weasel brush used in figure 6, has a similar sized head to the combination brush used in figure 3. From the markings on the handle, the brush is actually a small sized calligraphy brush and as such holds a reasonable amount of water (which appears to be slightly more than the brush in figure 3).

Figure 7: Painting detail with the short-haired brush .

Figure 8: Painting lines with the long-haired brush .

Both the short-haired and long-haired detailing brushes are easy to paint with and offer good control, as can be seen in figures 7 and 8.

To further test these Chinese brushes, I decided to use some of them to paint with my watercolours ( A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours ) on hand-made watercolour paper (see figure 9). I used the different brushes for different parts of the painting; the mixed hair large calligraphy brush for the background wash (figure 9(2)), the medium mixed hair brush for the bulk of the painting of the seagull (figure 9(3)) and the short-haired detailing brush to add in the final details (figure 9(4)).

Figure 9: Painting a seagull with A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour with a selection of Chinese brushes on hand made watercolour paper.

So, what’s my conclusion, I hear you say.

To be perfectly honest, this was the first time I have actually painted with traditional Chinese brushes and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I was very pleased with the result (figure 9(5)) and will be investing in my own Chinese brushes very soon (I borrowed Meiru’s for this ARTicle).

Are Traditional Chinese Painting Brushes suitable for Watercolour Painting?

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 16:18:04 GMT

Using the oldest member of the “Four Treasures of the Study” to paint watercolours, could be the start of a beautiful love affair with traditional Chinese Painting brushes.

Much has been said about the reputation of art materials and accessories that have been made in China, and most comments have been less than flattering. “The world’s factory”, as China is often referred to, has been exploited by many commercial entities in order to obtain goods that meet the right price point, have an enticing appearance, but not necessarily perform as well as they should. The art material supply industry has been no exception and much of the “affordable” paint and brushes, aimed at the beginner and available through our art retailers, has come from “the world’s factory”, with the sole intention of meeting the right price point.

However, it is not fair to expect all of the goods made in China to be of the same quality, or if you forgive the pun, “be tarred with the same brush”. Speak to a brush maker in the UK and they will tell you that the quality of the brush is derived from several aspects of its manufacture; sourcing the right hair, the brush maker’s skill in dressing the hair and their experience and knowledge, the quality of the other raw materials and their suitability in the manufacturing process and the expected use of the finished brush, which will include design and process aspects and the capabilities of all those involved. So, why should it be any different for brush making anywhere else?

From my experience, it has been around 25 years since the first Western Joint Venture companies set up brush factories making “western-style” brushes in China and transferred some of their technology and knowhow. Certainly, “western-style” brushes have been made in China before that time, but much of the brush making skills had been lost when China shut the door on the world in 1949. This may explain why there is a difference in performance, as the Chinese brush makers improve their manufacturing skills and the raw materials available to them, improve in quality.

But wait a minute, brush making has a long tradition in China, dating back to the Han Dynasty, which dates from 202BCE* to 220CE (Wikipedia - The Four Treasures of the Study), I hear you say?

This is where my “tarring” warning comes in as these brushes are different and rather than be regarded as just “goods to be sold”, they form part of the cultural fabric of China. These brushes were specifically designed and made for Chinese ink painting and as such, there is great skill and craftmanship in their manufacture, as they form one of the “Four Treasures of the Study” (文房四寶)**, which has great significance in Chinese tradition and culture. It is therefore no surprise that the knowledge and expertise to make them was never lost, but passed down the generations from master to apprentice and the materials from which they are made are selected with care in much the same way as they have always been. Obviously this is good to know if you are a Chinese Painting artist, but what has this got to do with us watercolourists?

Well before I answer that question, let us just remind ourselves what we watercolourists are looking for in a brush. In the first instance, the brush must be suitable for painting out free flowing water-based paint, and so must be made with hair (natural or synthetic) that can “hold and release” water, hold a fine point, spring back to its original shape after each use and distribute the watercolour evenly on the surface of the watercolour paper. Other considerations like the type of hair, shape (round or flat) and size all feature in our decisions as well as price, which tends to be the limiting factor.

Would it be surprising to learn that the traditional Chinese brush (毛笔) meets the requirements listed above? Designed to apply a water-based ink to paper made from various plant-based fibres (known as Xuan paper), such as sandalwood, bamboo, hemp, linen, mulberry bark and rice straw (Chan). The brushes are made of animal hair, the type of which, depends on how it will be used and the desired stiffness and spring required; the hair selection of modern brushes is primarily white goat hair, black rabbit, yellow weasel or a combination. The brush head can form a fine point for detailed work or be spread out for washes. It is said that only a Chinese brush is suitable for Chinese brush painting because they have unique properties that only work for this specific type of painting (Matthews), but I would argue that these properties are also useful to us watercolourists.

Figure 1: The selection of traditional Chinese brushes assessed for this ARTicle.

For this and next month’s ARTicles I have chosen a selection of brushes to evaluate in various sizes and made using different hair types (as shown in figure 1). Brushes with the largest head are generally used for Chinese calligraphy as they can hold a substantial amount of ink and are excellent for writing large Chinese characters with long flowing strokes. The other four slim handled brushes are generally used for smaller calligraphy work and painting, with the two brushes with the smallest amount of hair, used for detailing. Each one of these selected brushes form a point when dipped into water as shown in figures 2 to 5, indicating that the hair is of a high standard and has been dressed skilfully during the brush making process.

Figure 2: Large calligraphy brushes made from (a) pure black rabbit hair and (b) a combination of yellow weasel hair surrounded by white goat hair.

The brush’s softness will depend on the type of hair that is used; pure white goat is the softest, black rabbit is a little firmer, whilst yellow weasel, although still fairly soft, is the stiffest. With respect to the amount of water the brush head can hold, white goat hair is very absorbent and the hairs tend to stay together when wet and so is expected to give good control whilst using. The two brushes shown in figure 2 are made from (a) black rabbit and (b) a combination of white goat and yellow weasel hair.

When comparing to white goat hair, the brush made of black rabbit hair (figure 2a) is still absorbent and relatively soft but the hairs are stiffer. Black rabbit is more absorbent than weasel hair, which forms the core of the large calligraphy brush in figure 2b. By combining a core of yellow weasel hair surrounded by white goat hair, the brush will have a firmness and control as well as the ability to hold a good amount of water.

Figure 3: Painting brushes made from a combination of black rabbit hair, surrounded with white goat hair, in (a) large size and (b) medium size.

Combination brushes can give the artist the benefits of both types of hair. Those similar to the brushes shown in figure 3, tend to be popular with watercolourists that have already tried painting watercolours with traditional Chinese brushes. The larger of the two brushes (figure 3a) can hold a lot more water, than the medium one (figure 3b). There is also a smaller version of this brush available, in case the absorbency of the medium sized brush is still too much.

Figure 4: Painting brushes made from (a) pure white goat hair and (b) pure yellow weasel hair.

The two brushes shown in figure 4 are at either end of the Chinese brush spectrum and I will compare their performance in next month’s ARTicle. The pure goat hair brush (figure 4a) is softer and more absorbent than the brush made from yellow weasel hair (figure 4b), which is less absorbent and stiffer.

Figure 5: Detailing brushes (a) short hair length and (b) longer hair length.

It will also be interesting to check out the performance of the two detailing brushes (shown in figure 5).

So, how will I assess the brushes? All will be revealed in next month’s ARTicle. In the meantime, don’t forget that the Chinese New Year starts from January 22 this year (2023) so, without further ado, I wish you all a Happy Chinese New Year and hope that the Rabbit Year will be a healthy and prosperous one for us all.

新年快乐!

Notes:

*I have opted for the religious neutral denoting of years in ancient history as BEC (before Common Era) instead of BC (before Christ) and CE (Common Era) instead of AD ( Anno Domini - “the year of the Lord”).

** The other three treasures are ink stick (墨), paper (纸) and inkstone (砚台), each originating as specialities of different specific regions of China (Wikipedia - The Four Treasures of the Study).

NB: Like all tools, there are good quality ones and those that are not so good, but a brush that has been made by a master brush maker is not as difficult to find as one would think. It is knowing where to look and what to look for and we at A J Ludlow source our Chinese brushes direct from the Chinese artisans that make them; we use them ourselves in our watercolour painting and so we know their quality and how they perform.

References:

Accessed 31/12/2022 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Treasures_of_the_Study

Chan S, accessed 31/12/2022 - https://www.watercolournewzealand.nz/tutorials/lessons_chinese_brush.htm

Matthews D, accessed 31/12/2022 - https://orientalartsupply.com/blogs/news/5-things-to-look-for-in-the-best-brushes-for-chinese-brush-painting

Personalise your Christmas Cards, with your very own Seasonal Themed Watercolour Painting

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 19:49:23 GMT

A step-by-step guide to how to painting a cute Robin Redbreast for a special Christmas card to give to Family and Friends.

In last year’s December ARTicle, I showed how easy it is to use modern design software to prepare images of my paintings for printing and turning into Christmas cards for family and friends. It was quite a popular ARTicle, as producing cards from watercolour paintings is not just a Christmas thing, but can be done all year round, as we love to use cards for sending our good wishes on birthdays, to celebrate a great achievement or just to say thank you; the list of sending others our good wishes can be endless!

After last year’s December ARTicle, I was asked how would I go about painting a suitably themed Christmas card, and so in answer to this question, why not follow my step-by-step guide and paint a cute Robin Redbreast yourself?

In my painting of the Robin siting in a holly tree, I used Cadmium Lemon Yellow (a green shade yellow), Anthraquinone Crimson (a blue shade red) and Phthalocyanine Blue (a green shade blue), along with Cadmium Yellow (a red shade yellow), Cadmium Red (a yellow shade red) and Ultramarine Blue. These single pigmented watercolours can all be found in the A J Ludlow 3 primary cool and 3 primary warm tones gift set. Using single pigmented watercolours will help keep the painting bright and giving it a cheerful look, making the Robin Redbreast look even more cute!

Step 1: Drawing out the Robin in the Holly Tree.

You can use the sketch I made as the basis of your painting, by hoovering the computer mouse over the image, right clicking and in the dialogue box select “Open image in new tab”. This should then open a new tab in your browser, open this tab and press down the “ctrl” and “p” keys on your computer keypad, which will open the print option (I am using Microsoft software, so to do the same using other software may require a different set of instructions). Once you have printed the image, draw the sketch onto a premium quality watercolour paper, as we will be using masking fluid, which can tear lesser quality papers.

Step 2: Preparing the drawing for painting, by blocking out the small areas that need to be kept white.

Cover the eye area with masking fluid, along with small areas on the tree and the bird’s beak. Because these areas are small and difficult to keep white, I am using masking fluid, other larger areas are easier to paint around. Even with good watercolour paper, it is still good practice to avoid using masking fluid to block out large areas, as the possibility of tearing the paper surface increases with the amount used.

Step 3: Wet the area of the Robin drawing, wait for a couple of minutes. And then, paint a thin layer of Cadmium Lemon Yellow to the top and middle of the Robin.

Step 4: Paint a thin layer of Cadmium Red over the Cadmium Lemon Yellow. The colours will mix together to form orange on the paper.

Step 5: Create a mix of Ultramarine Blue with Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Red to create the greyish blue colour and paint onto the wings, top of the head and tail areas.

Step 6: Mix Ultramarine and Cadmium Red with a little bit of Cadmium yellow to create the reddish-brown colour for painting the claws. After that, paint a thin layer of Cadmium Lemon Yellow on the green tree branches, followed by a thin layer of Phthalo Blue (GS) on top of the yellow. The two colours will mix together on the paper to become green.

Step 7: Paint the berries with Anthraquinone Crimson, but before the colour is dry, use a clean brush to paint a little bit of water on a side of a berry to create the look that the berries are covered in snow.

Step 8: Remove the masking fluid around the eye, mix Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Red and Cadmium Yellow together to create black to paint the eye of the robin and the sepals in the berries

Step 9: Add more details and then, don’t forget to sign your name to finish the painting and add that special personal touch to the future Christmas card.

Step 10: Photograph the painting and upload the image to a card printing website. Using their design software, add your message, select the quantity you would like to print and complete the order. Here is my finished design, which will be “wing-its way” to all my family and friends, this December.

As I stated last year, Christmas is already something special, so why not make it even more special for your family and friends by sending them a Christmas card with your own paintings on and a message of sincerity and good wishes for the season and coming year.

If you have enjoyed reading this ARTicle and would like to paint your very own Christmas themed Robin watercolour painting, why not try our "All you need to paint.. Robins in watercolour" painting gift set?

This A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour painting set is designed for everybody to enjoy painting in watercolour.

Our “All you need to paint..” watercolour painting set contains all that’s needed to paint the two pencil drawn Robin designs on Saunders Waterford 425gsm watercolour paper.

A glance at the Patchings Art Festival

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 19:54:30 GMT

Meeting new people and catching up with old friends

Summer is always the most active time for everybody to go out, to catch up with friends or to explore. We did all of these in Nottingham during the Patchings Art Festival in the middle of July.

The first day started very early, many visitors came to our standard before 10 o’clock to see and select the expertly handmade watercolours in person.

After a busy day, we went to Nottingham Centre to explore the oldest pub, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. It’s just what you did on a hot day sitting in a pub built in a stone cave and sip a pint of refreshing cask ale.

Like many others, artist, Anjana Cawdell, came to select her favourite colours. All of the A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours were very inviting; she had a hard work to make decision.

During the Art Festival, we invited some artists to do demos and talking about how A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours enhanced their artworks.

Top left, Meiru Ludlow was doing a watercolour demo.

Middle left, Jonathan Pullen was talking the colours and colour mixing.

Bottom left, Peter Millward was demonstrating Chinese painting with A J Ludlow watercolours.

Top right, Jim Patterson from Two Rivers Paper Company was testing our colours on his exquisite handmade paper.

Bottom left, Jenny McKenzie was demonstrating watercolour painting.

It’s great to meet new people and catch up with old friends. We had so many interesting conversations with visitors, listening to their stories of using A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours.

Top left, Anjana Cawdell and her watercolour painting "Tulips and Tangerines".

Top right, our old friend Lesley Linley and some of her stunning landscape paintings.

Bottom left, a new friend, Andrew Storrie.

Bottom right, Gary and the Hahnemuhle crew.

We look forward to seeing everybody again next year!

Pigment Stories – Cobalt Spinel Blues and Greens.

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 12:13:30 GMT

A periodic look at the stories behind the pigments used in A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolours

Following on from my earlier ARTicles, spotlighting the pigments used in my professional watercolour range, I would now like to turn our attention to the pigments used in Cobalt, Cerulean, Cobalt Chromite Blues, Cobalt Turquoise and Cobalt Green.

These pigments all share the same lattice structure, which is shown diagrammatically in figure 1. This group of pigments are from a class of minerals known as spinels, which have a general formulation of AB ₂ X ₄ . The mineral crystallises into the cubic (isometric) crystal system, with the X anions (oxygen, denoted as red in figure 1) arrange in a cubic close-packed lattice and the cations A (cobalt, denoted as blue in figure 1) and B (aluminium, denoted as yellow in figure 1) occupy some or all of the octahedral and tetrahedral sites in the lattice (Wikipedia – Spinel Group).

Figure 1: Spinel crystal structure of Cobalt Blue pigment (cobalt (II) aluminate), where the cobalt (II) ions are blue and aluminium (III) ions are yellow (favpng.com)

Much of these cobalt-based mixed metal oxide inorganic pigments have outstanding heat stability and high colour fastness, which are due to the tightly packed spinel lattice. Their colour is due to the ligand field exerted by the oxide on the tetrahedral co-ordinated Co ²⁺ in the spinel lattice, which splits the originally equivalent d-orbitals of the cobalt (II) anion and permits electron transitions between the split levels as a result of light absorption in the visible range (Bittler 1980). Ligand field interactions can explain the bright colours of pigments derived from co-ordination complexes of transition metals (figure 2), which include cobalt. The concept is based on the Crystal Field Theory, which states that the 5 d-orbitals of the outer most electron shell of the transition metal atom are split into 2 sets with different energy levels. When the molecule absorbs a photon of visible light, 1 electron (or more) jumps from the lower energy d-orbitals to the higher ones, creating an excited state. The energy absorbed is related to the energy difference between the 2 electronic states, which in turn is influenced by the strength of the crystal field exerted by the ligands that form the co-ordination complex.

Figure 2: Ligand field interactions in a tetrahedral complex, showing how the crystal field is split and the spatial arrangement of the d-electron orbitals of a transition metal (chem.libretexts.org)

Cobalt Blue

Pigment Details: Cobalt Aluminium Oxide / Colour Index Pigment Blue 28 ( C.I . PB28)

Blue pigments derived from cobalt (II) aluminate have been known for centuries; the Chinese used an impure pigment, possibly formed during the firing process, in their “blue and white” porcelain, dating from 14 ^th Century (Yuan dynasty) and on earthenware produced even earlier during the 1 ^st Century (Tang dynasty). The discovery of cobalt blue pigment however, was attributed to Joseph Leithner in Vienna, who developed the basic process of calcining cobalt oxide and alumina (Leithner’s Blue) in 1775 (Pigment Compendium, page 241). Subsequently in 1803, the French Chemist, Louis Jacques Thénard used different cobalt salts in the precipitation process making it easier to obtain the cobalt aluminate pigment. Two processes were developed, one yielded pigment with a deeper blue hue, the other, produced a darker blue. Both shades were known as Thénard’s Blue; a term that was later used to mean simply cobalt blue (Pigment Compendium, page 367). Other names for cobalt blue which reference an inventor, production method or a corruption of the same, include; Gahn’s Ultramarine or Gahn’s Blue, Wenzel’s Blue, Binder’s cobalt blue, Kӧnigsblau (corrupted to Kings Blue*), Leidner and Leyden Blues (corruptions of Leithner’s Blue), New Blue and Dresden Blue.

As stated above, the crystal structure of cobalt (II) aluminate (and other cobalt mixed metal oxide pigments) form a spinel lattice corresponding to the formula CoO-Al ₂ O ₃ , where the four oxygen anions (4O ^2- ) arrange in a cubic close packed lattice and the metals occupy the octahedral (Co ²⁺ ) and tetrahedral(2Al ³⁺ ) sites in the lattice (see figure 1). Much of cobalt blue’s outstanding heat stability and high colour fastness are due to this tightly packed spinel lattice.

Figure 3: Graduated washes on white and black paper (showing the transparency) of Cobalt Blue Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

Cobalt blue is considered one of the traditional pigments for watercolour (Mayer 1991, page 136). With respect to colour “temperature”, cobalt blue is generally regarded as a neutral blue (where cerulean blue is for example, regarded as cool and ultramarine blue is warm). The brightness and cleanness of hue makes this pigment the best choice for Cobalt Blue in A J Ludlow’s Professional watercolour range.

Cerulean Blue

Pigment Details: Cobalt (II) Stannate / Colour Index Pigment Blue 35 ( C.I. PB35)

Cerulean Blue is traditionally prepared using the mixed metal oxide inorganic pigment, cobalt (II) stannate. Its hue and use by many artists, has led the cerulean blue colour, to be synonymous with blue skies. It is interesting that the word cerulean is derived from the Latin word cӕruleus, meaning “dark blue, blue or blue-green”, which in turn is thought to be a derivative of the word cœlum, meaning heaven or sky (Wikipedia – Cerulean).

The cobalt-tin mixed metal oxide pigment itself has been known by many names. Originally it was known as “Hӧpfner blue”, reported as early as 1789 by the Swiss Chemist Albrecht Hӧpfner in the journal, Magazin für die Naturkunde Helvetiens. In the 1880s, the pigment was referred to as “Coelin” by the German manufacturer; as Cerulium by the British importer, Roberson and later as Coeruleum by the British colourman George Rowney; other names included ceruleum and corruleum (sometimes as cœruleum or cӕruleum) and eventually being known today as cerulean blue (Wikipedia – Cerulean).

Figure 4: Graduated washes on white and black paper (showing the transparency) of Cerulean Blue Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

Cerulean blue is considered one of the traditional pigments for watercolour (Mayer 1991, page 136). With respect to colour “temperature”, the relatively greenish cerulean blue is often regarded as a cool blue (where cobalt blue is for example, regarded as neutral and ultramarine blue is warm).

Cobalt Chromite Blue

Pigment Details: Cobalt Chromium Aluminium Oxide / Colour Index Pigment Blue 36 ( C.I. PB36)

The crystal structure of cobalt chromium aluminium oxide is similar to cobalt (II) aluminate (which corresponds to the formula CoO-Al ₂ O ₃ ), except in this case, the Al ³⁺ cations are partially replaced with Cr ³⁺ ions. The incorporation of chromium (III) in the lattice gives the pigment its greenish blue hue. The resulting spinel lattice (see for example figure 1) is formed around the oxygen anions (O ^2- ) arrange in a cubic close packed lattice and the metals occupy the octahedral (Co ²⁺ ) and tetrahedral (Cr ³⁺ , Al ³⁺ ) sites in the lattice.

Figure 5: Graduated washes on white and black paper (showing the transparency) of Cobalt Chromite Blue Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

The cobalt chromium aluminium oxide pigment is often described as “cerulean blue”, but its colour is a greener-shade blue than that of the traditional cerulean, cobalt (II) stannate. This pigment is also used as a cobalt turquoise, due to its greenish shade.

Cobalt Turquoise

Pigment Details: Cobalt Nickel Titanate / Colour Index Pigment Green 50 ( C.I. PG50)

In my professional watercolour range, the Cobalt Turquoise watercolour is prepared using the mixed metal oxide inorganic spinel structured pigment, cobalt nickel titanate. The pigment has an intense teal hue and although classified as C.I . Pigment Green 50, the chemical structure and composition of this teal coloured pigment is different to that of the green (see Cobalt Green), which is a complex mixed metal oxide of cobalt, nickel, titanium and zinc.

Figure 6: Graduated washes on white and black paper (showing the transparency) of Cobalt Turquoise Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

Cobalt nickel titanate (which has the molecular formula, Co ₂ NiO ₇ Ti ₂ ) has a hue, which is not too dissimilar to the blue-green mineral of the mixed metal hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium (CuAl ₆ (PO ₄ ) ₄ (OH) ₈ 4H ₂ O), which is commonly known as the gemstone, Turquoise. The word turquoise is derived from the French word, turque meaning “Turkish” as the gemstone was originally imported into Europe from Turkey. Similar in some ways to the use of the gemstone lapis lazuli as a blue pigment, turquoise stone from the mines in Sinai, was ground down to make pigment for the artists and scribes of ancient Egypt (Fitzwilliam Museum). The ancient Egyptians called this pigment “Mefkhat” and its colour had considerable significance in their culture, being associated with the goddess Hathor.

Figure 7: Series of colour mixes created with Cobalt Turquoise.

Although the colour turquoise is now associated with hues midway between blue and green, the fact that the watercolour based on this pigment is so similar to the colour to the gemstone turquoise, it was named Cobalt Turquoise. This watercolour is often over looked as a mixing colour, because of its bright and unique hue, but it can be used to create a series of unique light greens and blues, which makes it an ideal part of A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolour range (figure 7).

Cobalt Green

Pigment Details: Cobalt-Nickel-Zinc Titanate / Colour Index Pigment Green 50 ( C.I. PG50)

Cobalt Green is often thought as being synonymous with Rinmann’s (or Rinman’s) Green. It is named after the Swedish chemist, Sven Rinman, who discovered the green cobalt zincate pigment in 1780. The colour is described as a dull yellowish green by the Colour Index, who classify the pigment as C.I . 77335, (pigment green 19) and describe its structure as an “isomorphic mixture of cobalt zincate and zinc oxide which cannot be chemically separated” (Pigment Compendium, page 120). It was an unpopular pigment as it was expensive to buy and not particularly strong (Pigment Compendium, page 329). Rinmann’s Green is also referred to as Zinc Green** and is similar to Gellert Green, which was made by using a different method.

Figure 8: Graduated washes on white and black paper (showing the transparency) of Cobalt Green Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out..

Modern cobalt green pigments (classified as C.I . pigment green 50, C.I.77377) are formed by the incorporation of cobalt into various metal titanate spinels, to produce a range of cobalt pigments, whose colours range from bluish-green to green. In my Cobalt Green watercolour I use the inorganic mixed metal oxide spinel structured pigment, cobalt (II)/nickel (III)/zinc titanate, which is a complex mixed metal titanate. This pigment is much brighter and has greater tinctorial strength than the original cobalt zincate greens, Rinmann’s and Gellert Green.

Although containing cobalt and nickel, these metals’ bioavailabilty in the pigment used in our watercolour is very low and so the pigment is considered safe for use in our Professional watercolour range.

Notes:

* It should be noted that although King’s Blue was used to describe cobalt blue and more recently has been classified by Colour Index International as a term for both smalt (which is a cobalt-doped glass) and cobalt blue, the name is also associated with the oil colour that is obtained when cobalt blue or ultramarine blue is mixed with cremnitz white (a white oil colour based on either bismuth oxide or lead oxide).

** It should be noted that the inorganic pigment mixture of zinc chromate, Prussian blue and barytes (C.I. pigment green 16, C.I.77955 + 77525 or 77007) is also known classically as Zinc Green.

References:

Accessed on 30/06/2022 - https://favpng.com/png_view/cobaltii-oxide-spinel-group-cobalt-ferrite-cobalt-blue-cubic-crystal-system-png/kPbzQT95

Bittler, K and Ostertag, W, “Developments in the Field of Inorganic Pigments”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 19, 190-196 (1980)

Accessed on 30/06/2022 - https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Inorganic_Chemistry/Supplemental_Modules_and_Websites_(Inorganic_Chemistry)/Crystal_Field_Theory/Crystal_Field_Theory

Eastaugh N, Chaplin T, Siddall R, Walsh V, “Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary and Optical Microscopy of Historic Pigments”, Routledge, Abingdon 2013

Mayer, R “The Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques”, 5th Ed, Viking, New York, 1991.

Accessed on 30/06/2022 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerulean

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, “Colour and Culture” learning resource for Galleries 19 and 20 accessed on 06/11/20:

https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/learningresource/Colour%20and%20Culture%20DIY.pdf

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I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

Revisiting “Watercolour Choices for the Budding Watercolourist”

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 10:05:15 GMT

Resultant musings from Living Craft at Hatfield Park - a sense of déjà vu for some, but a helpful personal reflection for others.

During May, we were out and about, having a great time meeting old friends and making new ones, whilst showcasing our exquisite watercolours at the Hatfield Park Living Craft show.

Chatting to a number of people about their art and where they were on their watercolour journey, it became clear to me that I should re-publish “Watercolour Choices for the Budding Watercolourist”, an earlier ARTicle from January 2021, as it would be helpful to those of you that are just beginning your journey.

The ARTicle was a personal reflection of how Meiru started her watercolour painting journey and the types of materials she found helped her to develop her skill. I have reproduced the original text below, made some additional comments in italics (so as to distinguish those from the original) and adding a few more photographs, which I hope enhances the original ARTicle.

Watercolour Choices for the Budding Watercolourist -

A Personal Reflection of How to Begin the Watercolour Journey

Figure 1: Meiru painting tulips with A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours

There is a lot of information out there, in magazines and on the internet (Ref 1), about choosing which watercolours to buy, personal preferences as to the best brands, student quality verses artist or professional quality, pans verse tubes and quite a lot of advice for beginners (some of which is frankly condescending). A whole host of information that can seem overwhelming, full of personal opinions and bias, even if given with good intentions and eagerness to help the “less well informed”.

“Well here comes some more of the same, from a manufacturer of watercolours”, I hear you say, but hopefully this will not be the case, as I not only paint in watercolours, but can also speak from the perspective of a Chemist and modern day Colourman too. And, even if my thoughts are considered bias and irrelevant to the beginner, I’ve also actively sought the opinion and experience of my co-author, Meiru, who was a complete beginner in February last year (February 2020) and is now enjoying painting quite complex and challenging subjects in watercolour.

Over to Meiru for the first point she considers to be important when she was just starting. “There are a few Watercolour painting techniques that make Watercolour so different and attractive. For example, the most popular Watercolour painting technique is wet-on-wet. Colours infuse into each other on a wet surface or wash in a natural way to capture this delicate effect. It’s relaxing and fascinating to watch how the colours work on a wet surface to infuse into each other. This was so much easier and the results more satisfying, because I used high-quality watercolours, which are also called Professional Watercolours.”

This is an interesting point and one that is often overlooked or considered a very difficult technique for a beginner to master, yet it can create such satisfying results, as can be seen in some of Meiru’s earliest paintings (see the example in figure 2) .

Figure 2: “Sunset”, a watercolour painting by Meiru Ludlow

In support of Meiru’s first point, I would like to add these thoughts for consideration. A high level of ability and skill is what we all strive for, but it should be kept in perspective and never be allowed to dampen our enjoyment. How many times have I heard that some one cannot paint or cannot draw and so stops enjoying and creating art, because they consider themselves and their art “not good enough”! In reality this unfortunate state of mind comes about because of a number of factors, where the level of skill, which is often seen as the one and only reason, is in fact not really a reason at all. I believe everyone can paint or draw, but what stops them enjoying it is their own perception of the required level of skill and so are disappointed with the results, but do they stop to consider the materials they are using?

Making furniture, or any DIY project (no matter how large or small) even with expert advice, will be so much harder with drift wood and budget tools. How many times, has this led to less than a fulfilling experience and dissatisfaction with your own level of skill. If only you had not been hampered by your choice of materials and tools, the results would have been so much better and the enjoyment and self-satisfaction lead you on to bigger projects and better results. Is this not true for painting or drawing?

On the subject of the materials she was using, Meiru was quick to voice her opinion that “the names of Student and Professional ranges in the Art Material Industry don’t represent how easy or hard it is to use them, instead they indicate the quality level of the products.” This is very true, as Liz Steel points out in her internet blog. She states that it is possible to achieve a good result with student grade watercolours, but the painter has to work harder than with professional ones “-up to 10 times” (Ref 2).

There is a formulation difference between student and artist/professional grades, which does affect how they perform. There are obvious differences between brands (Ref 3), where some student grades perform better than others and some artist grades have similar performance to the better student ones, but when compared to a true high-quality professional watercolour, the result is like “chalk and cheese” (see figure 3) . High-quality watercolours are generally loaded with pigment and so are intense, bright on drying and due to the amount of pigment, tend to be used more dilute and so tend to go further. In fact, for some colours they may even be more cost effective than the less expensive student grades. The student grades tend to have the same powder to binder ratio, but contain less pigment, which means the space is taken up with extenders (that are sometimes referred to as fillers, but may be regarded as very weak white pigments). When the student watercolours dry, they are less intense and duller than the high-quality grades; in some cases, there is a colour shift on drying to a slightly lighter shade. I agree, student grade watercolours are harder to use and the results are less fulfilling than using professional ones, which all in all is an unnecessary hurdle when you are just starting out.

Figure 3: Professional versus student quality Ultramarine Blue, showing the difference in pigment granulation – the professional quality watercolour granulates well, whereas the student quality one is poor due to the presence of the extender.

Asking Meiru what watercolours are suitable for beginners, she suggests “to get a limited palette of between 6 to 12 single pigmented colours covering the full colour spectrum range. The single pigmented colours make colour mixing much easier to control”. I would also recommend this as colour mixes with colours that are already a blend of pigments will look muted and dull. The intensity and purity of colour is governed by the sharpness of the light absorption spectra (Ref 4). In pigment mixtures each pigment will obviously absorb light and so there are a number of absorption bands, which broadens the spectra and so results in a distinctly duller hue (see figure 4 and 5). This is true for high-quality professional watercolours that are composed of mixed pigments, but even more so with student grades as each watercolour will have, not only the pigments to achieve the hue, but also the extender, which, as already mentioned, acts as a weak whitener.

Figure 4 and 5: Spectra of a composite green and how it compares to a spectral green

Figure 6: Watercolour mixing chart for a six colour mixing set

Obviously, there are other factors that make the first steps in painting in watercolour less challenging. “Paper is another important part of Watercolour painting” Meiru adds, “I always use 100% cotton Watercolour paper because it has good wet properties. Controlling water is a fun part of Watercolour painting. If the paper is not professionally treated, when you brush water onto the paper, the surface may tear and it will bulge out in certain places to create many puddles, causing rings. That will give a lot of stress and frustration to the watercolourist and if they are new to watercolour, it will destroy their interest and confidence.”

Watercolour papers made from 100% cotton are generally considered as the best quality, because the cotton gives the sheet strength and durability due to the fibres' relatively longer length. Cotton papers can absorb and hold relatively more water and so are good for wet into wet techniques. The paper’s weight is also an important factor when choosing, as the heavier papers are less prone to cockle whilst painting; any weight under 300g/m ² (140lb) may need stretching before painting can begin. The most popular paper is cold pressed (CP), which is also commonly known as NOT (meaning that it is not hot pressed) and so has a slightly textured surface, making it suitable for most types of work. It is also supplied with a heavier texture and is known as Rough. Hot Pressed papers have a smoother surface and are generally used for more detailed work. The surface of high-quality 100% cotton watercolour papers are often coated in gelatine size, making it strong and resilient to scrubbing and so is ideally suited when, for example, using latex masking fluid or where large areas of colour need to be lifted out, as the paper’s surface is less prone to damage. Because of the variety of different papers available it is sometimes best to experiment with different paper surfaces and sizing to find what suits your own painting style and technique.

Figure 7: Sheets of 425gsm cold pressed Watercolour (NOT) paper.

Brushes can also make a big difference as they control the mechanics of painting and transfer of colour to the paper. Meiru, tends to use Chinese brushes as they can hold a lot of water, maintain a good point when wet and are very good at keeping their shape. I use sable, purely out of habit, but as long as the brush doesn’t lose bristles, holds its shape when wet, has a good point (or if a flat, good edge) when wet and allows the smooth transfer of paint to paper, synthetic brushes will do. Like with paper, sometimes it is best to experiment with different brush shapes and hair types and find what suits your own painting style and what you are comfortable with. However, if you do not look after your brushes, they will soon deteriorate and affect your painting. Emma Pearce recommends, rinsing the brush in water throughout each painting session and not allow them to stand on their heads in the water pot; then when finished painting, wash the brush with warm water and household soap, ensuring that there is no trace of colour left in the hair, dry the handle, shape the brush, and stand up-right in a dry jar to dry (Ref 5). However, after washing with soap and rinsing thoroughly, I let my brushes dry flat with the head positioned over the table top, so as to avoid water traveling down the brush and swelling the wooden handle (see figure 8). Incidentally, Chinese brushes are dried hanging downwards to prevent this same issue happening (figure 9).

Figure 8 and 9: Drying brushes over the edge of the painting table and Chinese brushes hanging from a brush stand.

Meiru and I hope you find this article useful. At the end of the day, it is your choice as to what type of watercolours, paper or brushes you use. We would not be so bold as to dictate what is best to use, but we hope we have given you an insight into what we use now and when we were beginning our watercolour journey. I said at the beginning of this article that there is a lot of information out there, there is, but do not let it be overwhelming. If you were to ask me what advice I would give a “budding watercolourist” at the beginning of their journey, I would say, look for the materials that make painting easy, the watercolours that with very little effort are bright and paint out well, paper that is almost “smart”, resilient and easy to paint on and brushes that feel as if they are an extension to your fingers, allowing the colour to go where you want it. It is so important during this early stage of your journey to easily create art that is fulfilling and leads you on to create evermore complex and rewarding paintings, just as Meiru has done.

References

1. For example:

Jessica Stewart, “17 Best Watercolor Paint Sets Both Beginners and Professional Artists Will Love”, Nov 30, 2020, accessed 21/12/20: https://mymodernmet.com/best-watercolor-paint-sets/

Bob Davis, “A Guide to Buying Watercolour Paints & Colours”, Aug 16, 2018, accessed 21/12/20: https://www.arttutor.com/blog/201808/guide-buying-watercolour-paints-colours

2. Liz Steel, “Student Grade Vs Artist Quality Watercolour – The Big Reveal”, Sept 24, 2018, accessed 21/12/20: https://www.lizsteel.com/student-grade-vs-artist-quality-watercolour-the-big-reveal/

3. Tonya at Scratchmade Journal, “Comparing Student Grade Watercolor Brands”, accessed on 21/12/20: https://www.scratchmadejournal.com/blog/comparing-student-grade-watercolor-brands#:~:text=Watercolor%20manufacturers%20invest%20the%20most,t%20perform%20like%20the%20pros.

4. Bittler K and Ostertag W, “Developments in the Field of Inorganic Pigments”, Agnew Chem. Int. Engl. 19, 190 – 196 (1980), page 191

5. Emma Pearce, “Hints, Tips & Techniques, Watercolour”, Winsor & Newton, 1997, page 13

Pigment Stories – Interesting Blues; Ultramarine, Anthraquinone and Prussian Blues

Sun, 01 May 2022 19:36:07 GMT

A periodic look at the stories behind the pigments used in A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolours

Following on from my earlier ARTicles, spotlighting the pigments used in my professional watercolour range, I would now like to turn our attention to the pigments used in the Ultramarine, Prussian and Anthraquinone Blues.

The pigment stories of Ultramarine Blue and Prussian Blue are very much interwoven and have been available to the artist for centuries, whilst Anthraquinone Blue is a relative newcomer to the artist’s palette. Each pigment has a different story to tell, based on its discovery, its history and its chemistry.

Ultramarine Blue

Pigment Details: Sulphur containing Sodium Aluminosilicate / Colour Index Pigment Blue 29 ( C.I . PB29)

When the blue pigment derived from the semi-precious blue stone, lapis lazuli was first introduced into Europe in the 15 ^th Century, where it came from and how it was produced was shrouded in mystery and the pigment was known only to have come from “beyond the sea”, hence it became known as oltramarino by the medieval Italians (from the Latin word ultramarnius ) and at the time, the name also referred to a number of other imported goods. In England, the pigment was known as ultramarine.

At the time most of the lapis lazuli used in both western and eastern art came from the mines in Afghanistan (Finlay 2002, page 313). Being a semi-precious stone, the pigment derived from lapis lazuli was expensive and its quality and colour intensity depended on the purity of the seam from which it was mined. The search for alternative less expensive blue pigments, spurred on no doubt by Heinrich Diesbach’s accidental discovery in 1704 of Berlinisch Blau (what we now know as Prussian Blue), led to the eventual discovery of an “artificial ultramarine”.

Around 1787, the German scientist and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, observed and commented on blue deposits on the walls of lime kilns near Palermo. He noted that these deposits were used as substitutes for lapis lazuli in decorative applications (“Ultramarine” accessed on 29/04/22). Further observations of blue compounds on lime kilns by others, led to the Societé pour l'Encouragement d'Industrie in 1824, to offer a prize for the discovery of a chemical process to produce ultramarine by a synthetic route. In 1828 the French industrial chemist, Jean-Baptiste Guimet was awarded the prize for his process, the details of which he kept secret and later exploited commercially. At the same time the German Chemist. Christian Gmelin published his own process and because of this he received the recognition for this discovery. The synthetic version was also called ultramarine, although it is sometimes known as French ultramarine (after Guimet).

The synthetic ultramarine is based on the three-dimensional aluminosilicate lattice with a sodalite structure containing entrapped sodium ions and ionic sulphur groups (from “Pigment Compendium”, page 381). It is interesting to note that other similar synthetic pigments based on the same aluminosilicate-sodalite structure are also referred to as ultramarine (for example, Ultramarine Pink), but are no longer thought of as coming from “beyond the sea”. In the figure below, the aluminosilicate (SiAlO ₄ ) lattice (a) comprises of cages (c), known as β cages, in which the polysulphide ([S ₃ ] ^- ) anions are surrounded by 4 sodium ([Na] ⁺ ) cations (b). A crystal of ultramarine blue (d) will be formed of several of these β cages stacked as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Graphical representation of the chemical and crystal structure of C. I. Pigment Blue 29 (after Hsiao, 2017)

It is interesting to note that the Colour Index Pigment Blue 29 can refer to either the natural mineral, lapis lazuli or the synthetic form. In both compounds the chromophore (or colour centre) is the polysulphide groups (which gives the mineral its blue colour), which explains why the pigment’s colour changes from blue to grey (the normal colour of the sodalite structure), accompanied by the smell of rotten eggs (caused by the liberation of toxic hydrogen sulphide (H ₂ S) gas), when treated with mildly acidic liquids (for example, lemon juice as shown in figure 2).

Figure 2: The effect of lemon juice (mildly acid) on dried Ultramarine Blue watercolour.

Lapis lazuli is still mined and available as a pigment for artists’ colours and is available as special colours in other manufacturers’ ranges. However, the mineral deposits used now for pigment frequently containing high levels of silicate, which if not removed will dilute the blue lazurite, causing the pigment’s hue to be less intense and dull. Synthetic ultramarine on the other hand is a more vivid blue, since the particles are smaller and more uniform, making this pigment the best choice for Ultramarine Blue in my professional quality watercolour range, because of its purity, light fastness and intense red shade blue hue.

Figure 3: Graduated washes on white and black paper (showing the transparency) of Ultramarine Blue Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

The Ultramarine Blue’s red shade allows this Professional watercolour to be used on the artist’s palette as a warm primary blue. The watercolour’s tendency to granulate and high colour strength can be used to full effect when painting wet-in-wet or in dilute washes.

Prussian Blue

Pigment Details: Iron (II, III) Hexacyanoferrate (II, III) / Colour Index Pigment Blue 27 ( C.I. PB27)

As mentioned above, the metal complex pigment, iron hexacyanoferrate ( Colour Index Pigment Blue 27) was serendipitously synthesised in Berlin around 1706 by the colourman Diesbach The pigment was originally named Preußisch blau (Prussian blue) and Berlinisch blau (Berlin blue), but is also known as Paris blue, Milori blue and the greener shades, Chinese blue.

Heinrich Diesbach was originally trying to prepare a crimson pigment from the dye, cochineal by precipitating it using a salt containing potassium carbonate (that had been unsuspectingly contaminated with offal). Instead of the expected crimson lake, Diesbach produced a blue precipitate of iron hexacyanoferrate as the contaminated potash (potassium carbonate) had contained a mixture of nitrogenous organic bases (including pyrrole) and alkyl cyanides from the thermal degradation of compounds such as hemoglobin (Ware, 2008). It has been claimed that this is the first synthetic pigment, but Mike Ware states that Egyptian blue (a calcium copper(II) silicate, whose recipe was lost in the Roman era is probably the first, but Prussian blue is better described as the first synthetic coordination compound. The process to produce Prussian Blue was kept secret up until 1724, when John Woodward published a method that used dried ox-blood as the starting material, then as the science of chemistry began to yield it secrets, the French chemist, Pierre-Joseph Macquer in 1752, showed that the pigment could be reduced to a salt of iron and the yet unknown acid, hydrogen cyanide*. At the time the unknown acid was named Blausaure , meaning “blue acid” (because it was derived from Prussian blue) and Prussic acid in England (“Prussian blue”, accessed on 29/04/22).

It was no surprise that Prussian blue began to replace the expensive blue lazurite pigment as the artists’ blue of choice. However, its deep intensity of colour, which at full strength is almost black, has led to the addition of white pigments in order to lighten the intensity of the pigment. According to Ralph Mayer, the colour Antwerp blue is a pale variant of Prussian blue made by reducing the iron hexacyanoferrate with 75% of an inert pigment, usually alumina hydrate, which sometimes contains zinc salts (Mayer, 1991). The difference in hue between Prussian and Antwerp blue is negligible as can be seen in figure 4a, but there is an obvious difference in tinctorial strength (figure 4b).

Figure 4: Prussian and Antwerp blues: (a) comparison of graduated washes and (b) tinctorial strength (10 white : 1 colour).

There is mixed opinion as to whether Prussian blue is a light fast pigment, as there is evidence that it does fade as a recent study has found, but in all fairness, pure iron hexacyanoferrate pigment is seldom used in artists' colour formulations just on its own. Kirby and Saunders discovered that alumina hydrate and ferrihydrite, often found as impurities in the pigment prepared by the early manufacturing processes, reduce the pigment’s light fastness (Kirby, 2004). The presence of ferrihydrite, which is yellow, leads to a greener shade Prussian blue (Grandjean, 2016) and alumina hydrate is often used as an inert filler in Antwerp blue and student quality watercolours due to its acceptable transparency in gum Arabic solutions.

Figure 5: Graduated washes on white and black paper (showing the transparency) of Prussian Blue Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

My Prussian Blue professional quality watercolour contains only the pigment and no inert fillers. If it is necessary to reduce the colour’s intensity, it is best to use dilute washes and so use the whiteness of the watercolour paper to reduce the intense blue. Mixing Prussian Blue watercolour with my Binder and Painting Medium will also reduce the colour’s intensity and still maintain the qualities of a professional watercolour (see figure 6b).

Figure 6: Comparisons of colour intensity (a) Prussian (100%) vs Antwerp blues and (b) Antwerp vs Prussian (50%) blues.

Anthraquinone Blue

Pigment Details: 6,15-dihydroanthrazine-5,9,14,18-tetrone / Colour Index Pigment blue 60 ( C.I. PB60)

Anthraquinone Blue Professional Watercolour is prepared using the synthetic organic pigment, 6,15-dihydroanthrazine-5,9,14,18-tetrone. It is what is known as a “Lake” pigment, that is a pigment that has been made by precipitating a dye with an inert binder, usually a metallic salt. Why this type of organic pigment is called a “lake” is not documented but according to the Wikipedia, the term “lake” has its origins in the term lac , which are the secretions of the Indian wood insect, Laccifer lacca (“Lake pigment” accessed on 29/04/22). So, the use of the word may have its reasons in the dried secretions, which are refined into shellac or the fact that these insects also exhibit a crimson body colour due to the presence of water-soluble polyhydroxy-anthraquinone (lac dyes) in their bodies and it was the red pigment lakes that were particularly important in the history of art.

C.I. pigment blue 60 is made from 2-aminoanthraquione treated with potassium hydroxide in the presence of a potassium salt. First patented in 1901 by BASF, as the first anthraquinone vat dye, it was branded “Indaththren”, which is an acronym for Indigo from anthracene (“Indanthrone blue”, accessed on 29/04/22). As a vat dye, it is used to colour cotton and is known as C.I. Vat Blue 4, whilst the pigment has very good light fastness and transparency (see figure 7a) and is often used as an alternative to natural indigo, albeit with a small addition of carbon black (see figure 7b). The pigment is also called indanthrone blue and indanthrene blue, hinting at BASF’s original brand name.

Figure 7: (a) Graduated washes on white and black paper (showing the transparency) of Anthraquinone Blue Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out and (b) hue comparison of Anthraquinone Blue with Indigo

Notes:

* Incidentally, it would appear that cyanide still retains its historical roots as it derives its name from the Greek word kyanoes , meaning dark blue (Ware 2008).

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarine accessed on 29 April 2022

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_blue accessed on 29 April 2022

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_pigment accessed on 29 April 2022

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indanthrone_blue accessed on 29 April 2022

Kirby, J, Saunders, D, "Fading and Colour Changes of Prussian Blue: Methods of Manufacture and the Influence of Extenders", National Gallery Technical Bulletin, Vol 25, 2004.

Hsiao, Y.H, Shen, YH, Ray, DT, “Synthesis of Ultramarine from Reservoir Silts”, Minerals 2017, 7(5), 69

Eastaugh N, Chaplin T, Siddall R, Walsh V, “Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary and Optical Microscopy of Historic Pigments”, Routledge, Abingdon 2013

Finlay V, “Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox”, Sceptre, London, 2002

Mayer, R “The Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques”, 5th Ed, Viking, New York, 1991.

Grandjean, F., Samain, L., Long, G.J., Dalton Trans., 2016, 45, 18018

Ware, M “Prussian Blue: Artists’ Pigment and Chemists’ Sponge” J. Chem. Educ. 2008, 85, 612

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I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

Can using Mediums give your Watercolour Painting a contemporary-modernist feel?

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 18:16:34 GMT

Breaking with traditional watercolour and using watercolour mediums can create amazing and colourful work.

Although the watercolour painting techniques we know today were being introduced by pioneering artist like John Singer Sargent and J. Frank Currier in the late part of the 19 ^th century,* the general feeling at the time was more contemporary than traditional as the watercolour medium was taken to new levels of creativity and what we term as “traditional” watercolour was born. So, with the advent of the 21 ^st century, has contemporary watercolourist developed new ways to extend the creativity of this art medium or just continued to accept it as a traditional set of techniques that cannot be deviated from?

Well, I am often told that there is always acrylics (also a water-based paint medium), if you want to be more “modernist”. Yes, there is acrylic colours that are now made especially for artists and are exceptionally adaptable to a variety of finishes and textures. It is often the medium of choice for the creative painters in our artistic community. However, the more eco-friendly amongst us are starting to be concerned about the amount of micro-plastics found in the oceans, some of which could be coming from the plastic particles washed out of our brushes after painting with artists acrylics. Is there an alternative painting medium that we can use, which can give our artwork a contemporary-modernist feel without possible effects on the environment?

At the risk of being controversial, I have made this point to try to highlight our dependence on the art materials we use and not being able to see beyond what we are trying to create. Yes, in the past I have used acrylic colours to paint with and have washed my brushes in running water, the washings of which have gone off to be treated at the local sewage works. However, times change and I am now more conscious of the impact I can have on my environment and so looked to develop a way to reduce my footprint, but still paint in a similar fashion. I turned to watercolours and developed a range of watercolour mediums that would allow me to paint with texture and introduce interesting effects in my artwork. In short, I have created tools to use and extend watercolour as an artform, rather than just using the art medium as a series of traditional painting techniques. I do honestly believe there is room for both, but in this ARTicle I would like to focus on the former.

Watercolour as a modernist painting medium

In my view, watercolour is a creative artform that is kinder to the environment. Its principal components (gum Arabic and glycerine) are used in food and the pigments I use are all classified as having no harmful effects to health or the environment. So, from an eco-friendly point of view, it would be beneficial to use watercolour.

Professional and artist quality watercolours have higher pigment contents than the equivalent quality acrylic colours, are at their best when they are diluted, have bright and intense colours and intermix with some pleasing results. However, artist acrylic colours have the advantage when it comes to painting on various substrates (watercolour is limited to just paper), applying thickly and creating interesting surface effects (dried watercolour tends to be too brittle and cracks easily in thick layers) and surface modification using various “aggressive” methods, including flames, abrasives, addition of surface active chemicals (surfactants), inclusion of granular and other materials (“mixed media” including collage) and probably other “artistic procedures”, that haven’t yet been discovered, but would give the fine-artist nightmares!

There are a number of watercolour mediums available in the market from other art material brands including Schmincke, Royal Talens and Winsor & Newton. I have also introduced a range of mediums; some of which, I developed to expand watercolour painting into the creative space usually occupied by artists’ acrylics. These include an impasto gel, collage medium, a binder medium and three others that can create interesting surface effects, which are all based on the eco-friendly principal ingredients of watercolour.

Figure 1: A J Ludlow’s range of watercolour mediums, including the Impasto, Collage, Granulation, Binder and Painting mediums, Ox-gall liquid and Gum Arabic solution, which are discussed in this ARTicle.

Creating 3D surfaces

For 3D surface effects, the Impasto Medium is ideal. It can be used pure or mixed with undiluted moist watercolour. It is suitable for palette knife painting and can be overpainted with watercolour after drying. After application it can be scratched into, for sgraffito techniques and in thick layers remains flexible. In an earlier ARTicle, “ Can Iridescent and Metallic Effect Pigments add a little Sparkle to Watercolour Painting? ”, Meiru used Impasto Medium in her painting “Lustrous Poppies” to create the effect shown in figure 2, where watercolour has been painted on top of the dry impasto medium in some areas and in others, mixed into the impasto gel first before applying by palette knife.

Figure 2: Detail from “Lustrous Poppies” by Meiru Ludlow, showing the sgraffito techniques employed to create the flowers and leaves in the painting (first shown in November 2021’s ARTicle).

Figure 3 shows watercolour and impasto gel used in a more modernistic and abstract style. In the photograph, the surface has the appearance similar to an acrylic painting. The work being a watercolour, will still require to be framed under glass or Perspex, but this would also be a requirement if a soft acrylic polymer was used.

Figure 3: Detail from an abstract painting using watercolour and impasto medium.

Creating mixed media and collage works

With regards to substrates, a heavy watercolour paper will give the best foundation. Schmincke has a fine and coarse watercolour ground, which acts as a primer for linen canvas, card board and wood, so these substrates accept watercolour. This ground is actually based on acrylic polymer dispersions and so would still present a dilemma to the eco-friendly artist. Alternatives, would include Ox-gall liquid, which is often used to reduce surface tension and so allow the watercolour to wet a substrate, but not improve its adhesion.

Whilst developing my Collage Medium, I discovered that it not only acts as an adhesive, but also can be used as a watercolour ground. I used it as both in the painting shown in figure 4, where I fixed aluminium kitchen foil to a piece of watercolour paper (figure 4a, 4b) and then after coating the foil with Collage Medium (figure 4c), the surface accepted watercolour (4d). The Collage medium can be used to fix a variety of different materials to a painting and has the advantage that when dry can be overpainted with watercolour, unlike conventional PVA and latex adhesives.

Figure 4: “Sunrise” by Andrew Ludlow, pictured in stages.

Painting effects

Granulation mediums are popular amongst the art material brands and I too have one. Mine is a little different as it can be used to create interesting painting effects (as shown in figure 5 and 6). To create the effect in figure 5, I dropped neat granulation medium onto a wet wash of colour, which caused the yellow to reticulate. After allowing it to partially dry, I then feed the green into the areas where the medium had been dropped. Interesting effects can also be achieved using the medium in different ways, for example, as the wash water or wetting the paper with it first before introducing watercolour.

Figure 5: Details from an abstract painting using A J Ludlow’s Granulation medium.

Figure 6: More painting effects created using Granulation medium.

Gum Arabic solution and Ox-gall liquid when used together can create interesting tendrils (see figure 7), whilst Ox-gall on its own creates delicate layers (figure 8).

Figure 7: Creating watercolour tendrils using gum Arabic and Ox-gall.

Figure 8: Creating delicate layers and flow patterns using watercolour mixed with A J Ludlow’s Ox-gall liquid.

In an earlier ARTicle discussing using iridescent and metallic effect pigments, I introduced my Watercolour Binder and Painting medium, which can be used to produce home-made watercolours. It can also be used to produce granular pastes, to produce fine or coarse texturing agents and in the case of the painting in figure 9, a watercolour containing saw dust and small particles of mirrored glass.

Figure 9: Detail from a textured watercolour abstract painting containing a watercolour based on saw dust.

This ARTicle has been an interesting one to write and I hope an interesting and inspiring one to read. I set out to see if by using watercolour mediums watercolour painting can have a contemporary-modernist feel, which I hope I have answered by showing that in this particular art landscape, watercolours with their mediums, are a viable alternative to using artists’ acrylics in this respect.

Notes:

*It is in the 19th century that the techniques that we now recognise as being the essence of modern watercolour, began to be used. Transparent watercolour became popular in the United States of America through the paintings of John Singer Sargent, who used the overlaying of thin, transparent washes that rely on the white of the paper for their effect. The white of the paper provides the highlights in his paintings and as more washes are overlaid the tone and colour deepen.

The Boston watercolourist, J. Frank Currier, painted on soaked paper, which allowed the washes to run and blur causing a stir in America in the late 19th century with this technique, but the use of washes and wet-in-wet techniques had already been discovered by J.M.W. Turner and featured heavily in many of his watercolour sketches in the early 19th century (1820-1840).

More tales of China and the Paintings they have inspired

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 11:16:09 GMT

Painting Giant Pandas from photographs of my visit to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in October 2007.

Before I start my tale, I would just like to thank you all for your feedback on last month’s ARTicle, in fact it was so encouraging that I decided to continue with tales of painting some of the inhabitants of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, or just simply “Panda Base” (from their website).

Figure 1: Photos of some of the inhabitants of the Chengdu Research Base during my visit in October 2007

When I visited in October 2007, I am convinced it was called the Chengdu Panda Research Institute, which was where I told everyone at the time that Meiru and I had visited. It was part of a planned trip to Chengdu in Sichuan Province, which is famous for its hot and spicy food. Earlier we had had two days on Mount Emei (峨眉山), which is one of the four sacred Buddhist mountains in China and site of the first Buddhist temple built in China. We had gone to see the Giant Leshan Buddha (樂山大佛) and visit the Wannian (万年寺) Buddhist temple. We also visited and fed the Tibetan macaques that live on the mountain, before returning to Chengdu to visit the Panda breeding centre.

Over the years, I have used my photographs of the Chengdu pandas as references for several paintings. The first, “Giant Panda Feeding” was finished in February 2008 (figure 2a) and was painted with Winsor & Newton’s (W&N) Soft Pastels on Daler-Rowney’s Ingres pastel paper. The second was a watercolour, “Giant Panda Feeding 2” (figure 2b) painted with W&N’s Artists watercolours in June 2008, on Langton CP paper.

Figure 2: (a) “Giant Panda Feeding”, a pastel painting (20cm x 20cm) and (b) “Giant Panda Feeding 2”, a watercolour painting (21cm x 25cm), both by Andrew Ludlow.

My model in both paintings was the adult siting up right in the photograph of the group of 4 pandas eating bamboo shoots (see figure 1) and detailed in figure 3a.

Figure 3: My furry muse and inspiration, (a) sitting up and (b) leaning forward.

The same adult then leaned forward (figure 3b) and became the model for my next work (figure 4), a pencil drawing completed in 2019, after working on it on-and-off since 2014. I had been asked by a friend to help him improve his drawing skills and so as part of the session devoted to looking at techniques to scale-up images. I showed him the grid method. This involves drawing squares on the image and then larger ones on the paper to ensure that everything is scaled-up in the correct proportions and it was from this exercise that I began the drawing "Giant Panda Feeding 3" (figure 4b). I also wanted to try something different, which for me was to produce a very detailed drawing and almost reproduce each hair of the panda’s fur. I also wanted to use pencils with different hardness to capture the tonal changes; for the lighter tones and white fur I used 2H and 4H pencils, whilst HB and 2B for the intermediate tones and 5B to 9B on the darker tones and details in the Black fur. I didn’t want the background or foreground to distract the viewer away from the panda and so I kept it quite low key. I was very happy with the results and amazed at how much patience I could muster along the way!

Figure 4: “Giant Panda Feeding 3” pencil drawing by Andrew Ludlow (40cm x 50cm), (a) part way done in February 2018 and (b) finished in October 2019.

The kind comments I received concerning last month’s ARTicle actually encouraged me to put aside time from my development and formulation work, which can easily intrude into my weekends and actually relax and enjoy using my watercolours for change. I painted for pleasure last weekend, probably the first time in a very long while and it was great!

Using the same reference photograph of my favourite Giant Panda (figure 3b), I once again used the grid method to increase the size of the image. I drew a grid of 2cm squares over the A4 image, scaling-up to 2inch squares on hand-made, cold pressed Saunders Waterford watercolour paper (which was approximately 500gsm). Once I was satisfied with the outline drawing I gently rubbed out the grid, so as not to damage the paper surface (figure 5a and 5b).

Figure 5: (a) drawing a grid on the image and on the watercolour paper, then using the grid to scale up the image in the correct proportions and (b) finally erasing the grid before painting.

Using my watercolours (A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours), I painted the log floor in the background first using wet-in wet to create depth by giving it an out of focused look. I used Raw Sienna, Raw Umber and a little English Red to create the right wood-like colour. After letting it dry, I then started to paint the tree area, by initially laying down a flat wash of Phthalocyanine Green (Yellow Shade) mixed with Isoindolinone Yellow. Again, I let this dry, then using a long-haired brush and Charcoal Grey, I created the shadow and leaf patterns by swirling the brush around until the flat green wash took on the appearance of shaded undergrowth (figure 6a).

Figure 6: (a) painting the background and (b), starting work on the foreground and the panda’s fur coat.

Using similar watercolours to those used on the log floor, I started to pick out the bamboo shoots in the foreground of the painting, whilst a little Azomethine Green mixed with Phthalocyanine Green (Yellow Shade), gave life to the young bamboo leaves. I decided to use Charcoal Grey in the highlighted areas on the Panda’s black fur and on the ears and eyes. I used very dilute English Red for the reddish discolouration around the Panda’s left ear.

Once the painting was dry, I added Ivory Black to darken the areas and use the long-haired brush to paint the hair lines in the fur (see figure 7).

Figure 7: Adding more detail to the Giant Panda’s black fur coat.

Once the Panda’s black fur had been finished, I turned my attention to the panda’s face, which was in partial shade. Delicate lines of very dilute Raw Sienna painted with the long-haired brush created the creamy coloured lines in the panda’s white fur, whilst lines of dilute Raw Umber gave the fur a slightly darker tone and when “muddied” with dilute Cobalt Blue, gave a very good colour for the areas of the fur which were in shadow (see figure 8).

Figure 8: Painting the fine detail to the Panda’s face.

To darken the area around the mouth and snout, I used layers of dilute Charcoal Grey (see the finished painting in figure 9). To say I was pleased with the result was an understatement and please forgive me if I say that I was very impressed with the overall intensity of colour and brightness of the painting itself.

Figure 9: “Giant Panda Feeding 4”, watercolour painting by Andrew Ludlow (28cm x 38cm)

On comparing “Giant Panda Feeding 2” with the fourth incarnation, I do see and feel that there is a difference, the former is almost devoid of, say…“passion”….for want of a better word. My recollection of painting number 2 was of “knocking-it-out”, where as “Giant Panda 4” became something completely different. I think it did help to have drawn the subject in fine detail before hand and I must admit that I did debate using colour on “Giant Panda Feeding 3”, but decided against it, so it was probably inevitable that I would later repeat the work using watercolour.

I hope you have enjoyed my tale of Chengdu and how I “re-discovered” my passion for “painting for pleasure”. After our visit to Sichuan Province in October 2007, Meiru and I spent a couple of days in Xian, but that is probably a tale for another time.

Figure 10: Meiru at our next stop in Xian in October 2007.

References:

Accessed 28/02/2022 - http://www.panda.org.cn/english/

Two Years of the Tiger and the Paintings they have inspired

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 13:25:21 GMT

Reminiscence of visiting China in the Tiger year of 1998 and 2010 and the paintings that followed.

Figure 1: Photos from visits to China made in the Year of the Tiger, 1998.

I first visited China in September 1998, while I was working for ColArt Fine Art and Graphics. The Company had just begun its joint venture with an artist paints manufacturer in Tianjin and I was visiting as head of the technical team, tasked to transfer technology and bringing our Chinese partner into the ColArt organisation. It was the start of a long association with the country and its people, which still continues to this day.

During that first visit, I was taken to Beijing and visited all the most popular tourist places including Tiananmen Square (天安门), the Forbidden City (紫禁城), the Temple of Heaven (天坛), the Summer Palace (颐和园) and the Great Wall (万里长城).

My trip to the Summer Palace was during the October National holiday weekend and the weather was bright and warm. The Summer Palace was an Imperial Garden during the Qing dynasty, which covers an area of 1.1 square miles. It is a vast collection of lakes (three-quarters of the area is water), gardens and palaces on the outskirts of Beijing. Today it is an UNESCO World Heritage site and is declared "a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value" (Wikipedia – Summer Palace).

Figure 2: Tower of Buddhist Incense (佛香阁) on Longevity Hill (万寿山).

The pagoda, which could be seen from the lake, became the focus of a watercolour painting on my return home. I painted the “View of the Summer Palace” with Winsor & Newton’s Artists’ watercolours on their branded watercolour paper (see figure 3). It was before I made my own watercolour and being the Research and Development Manager for the company which owned the W&N brand, obviously had it perks. The painting was quite detailed and was completed in early 1999. It is one of my favourite paintings and hangs, pride of place on the wall above my desk in my office.

Figure 3: “View of the Summer Palace”, a watercolour painting by Andrew Ludlow (25cm x 20cm).

I returned to Beijing in December 1998 and visited the Forbidden City again. The inspiration for my second painting (which is more of a sketch), was during this visit. The Forbidden City, was once the Imperial Palace and winter residence of the Emperor of China from the Ming to the end of the Qing dynasty (between 1420 and 1924). Not only was it the home of Chinese emperors and their households, but was the ceremonial and political centre of the Chinese government for over 500 years (Wikipedia – Forbidden City). It is a vast complex of wooden structures and stone balustrades, which in my painting (figure 4), I have tried to capture the intense cold I felt on that sunny winter’s day in December 1998.

Figure 4: “Taking in the Forbidden City”, a watercolour painting by Andrew Ludlow (22cm x 18cm).

The subject of my painting is Meiru, gazing out over a stone balcony at only a small part of the vast 720,000 square metres that make up the Palace Museum. Again, this painting was finished in early 1999, painted with Winsor & Newton’s Artists’ watercolours on their branded watercolour paper.

Since then, I have been to China many times, on business and on holiday. In 2010, the following Tiger Year, I was working with a company in Jiangsu province and was fortunate to visit a number of tourist attractions including Hua Guo Mountain (which is known as the birthplace of the Monkey King, Sun Wukong), Nanjing, a beautiful Restaurant in Shuyang. We also had a lovely family holiday in Guilin.

Figure 5: Photos from visits to China made in the Year of the Tiger, 2010.

From my visits I painted two subjects, the first completed in September 2010 was the oil painting “Li River, Guilin” (see figure 6). It was an unseasonal dull and misty day (for the month of May) when we went on a boat trip along the Li River (漓江), which suited the dramatic terrain of limestone hills, giving the landscape a sense of the mysterious. My art is not restricted to just watercolours and felt that oil on a large stretched and primed canvas would do the subject justice. I applied the oil thickly, using a palette knife, so that the painting itself has texture and a 3D effect. I used mainly Winsor & Newton Artist oils, with a few colours from my friend, Michael Harding.

Figure 6: “Li River, Guilin”, an oil painting by Andrew Ludlow (100cm x 40cm).

The second painting is a true watercolour painted with my own colours. The subject was a fisherman in his boat on a river near Shuyang, Jiangsu province (figure 7). Although the subject image dates from 2010, the painting was completed in 2019 on Langton CP paper. The original photograph was taken in a industrial area (as can be seen in figure 5), I chose to focus only on the boatman and his boat and used an illustrative style to create a hint of the river, which I think really works.

Figure 7: “Shuyang Boatman”, a watercolour painting by Andrew Ludlow (38cm x 20cm).

With the new Tiger Year, I hope I will once again have the opportunity to visit China and find inspiration there for future paintings. But with the uncertainty of these times as we come out of the pandemic, it will be interesting to see what the future holds. But in the meantime, just looking through the photographs from previous visits, I have seen some images that are just waiting to be used as inspiration for new work. So, without further ado, I wish you all a Happy Chinese New Year and hope that the Tiger Year will be a healthy and prosperous one for us all.

新年快乐!

References:

Accessed 31/01/2022 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace

Accessed 31/01/2022 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City

Pigment Stories – Phthalocyanine Blues and Greens

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 18:53:24 GMT

A periodic look at the stories behind the pigments used in A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolours

Following on from my earlier ARTicles spotlighting the pigments used in my Professional Watercolour range, I would now like to turn our attention to the pigments derived from the organic complex, phthalocyanine, which I use in two blues, a turquoise and two greens.

Figure 1: A 2D representation of the phthalocyanine macromolecule (PubChem)

The organic compound, phthalocyanine (pronounced thalo-si-a-neen) is a large, aromatic, macrocyclic, organic compound. It is composed of four isoindole units linked by a ring of nitrogen atoms (see figure 1). The extensive delocalization of the 18 conjugated π-electrons gives the molecule, amongst other properties, a blueish green colour which has been extensively exploited as an industrial colourant.

The phthalocyanine pigments form a large group of synthetic organic macromolecules that form macrocyclic ligand complexes and have a lot in common with the polyphyrins (a group of organic compounds that include the biochemicals chlorophyll and hemoglobin). The phthalocyanine anion can be complexed with various metals to form organic-metallic complexes. These complexes and the metal-free phthalocyanine molecule tend to have low solubility in common solvents and are thermally stable, with excellent light fastness. At least 70 different metal-phthalocyanine complexes have been synthesised, but the most common one is based on copper.

Although the first synthesis, which produce d a blue powder bi-product are attributed to Braun and Tcherniac in 1907 and Diesbach and von der Weid in 1927, the pigment was not commercialised until 1935 when Imperial Chemical Industries announce their Monastral Fast Blue, followed by IG Farbenindustrie in 1936 and Du Pont in the late 1930s (Pigment Compendium, page 305), and the chlorinated derivative of phthalocyanine blue was first sold in 1938.

Phthalocyanine Turquoise

Pigment Details: Phthalocyanine (metal free) / Colour Index Pigment Blue 16 (C.I. PB16)

Unlike the phthalocyanine blue pigments (C.I. PB15:6 and C.I. PB15:4), the phthalocyanine turquoise is based on a metal free compound, which shifts the colour of the phthalocyanine chromophore from blue to a more greenish hue. The metal free phthalocyanine is not as robust as the organo-metallic phthalocyanines, having inferior heat stability and poorer chemical resistance, which limits its use in other applications, but its properties are fine for a watercolour pigment.

Figure 2: Graduated washes on white and black paper (showing the transparency) of Phthalocyanine Turquoise Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

This pigment, like the copper phthalocyanines are classed as organic pigments and as so, tend to have relatively smaller particle sizes and larger surface areas than inorganic pigments, giving them a tendency to have higher tinctorial strengths (the strength of the colour increases with decreasing particle size) and be more transparent (as the smaller particle size scatters less light), which can affect the cleanness of the resulting watercolour’s ability to “lift-out” and so watercolours based on organic pigments have a greater tendency to stain (as can be seen in figures 2, 3 and 4).

The consistency of Phthalocyanine Turquoise Professional Watercolour is highly structured, as are the other phthalocyanine pigmented watercolours in the range. This is due to their relatively larger surface area, which absorbs more liquid binder, thus affecting the watercolour’s rheology straight from the jar. Once diluted with water, the watercolours flow and paint smoothly and the high levels of pigmentation ensure that the colour is strong and intense.

Phthalocyanine Blue (Red and Green Shades)

Pigment Details (Red Shade): Epsilon (ε) - Copper Phthalocyanine / Colour Index Pigment Blue 15:6 (C.I. PB15:6)

Copper phthalocyanine exhibits polymorphism (existing in different crystal forms), the three commercially important ones are alpha (α), beta (β) and epsilon (ε); traditionally, red shade phthalocyanine blues were prepared from α-copper phthalocyanine (C.I. PB15:1 and C.I. PB15:2), whilst green shade ones from the β-form (C.I. PB15:3 and C.I. PB15:4). The ε-form is redder in shade, more stable and has a higher tinting strength than α-copper phthalocyanine, making this pigment the best choice for a red shade phthalocyanine blue in my professional watercolour range.

Figure 3: Graduated washes on white and black paper (showing the transparency) of Phthalocyanine Blues (red shade on the left, whilst the green shade is on the right) Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

Pigment Details (Green Shade): Beta (β) – Copper Phthalocyanine / Colour Index Pigment Blue 15:4 (C.I. PB15:4)

Commercially, the more stable β-copper phthalocyanine is easily converted from the α-form. Although both are formed of the planner copper-phthalocyanine complex, the crystal shape and structure is markedly different; the β-form is composed of a tightly packed herringbone structure, where the copper atom has octahedral geometry, resulting in rod shaped crystals, whilst the α-form is composed of a relatively more open crystal lattice, where the copper atom has square geometry and tends to form block crystals. This difference in crystal packing is the reason for the shift in colour and also why the α-form is less stable.

The greenish β-copper phthalocyanine is a very good clean transparent blue and can be used on the artist’s palette as a cool primary blue.

Phthalocyanine Green (Blue and Yellow Shades)

Pigment Details: Chlorinated Copper Phthalocyanine / Colour Index Pigment Green 7 (C.I. PG7)

Phthalocyanine Green (Blue Shade) Professional Watercolour is prepared using the synthetic halogenated aromatic macrocyclic organo-metallic pigment, copper polychloro-phthalocyanine, with 14 to 15 chloro-substituents at the 16 peripheral reactive sites on the molecule’s four isoindole units.

Pigment Green 7 is synthesised from copper phthalocyanine (the blue pigment), which can then be chlorinated in the presence of aluminium trichloride to form the green pigment, copper polychloro-phthalocyanine, which is usually a mixture of isomers and degrees of chlorination.

Copper polycloro-phthalocyanine has a bluish-green colour which is very similar in hue to Viridian (chromium (III) oxide dihydrate, C.I. pigment green 18) and is often used as a synthetic substitute, albeit in a fairly diluted mixture of pigment and other mineral fillers. In my Phthalocyanine Green (Blue Shade) Professional Watercolour, the pigment is pure and the tinctorial strength is very strong and so is best used sparingly when initially mixing with other colours.

Figure 4: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Phthalocyanine Greens (blue shade on the left, whilst the gyellow shade is on the right) Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

Pigment Details: Brominated Copper Phthalocyanine / Colour Index Pigment Green 36 (C.I. PG36)

The yellow shade green is achieved by partially substituting the chloro-substituents of copper polychloro-phthalocynine with bromine, forming copper polybromo, polychloro-phthalocyanine, with 4 to 9 bromo-substituents and 8 to 2 chloro-substituents at the 16 peripheral reactive sites on the molecule’s four benzene units (Pigment Compendium, page 305). Bromination is less efficient than chlorination and as a consequence the maximum substitution is 9 bromine atoms. The halogenated phthalocyanine (Pc) has the general formula of CuPc(Cl)x(Br)y, where the number of substituents (x+y) is approximately equal to 15.

Phthalocyanine Green (Yellow Shade) Professional Watercolour has a softer yellow shade of green than the Phthalocyanine Green (Blue Shade) and so can be mixed with various yellows and earth colours to produce natural looking greens for foliage and landscape painting. In particular with Isoindolinone Yellow it can be mixed to make a lightfast green with a similar hue to natural Sap Green, which traditionally is made from buckthorn berries.

References:

Eastaugh N, Chaplin T, Siddall R, Walsh V, “Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary and Optical Microscopy of Historic Pigments”, Routledge, Abingdon 2013

Pub Chem website accessed on 31/12/21

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/ph thalocyanine#section=Structures

****

I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” – Using your very own Artwork on Christmas Cards for Family and Friends

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 19:08:30 GMT

Producing Christmas cards from your own watercolour paintings

It’s that time of year again, when we start to give and receive cards that send messages and greetings for the Season. The giving and receiving of Christmas cards are now firmly embedded in Christmas tradition, as one of the milestones of December, along with getting the decorations out the loft, putting up the tree, making sure close family and friends have a gift and buying the Christmas feast. Christmas is already something special, or so we are told, but it could be even more special for our family and friends and indeed ourselves, if we send Christmas cards that are emblazoned with our own paintings and so add a little more magic to the mix.

These days I send around 40 Christmas cards each year, so for me, painting each one individually is not an option, so I decided to have images of my original paintings printed by a custom printer, onto my own professionally produced Christmas cards.

I thought it would be good to share my experience and show you how I went about getting my very own Christmas cards. In doing so, I have obviously used equipment that I have, an editing application that I use and know how to use and have chosen one particular on-line custom printer to produce my cards. I hope it goes without saying that there are other cameras, editing software and custom printers available to use and I am sure you have your own preference, but this ARTicle is how I went about the task, so of course, I will describe my experience in the hope that you find it useful.

Choosing and photographing the images

We were lucky to have some snow last week and so that inspired me to paint scenes from our local area in an abstract landscape style. I set out to paint them using a limited palette of Anthraquione Blue, Charcoal Grey and a thin wash of Cadmium Orange. The following day the snow had melted and the sun was shining brightly, so I looked to capture this in the painting “Winter Sunshine”, where I used Transparent Iron Oxide Yellow to create the golden glow of the sun through the trees. Each was painted using a wet-in-wet technique, in order to create the hazy sunlight that is so evident at this time of year. I enjoyed painting them and thought that although simple, their abstract nature would look good as Christmas cards.

Figure 1: My abstract landscape watercolour paintings, “Trees in the Snow”, “Winter Trees” and “Winter Sunshine”.

My first step was to photograph each painting, to obtain a high-resolution image. I used a Canon EOS 600D digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera to obtain an image at 300 pixels per inch, taking each photograph in natural daylight. I have used my phone before, which produces nice images, but their resolution tends to be 72 pixels per inch, which will have an impact on the clarity of the finished result.

Photo editing

I transferred the images to my computer, where I could edit each and prepare them for printing onto cards. I used Photoshop Elements to process my digital images using the following steps:

Step 1: Correcting the white balance of each image;

New paragraph

Step 2: Adjusting the colour of each image;

Step 3: Adjusting the brightness of each image;

Step 4: Cropping each Image

Preparing the Card design

It was at this point that I needed to go to the on-line custom printer’s website and see what size and card designs I could have. I decided to produce “Winter Sunshine” as an A5 card with horizontal fold at the top of the image (my printer identifies this as a “tent fold”), “Winter Trees” as an A6 “tent” folded card and “Trees in the Snow” as a 148 x 148mm card with a vertical fold on the left-hand side of the image (my printer identifies this as a “half fold”).

I then looked at each card template for the correct sizing requirements and noticed that the printer recommends a “bleed” margin of 3mm around edge of the card and a “safe area” of 5mm within the edge and either side of the fold. The “bleed” area is important to allow the image to extend beyond the edge of the card and so avoid any unwanted white borders, whilst the “safe” area is there to ensure artwork or text remain within the trimmed borders.

I intend my paintings to completely fill the front of the card and so needed to include the “bleed” area in my design. Therefore in photoshop, I created a template for each face of the three cards, and then the whole card itself.

The “bleed” margin requires a 3mm strip around the edge of the card, and so I had to extend the face dimensions; for example, for the 148 x 148mm card, the front face was extended to 154 x 151mm (figure 2). The image was then manipulated to fit (figure 3) and then finally the front face and rear face fitted to form the complete card (figure 4). I had already decided not to have a printed message inside and so each card only requires one side to be printed.

Figure 2: Creating the “bleed” area around the edge of the front face.

Figure 3: Ensuring the image fills the whole face.

Figure 4: The completed design including painting description to the reverse of the card and the “bleed” area around its edge.

The finished designs

Figure 5: “Winter Sunshine” A5 Christmas card design

Figure 6: “Winter Trees” A6 Christmas card design

Figure 7: “Trees in the Snow” 148 x 148mm Christmas card design

I submitted my designs as JPEG files and ordered 25 cards of each design. When they are printed and dispatched, they will come with envelopes, ready for me to write my Christmas message in and send to my friends and family.

I hope you have found this ARTicle interesting. I have also produced other greeting cards form my watercolour paintings. Again, I leave the inside blank and sell them when I open my studio or when I exhibit. I have taken a conscience decision not to wrap the card and envelope in plastic, as I feel it unnecessary to do so because I tuck the flap of the envelope inside and push the back of the card into the envelope. In my own small way, I hope that by not wrapping my card in cellophane I am reducing the amount of waste packaging I am producing.

That then leaves me and all the rest of us at A J Ludlow Colours, to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and wealthy new year.

Can Iridescent and Metallic Effect Pigments add a little Sparkle to Watercolour Painting?

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 15:10:20 GMT

Breaking with traditional watercolour can create amazing and colourful work.

As I have mentioned before, there is a lot to be said about taking a break from doing things the way we feel comfortable with and trying something that’s just a little bit different. By challenging the norm and getting outside of our comfort zone, we can once again discover a new part of ourselves and in the process create some amazing work. So literally, let’s look at adding a little “sparkle” to our watercolours.

If you are a serious watercolourist like me, you will be thinking like I use to, that “sparkly and metallic effect pigments have no place in watercolour painting as they are for use by children and crafters to decorate cards etc.” Well before you stop reading, let me explain the four reasons why I have changed my mind.

The first reason was simply a change in the way I saw watercolour painting. I stopped thinking of watercolours as just “watercolours” and started to see the medium as a creative art form and with that came the realisation that traditional techniques could be stretched, adapted and modified to shape the artist’s vision. I still consider myself a serious watercolourist, because I care about the quality of the materials I use and the care in which I practice my art, but I also feel that I have thrown off the chains of convention and are more open minded as to what constitutes a good watercolour painting.

Putting aside the craft aspects, my second reason deals with the issue that these types of pigments are rarely used outside children’s art because the subsequent watercolours have consistency issues. Difficult to supply as a moist watercolour (in tubes) as the pigment readily separates, they are often supplied as discs or in pans, often with low tinctorial strengths. These problems are easily overcome by preparing the watercolour yourself, thus ensuring the colour is as strong as needed.

Reason number three is one of permanence, which is no longer an issue, as all of the pigments I use have been made for the automotive market, where light fastness is a top priority.

My four reason is based around the question “why don’t serious watercolourists want to use this type of pigment in their work?” I think the answer is because of tradition, as these pigments, which I call “effects pigments”, are very muted on white watercolour paper and so work best on dark backgrounds.

In the rest of this ARTicle, I want to introduce my range of Effects Pigments, show how easy it is to make your own watercolour and then show you two of Meiru’s watercolour paintings and explain how she painted them.

So, what are “effects pigments”?

I decided to call the A J Ludlow Colours range of iridescent and faux-metallic pigments, Effects Pigment Powders. I supply them as powders so that they can be mixed with my Watercolour Binder and Painting Medium to create a home-made watercolour. The ratio of pigment to binder can be varied giving the user complete freedom over the watercolours’ tinctorial strength.

The iridescent pigment powders are known as interference pigments, in that they change colour depending on the viewing angle. The five particular pigments in the Effects Pigment Powder range are special as they offer colour graduations that flow in and out of each other in a multitude of shades depending on the viewing angle and the incidence of light. These colour changes (also called colour “flop”) are quite dramatic over a dark background; Iridescent (1) goes from light green to turquoise, Iridescent (2) goes from green to violet, Iridescent (3) goes from light blue to pink, Iridescent (4) goes from blue to silver and Iridescent (5) goes from green to copper.

There are two twinkle effect pigments; one is the Shimmer powder, which is a classic sparkle pigment, with large flakes which reflect the incidence of light to give a silver lustre and bright twinkle effect, while the other is Rainbow Jewel powder, which is a special glitter effect pigment based on a relatively large multilayer holographic particle, that reflects the incidence of light to give a bright multicoloured twinkle effect.

White Metallic, Copper Metallic, Lemon Gold, Red Gold and Shimmer Gold are all classic metallic-effect mica pigments. Different metallic colours can be created with the White Metallic powder, for example silver and gun metal, by the addition of a small amount of black watercolour.

Making an Effects Pigment Powder Watercolour

It is very easy to make a watercolour as the following instructions demonstrate:

Figure 1 and 2: The equipment and materials needed (1) and placing the pigment onto the tile carefully to avoid dust (2).

You will need:

• A J Ludlow’s iridescent, shimmer or metallic powder;

• A J Ludlow’s Watercolour Binder and Painting Medium;

• Mixing surface (in this case a white ceramic tile);

• Spatula (I am using my J Adams tapered palette knife, that I have had for over 15 years).

Stage 1:

In order to reduce dust, spray a small area of the tile with a fine mist of water first, then add the powder carefully to this area. Try to keep the powder in a tight heap, this will make it easier to judge how much binder you will need. The great advantage to making your own watercolour is you can make it as intense as you like.

Figure 3 and 4: Binder is drizzled over the pigment (3) and then using the spatula, gently mix the pigment in (4).

Stage 2:

The watercolour can be as strongly pigmented as you desire, but until you have your own ratio, start by adding twice the approximate volume of watercolour binder medium to the amount of powder already on the tile. More powder can always be added later, if a more intensely coloured watercolour is needed, but if too much powder is added then the pigment will be under-bound and so when the watercolour is dry, the pigment may rub off the paper.

Stage 3:

Gently mix the dry powder into the binder, by rolling the liquid over the pigment, taking care not to generate dust. Once the powder has been fully wetted out, continue to mix until the paste is even and smooth. Try to keep the mixing to a confined area.

Figure 5 and 6: Check the mixture’s consistency (5) and painting out the home-made watercolour (6).

Stage 4:

The consistency will depend on the ratio of powder to binder you use, but it should be even. The watercolour in the photographs has a ratio of 2 binder to 1 powder and its consistency is such that it runs off the spatula evenly, without any lumps (see figure 5).

Stage 5:

Once made, the watercolour can be used like any other. Add water and paint with a brush. If desired, the watercolour could be applied using a palette knife (without the addition of water), using an impasto style to give highly strong colour, with slight texture.

If more texture is desired, then the effects powders can be mixed directly into A J Ludlow’s Impasto medium, which is great for sgraffito techniques.

Now be creative….

Below are two pieces of work created by Meiru. As you can imagine, the photographs cannot do the work justice as the pigments change colour with shifts in the light’s angle of incidence. The colours in the photographs therefore appear static, when in reality they are quite dynamic.

Painting 1 – “Incandescent Bluebells” by Meiru Ludlow

Figure 7: The watercolour painting “Incandescent Bluebells” by Meiru Ludlow, viewed directly and at an angle.

The painting, “Incandescent Bluebells” was painted using various home-made watercolours prepared singerly from the Iridescent effects pigment powders. The colours were painted by brush onto 300gsm “Black Black” paper from Fabriano. In figure 7, the colour difference of each iridescent pigment can be seen between the two images. Meiru has also used splashes of conventional watercolour in the foliage and she tells me that in some of her paintings she mixes the iridescent watercolours with conventional watercolours to create interesting hues. She also tells me that these home-made watercolours work exceptionally well with dip pens, which is what she used to sign her name.

Painting 2 – “Lustrous Poppies” by Meiru Ludlow

Figure 8: The watercolour painting “Lustrous Poppies” by Meiru Ludlow, viewed in daylight and under an artificial spotlight.

In “Lustrous Poppies” Meiru has used conventional watercolours and a home-made watercolour using the Lemon Gold metallic-effect powder. She has also created a 3D effect using my Impasto Watercolour Medium, as can be seen more clearly in figure 9. The work has been created on 300gsm “Black Black” paper from Fabriano using a mixture of sgraffito and palette knife painting. Watercolour has been painted on top of the dry impasto medium in some areas and in others, mixed into the impasto gel first before applying by palette knife. The photograph in figure 8 taken under an artificial spotlight, shows the highlights clearly, where the gold effect watercolour has been applied. This photograph also shows that the impasto gel has given the painting a sheen, that can easily be seen in figure 9.

Figure 9: Detail from “Lustrous Poppies” by Meiru Ludlow, showing the sgraffito techniques employed to create the flowers and leaves in the painting.

I hope you have found this month’s ARTicle interesting and inspiring. Someone once told me that “rules are for the abeyance of fools and the guidance of wise men”. By exchanging the word “rules” for “conventions” this modified saying speaks more directly to me as a creative artist.

In next month’s ARTicle, I shall continue sharing with you my thoughts and experience on another aspect of watercolour.

The Painting of “Landing Craft Infantry 375” and the Story Behind it.

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 13:20:37 GMT

There is an old saying that “every picture tells a story”

This is the story of one of my paintings, “Landing Craft Infantry 375”, which depicts a Royal Navy landing craft racing to Sword Beach early on the morning of 6 ^th June, 1944. To me this landing craft was something special as it introduced me to some very interesting and brave individuals, gave me the opportunity to discover its story and challenged me to learn more about Landing Craft Infantry (LCI) 375 and the morning of D-Day, so that I could convert black and white imagery, into glorious and life-like colour.

Landing Craft Infantry 375

On the morning of the 6 ^th June 1944, LCI 375 was taking a company of the 2 ^nd Battalion of the Royal Ulster Rifles (RUR) to the Normandy coast. It hit an obstacle just off the beach and so whilst the riflemen were disembarking, the craft was taking on water. Subsequently, the crew had to abandon ship and the craft became beached near Lion-sur-Mer as the tide went out. During the day, fire was returned from its forward gun turret on the enemy and a temporary repair of the holes in the hull was made using concrete and clamps in order to allow the craft to get back to the UK for a permanent repair (White, 29/06/2004). During the following weeks and months LCI 375 and its crew ferried Allied troops to the Normandy coast and returned with German Prisoners of War and thus fulfilled its role in Operation Neptune.

Figure 1: Landing Craft Infantry 375 on its way to the Normandy Coast and Alfred White, RN.

On board that day was the ship’s electrician, Alfred White, a Belfast man who on 6 ^th October, 2009, walked into the RUR Museum in Belfast, presented them with a photograph of LCI 375 and then told the curator his story, which is where my story begins.

The Royal Ulster Rifles and family ties

My family has had a long association with the Royal Ulster Rifles; my grandfather served with them from his enlistment in 1933, through to his de-mobilisation just after World War 2. Born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland and with little prospects of meaningful work, he enlisted into the 2 ^nd Battalion and met my grandmother during his first posting to Gravesend in Kent. After the war, he returned to Gravesend and made it his home, along with many other Riflemen who had met and married local girls during their pre-war posting. In the post war years, he was very active in the Gravesend Branch of the Regimental Association until his death at 57 in 1972.

Figure 2: My grandfather, Rifleman John McMillan, on enlisting and from a watercolour portrait (“Rifleman John (Jack) McMillan, 2RUR” by Andrew Ludlow) from a photograph taken around 1944.

It is therefore no surprise that from an early age, I became interested in my grandfather’s exploits and the regiment he was so proud to be a part of. Unfortunately, he passed away during my early teens and so I was unable to hear his stories from the man himself, so I took to researching the regiment’s history, which in turn led me to the Royal Ulster Rifles Museum at 5 Waring Street, Belfast. It was here that I met Terrance Nelson and Isaac Hall and heard Alfred White’s story. The thought that maybe LCI 375 had carried my grandfather to the Normandy beaches, began to take shape, as did the desire to paint LCI 375 and to have it on display in the Museum.

I wrote to Alfred White in May 2010 and asked for his permission to use his black and white photograph as the basis of my painting. After a year’s delay due to illness, he replied, agreeing to my request and so I started work.

The Painting

I deciding to paint the work in both transparent and opaque watercolours. This was before I made my own colours, but I was very mindful to use the best quality available at the time. I also used a robust watercolour paper that was made from 100% cotton fibre, which allow me to achieve the results I was looking for.

After drawing out LCI 375, I painted the sky first, which from coloured photographs (“Victory in Europe”, page 14-15) showed the sky to be blue with the hint of clouds. I painted the sky in one go, with a wash of cobalt blue watercolour, blotting out the clouds with a dry tissue whilst the wash was still damp.

The sea during the early morning crossing on 6 ^th June is shown to be very blue from the same contemporary photographs, thus reflecting the bright morning sky. Waves are very translucent and so in order to capture the movement of the sea, I used layers of transparent watercolour; making sure each layer was fully dry before adding the next. The wave’s shadow was created with Payne’s grey, whilst layers of ultramarine blue was used to create the sea’s flow as the waves form and are pushed away from the bow of the LCI (figure 3a). Finally, after adding fine lines of white gouache to create the tendrils of foam at the water’s surface, I gave the sea a wash of phthalo green (figure 3b), avoiding areas where the foam was at its whitest where I had left the paper blank.

Figure 3: Progressing the painting, working on the sea and Landing Craft, in order to give the waves translucence, but the ship solidity.

Scanning the photograph into my computer allowed me to zoom in to ascertain details on the ship’s deck. So, avoiding too much detail, I was able to hint at the figures on deck and paint them “accurately”, but in a way that they blend realistically into the painting. I also found using Alfred’s black and white photograph very beneficial because it is easier to see the tonal aspect of the picture, which can be quite difficult with a full colour image. But it was still difficult to see the detail of the LCI 375, especially in the area of the stern. I therefore needed to acquire more detailed material (“Landing Craft, Infantry and Fire Support”) to elucidate the structure at the rear, which turned out to be life rafts on their sides. The camouflage and the colour of the bridge, which is indicated in the photograph, was a fairly standard Royal Navy colour scheme, however when I looked through the resources I had gathered, the bridge could be either red or blue. As you can see in figure 3, I opted for red.

I sent Alfred a copy of the progress I had made on the painting, which he said was looking good, but he added that he did not remember the bridge being red, so I had to change it blue, which he said seem right. The LCI itself was painted with mainly white gouache tinted with watercolour, likewise the other ships in the background are also painted this way. Addition of fine lines of raw sienna and transparent iron oxide red watercolours, helped to define the hull’s structure and to give it that weathered rusty look, again the marks made on the hull by the anchor chain and rust trails can be seen in the photograph.

Presenting the Finished Painting

When the painting was finished and framed, I took it to show Alfred at his home on 23rd August 2013. It had been over 3 years, since first writing to Alfred and I was pleased with the result. During my visit he told me that when the photograph had been taken, he had been standing on deck holding the ship’s cat. He pointed at the figure in the painting that I though was holding a white rag and then told me the cat was white (figure 4). It was the first time I had met Alfred, but subsequently I discovered he was always very humorous and liked to tell a joke, so I am still not sure if he was pulling my leg about the cat or not!

Figure 4: Detail, showing the figure holding a “white cat”

The following year, my wife and I went over to Normandy with Alfred and his son-in-law for the 70 ^th Anniversary Celebrations of D-Day. We all took part in the many Royal Ulster Rifles Association events at the Memorial Garden at Caen, Cambes-en-Plaine and Longueval and had tickets to see the amazing show on the beach, which had been Sword 70 years previously. For my wife and I, it was a trip of a lifetime and a chance to meet so many veterans like Alfred, that on the 6 ^th June 1944, just by doing the job they had been given, had made a difference to the lives of so many.

Figure 5: Alfred White and painting

I remained in contact with Alfred, visiting him on a number of occasions until his death at the grand age of 93 on 13 ^th September 2017 and was extremely proud to have known him and been his friend.

The painting was destined to hang in the RUR Museum in Belfast, where it hangs to this day and so was presented by myself to the Trustees of the Museum on 5 ^th September 2013. It was here that I met Major-General Corran Purdon and Colonel Robin Charley, who accepted the painting on behalf of the Trustees of the RUR Museum. Both had been very active in the Regiment throughout most of their army careers; Major-General Purdon was commissioned into the RUR in 1939, but whilst attached to No 12 Commando had taken part in the raid on St Nazaire, for which he had been awarded the Military Cross and was captured and imprisoned in Colditz Castle* (website of the Royal Irish Regiment, accessed on 30/09/21). He later commanded 1RUR in 1962 during the battalion’s deployment to Borneo and their role in the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation. Colonel Charley had enlisted into the RUR in 1943, serving in Europe and was a veteran of the Korean War, taking part in the Battle of Happy Valley, where 150 riflemen were killed or taken prisoner (website of the Belfast Telegraph, accessed on 30/09/21).

Figure 6: Presenting “Landing Craft Infantry 375” to Major-General Corran Purdon, whilst Colonel Robin Charley looks on.

It was my great pleasure to meet these gentlemen, who sadly are no longer with us, but I have fond memories of that day and subsequent meeting with Major-General Purdon during the 70th Anniversary Celebrations of D-Day in Normandy the following year, when he asked me if he could call me “Andy”.

Quis Separabit **

Notes:

* The keys to Colditz Castle are now displayed in the Royal Ulster Rifles Museum.

** The Latin motto of the Royal Ulster Rifles, meaning “who shall separate us”. Used to sign off written communications between members of the regiment and regimental association.

References:

White A, Private Communication, 29th June, 2004

Hastings M, (Stevens G) “Victory in Europe”, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1985.

Rottman G L, Bull P “Landing Craft, Infantry and Fire Support: No 157”, New Vanguard, Osprey Publishing, Illustrated Ed, 2009

https://www.royal-irish.com/persons/purdon-cbe-mc-cpm-major-general-c-w-b accessed on 30th September 2021

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/robin-charleys-daughter-pays-warm-tribute-to-inspirational-korean-war-hero-who-died-aged-95-38318620.html accessed on 30th September 2021

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I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

Pigment Stories – Ultramarine and Cobalt Pinks, Manganese Mauve and Manganese, Cobalt and Dioxaine Violets

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 10:00:48 GMT

A periodic look at the stories behind the pigments used in A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolours

Following on from my earlier ARTicles, spotlighting the pigments used in the yellow , orange and red watercolours in my Professional Watercolours range, I would now like to turn our attention to the pigments used in the two pinks, the mauve and three violets. However, before we do, I would just like to touch upon colour mixing and how it can affect the brightness of the colour, as a lot of watercolourists prefer to mix their own “violets"* using red and blue and why I believe this may compromise the watercolours' brightness.

*According to Wikipedia (“Purple”, accessed on 24/08/21), violet is a spectral colour with its own wavelength, whereas purple is a composite colour made by combining red and blue. The article also goes on to state that purples are regarded as a redder shade, whilst violets are bluer. So, strictly speaking, when mixing red and blue, the resulting colour is purple.

Colour Mixing and its affect on purity of colour

Pigments are coloured because they selectively absorb and transmit (rather than reflect) light at specific wavelengths in the visible spectrum.

Figure 1: Absorption and transmission of light in the visible spectrum to produce colour.

For example, when visible light is shone onto a yellow-coloured watercolour, only the wavelengths corresponding to the yellow part of the spectrum are transmitted, the rest are absorbed.

The pigment’s purity of hue is related to the shape of the pigment’s absorption spectrum; the sharper the absorption spectrum, the brighter and purer the colour.

Figure 2: Light absorption spectra of a bright yellow as compared to yellow ochre.

The intensity and purity of colour is governed by the sharpness of the light absorption spectra and the fewer additional absorption bands present in the visible range, the purer the hue. In this example, the sharp rise in absorption curve of the bright yellow is responsible for its brightness, in the case of yellow ochre, the absorption curve is overall not so steep and therefore the colour is distinctly duller. It therefore follows that in pigment mixtures each pigment will obviously absorb light and so there are a number of absorption bands, which broadens the spectra and so results in a distinctly duller hue.

Figure 3 and 4: Spectra of a composite green and how it compares to a spectral green.

This is true for high-quality professional watercolours that are composed of mixed pigments. Mixing blue and yellow to make green, gives a fairly broad absorption spectrum, whilst a single pigmented green, has a well-defined absorption curve. Imagine the spectrum and brightness of a mixture of three pigments, or four, which unfortunately is not uncommon when the artist mixes watercolours together that are already composed of two pigments.

As in the example above, using a single pigmented violet will always have a purer hue and brightness than a similar hue produced by mixing red and blue.

Ultramarine Pink

Pigment Details: Sulphur containing Sodium Aluminosilicate / Colour Index Pigment Red 259 (C.I. PR259)

Ultramarine Pink Professional Watercolour is prepared using the synthetic mineral pigment based on the three-dimensional aluminosilicate lattice with a sodalite structure containing entrapped sodium ions and ionic sulphur groups (from “Pigment Compendium”, page 381).

Figure 5: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Ultramarine Pink Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

Chemically similar to the blue pigment (C.I. PB29), the colour of the red aluminosilicate-sodalite pigment (C.I. PR259), is due to the elemental constituents being in different ratios and hence their effect on the crystal lattice shape; for example, compositional analysis by Reckitt (Colours) Ltd gave the compositions (from “Artists’ Pigments”, page 57) as:

Blue Na _6.88 Al _5.63 Si _6.35 O ₂₄ S _2.4

Red Na _5.88 Al _5.76 Si _6.21 O ₂₄ S _2.52

The red pigment can be made from the blue, by treating with hydrogen chloride (dry hydrochloric acid gas) at high temperatures; sodium is stripped from the lattice as sodium chloride. Unlike the blue pigment, the C.I. pigment red 259 has poor tinting strength and so its colour is less intense. The pigment’s hue is quite unique and because of its relatively low colour strength offers the Artist a bright rosy pink, which can never be to dark. It can also be used in colour mixing, although it’s hue can easily be overpowered and so more subtle and delicate colour changes are available. Similar to Ultramarine Blue, Ultramarine Pink naturally granulates, creating interesting texture in the painting.

Cobalt Pink and Violet

Pigment Details: Triscobalt Bis(orthophosphate) / Colour Index Pigment Violet 14 (C.I. PV14)

Cobalt Pink and Cobalt Violet Professional Watercolours are prepared using two different hydrated forms of the inorganic metallic phosphate pigment, triscobalt (II) bis(orthophosphate), as the hue of cobalt phosphate violets vary with the degree of water of crystallisation.

The triscobalt bis(orthophosphate) octahydrate’s hue is pink, whilst the tetrahydrate is considered a deep violet (from “Pigment Compendium”, page 121). Both pigments are chemically stable and light fast.

The Cobalt Pink pigment available to the Victorian artist was based on cobalt magnesium oxide and, like Cobalt Red (also available at the time), was regarded as inferior and more expensive to the red pigments derived from the madder root. These cobalt pigments were considered chalky and have poor hues and so soon fell out of favour (from “Pigment Compendium”, page 121-122).

On the other hand, the hydrated cobalt phosphate has a soft pink hue, which is bright, unlike the “chalky” pink based on cobalt magnesium oxide. The resulting watercolour is transparent in thin washes and so enhances the pale pink hue with a luminosity derived from the whiteness of the watercolour paper. The pigment has a relatively high cost and low tinting strength, which has tended to reduce its popularity as an artists’ pigment.

Figure 6 and 7: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Cobalt Pink and Violet Professional Watercolours and where the colour has been lifted out.

Cobalt Violet is considered one of the traditional pigments for watercolour (Mayer 1991, page 136), even though its popularity as an artists’ pigment is somewhat affected by its relatively high cost and low tinting strength.

In order to counteract the low tinting strength of cobalt phosphate, A J Ludlow’s Cobalt Pink and Cobalt Violet Professional Watercolours have been formulated with a high level of pigment and because it is based on only pure pigment, the watercolour is bright and vivid in colour. Both watercolours granulate on painting out.

Manganese Mauve and Violet

Pigment Details: Ammonium Manganese (III) Pyrophosphate / Colour Index Pigment Violet 16 (C.I. PV16)

Manganese Mauve and Violet Professional Watercolours are prepared using the inorganic metallic phosphate pigment, ammonium manganese (III) pyrophosphate.

Figure 8 and 9: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Manganese Mauve and Violet Professional Watercolours and where the colour has been lifted out.

The shade difference is due to differences in the pigment’s crystal shape. The violet is derived from the blue shade α-polymorph, whilst the mauve is based on the mixed phase α and β-ammonium manganese (III) pyrophosphate. Attempts to synthesise the redder polymorph, β-ammonium manganese (III) pyrophosphate have always resulted in a solid solution of the 2 crystal phases, α and β. The redness of the manganese pigment used in Manganese Mauve Professional Watercolour is due to the low proportion of α -ammonium manganese (III) pyrophosphate present in the pigment’s crystal matrix.

Historically (from “Pigment Compendium”, page 257), “permanent mauve” was a colour term associated with manganese phosphate, which in Winsor & Newton’s 1892 catalogue, was listed as being made from “Phosphate of Manganese”, but other colourmen list the colour as being derived from other pigments; one describes “permanent mauve” as being a violet toned with “French Ultramarine”, whilst in 1898, Reeves stated that “permanent mauve” is synonymous with “permanent violet” and made with a “combination of alizarin”. Therefore because of this lack of consensus, it would appear that “permanent mauve” was not strictly synonymous with manganese mauve and vice versa.

The manganese violet colour name has been historically known as “permanent violet” and also “mineral violet”. The α-ammonium manganese phosphate (C.I. PV16) pigment is very similar in hue to that of the tetrahydrate form of cobalt phosphate (C.I. PV14), but has a higher tinctorial strength and so became more popular than the cobalt violet as an artists’ pigment.

The blueness of the manganese pigment used in Manganese Violet Professional Watercolour is due to the α -ammonium manganese (III) pyrophosphate present in the pigment’s crystal matrix, which is possible to synthesise without the red-shade β-polymorph.

Dioxaine Violet

Pigment Details: Carbazole Dioxazine / Colour Index Pigment Violet 23 (C.I. PV23)

Dioxaine Violet Professional Watercolour is prepared using the organic pigment, 8,18-Dichloro-5,15-diethyl-5,15-dihydrodiindolo(3,2-b:3',2'-m)triphenodioxazine (as given on the website of US National Library of Medicine). The pigment is a member of the dioxazine class of organic chemicals and as such has many of the inherent properties of an organic pigment.

Figure 10: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Dioxaine Violet Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

In general, organic pigments tend to have relatively smaller particle sizes and larger surface areas than inorganic pigments, giving them a tendency to have higher tinctorial strengths (the strength of the colour increases with decreasing particle size) and be more transparent (as the smaller particle size scatters less light), which can affect the cleanness of the resulting watercolour’s ability to “lift-out” and so watercolours based on organic pigments have a greater tendency to stain. The structured consistency of the highly pigmented Dioxaine Violet, like the other watercolours based on organic pigments in A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolour range, is due the pigment’s relatively larger surface area, which absorbs more liquid binder, thus affecting the watercolour’s rheology.

The dioxaine pigment is a relative newcomer to the artists’ palette. Its origins can be traced back to 1928, when a patent was filed by researchers at the German Chemical Company, Hoeschst, detailing the synthesis of C.I. Pigment Violet 23, which up until the end of the Second World War, was only used to process diamine light blue, a direct dye for cotton (from the article published on 15 march 2009 on Paint & Coatings Industry website). It wasn’t until 1953 that the pigment, Hostaperm-Violet RL spec, started to be used in its own right and in combination with phthalocyanine blue pigments to produce lightfast reddish blue shades (from “The Origins of Colour”, page 20).

References:

Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple accessed on 24 August 2021

Eastaugh N, Chaplin T, Siddall R, Walsh V, “Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary and Optical Microscopy of Historic Pigments”, Routledge, Abingdon 2013

Plesters J in “Artists’ Pigments, A Handbook of Their History and Characteristics”, Volume 2, Ashok R (Ed), Archetype Publications, London 1993

Mayer, R “The Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques”, 5 ^th Ed, Viking, New York, 1991.

Website of US National Library of Medicine accessed on 16/20/20: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/C.I.-Pigment-Violet-23

Website of Paint & Coatings Industry (PCI) accessed on 22/10/20: https://www.pcimag.com/articles/88747-pigment-violet-23-marks-55-years-of-adding-color-to-the-world

Geißler G, “The Origins of Colour, The Development of Organic Pigments”, Hoechst AG Publication

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I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

Pigment Stories – Cadmium Scarlet, Red and Maroon, Anthraquinone Crimson and Quinacridone Rose and Magenta

Sun, 01 Aug 2021 12:27:55 GMT

A periodic look at the stories behind the pigments used in A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolours

Following on from my earlier ARTicles, spotlighting the pigments used in the yellow and orange watercolours in my Professional Watercolour range, I would now like to turn our attention to the pigments used in the three cadmium reds, Anthraquinone Crimson and the two quinacridones, Rose and Magenta.

Cadmium Scarlet, Cadmium Red and Cadmium Maroon:

Pigment Details: Cadmium Sulphoselenide / Colour Index Pigment Red 108 (C.I. PR108)

All three cadmium reds are prepared using mixed crystal inorganic pigments of cadmium sulphoselenide (or cadmium sulphide selenide), where the three different shades are achieved with different ratios of cadmium selenide to cadmium sulphide in the pigment crystals. Both cadmium sulphide and cadmium selenide take on the wurtzite crystal structure (as shown in figure 1), they show mutual solubility and form solid solutions. In the generalised sketch, the lattice positions of the cadmium ions are shown as the darker spheres, whilst the larger anions are the lighter coloured spheres. Depending on the ratio of anions, the shape of the crystal lattice will be different, as the sulphide ion (S ^2- ) is much smaller than the selenide (Se ^2- ) one.

Figure 1: Sketch of the Wurtzite crystal structure, where the metal cations are shown as the smaller darker spheres and the anions are shown as the larger spheres.

Pure cadmium sulphide is yellow, whilst pure cadmium selenide is red, thus the ratio of these two compounds in the pigment will therefore influence the pigment’s hue, as the more cadmium selenide the redder the pigment will be. It therefore follows that of all the three reds, the pigment used in Cadmium Scarlet has more cadmium selenide than Cadmium Orange, but less than Cadmium Red as it has a bright and clean orange-shade hue and can be used on the artist’s palette as a warm primary red and as an alternative hue to genuine vermilion (C.I. PR106).

Figure 2: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Cadmium Scarlet Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

Again it follows that the pigment used in Cadmium Red contains relatively more cadmium selenide than the pigment used in A J Ludlow’s Cadmium Scarlet Professional Watercolour and Cadmium Maroon pigment, even more. The temperature of calcination is also known to affect the pigment’s hue (the higher the temperature the redder the colour) and so also contributes to the final hue of the cadmium pigment.

Figure 3 and 4: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Cadmium Red and Cadmium Maroon Professional Watercolours and where the colours have been lifted out.

Whilst Cadmium Maroon is a bright and intense blue-shade red, Cadmium Red, which is also bright and intense, can be used on the artist’s palette as a brilliant mid-shade red or warm primary red and so can be mixed with yellows to create warm oranges and with blues to give a selection of beautiful purples.

Figure 5: Three colour primaries mixing circle, showing the colour mixes with Cadmium Red.

The red shade cadmium sulphoselenide pigments have excellent heat stability, a high degree of light fastness and chemical resistance, making them ideal for use in a professional quality watercolour range. As with the cadmium pigment used in the yellows and orange watercolours mentioned in previous ARTicles, these cadmium red watercolours can be on the opaque side in heavier layers, but in thin washes they are bright and show good transparency due to the fact that only the pure pigment is used and because the high degree of pigmentation used in my Professional watercolours, ensures a strong colour even when heavily diluted.

Although containing cadmium, this metal’s bioavailabilty in the pigments used in our watercolour is very low and so the pigments are considered safe for use in our Professional watercolour range.

Anthraquinone Crimson:

Pigment Details: 1-Amino-4-(4-amino-9, 10-dioxoanthracen-1-yl) anthracene-9, 10-dione / Colour Index Pigment Red 177 (C.I. PR177)

Anthraquinone Crimson Professional Watercolour is prepared using a synthetic blue-shade red organic complex, from the anthraquinone-type class (see figure 6) of light stable and high-performance pigments.

Figure 6: Illustration of the chemical structure of the C.I. pigment red 177 molecule.

The pigment, 1-Amino-4-(4-amino-9, 10-dioxoanthracen-1-yl) anthracene-9, 10-dione (C.I. PR177) was first introduced as Cromophtal Red A3B in 1967, so is a relatively modern addition to the artists’ colour box. This pigment is also referred to as “Anthraquinoid Red”; anthraquinoid being another name for the anthraquionone-type pigments.

Figure 7: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Anthraquinone Crimson Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

This pigment is often found on the modern watercolourist’s palette because it is used as a good shade alternative for the fugitive natural anthraquinone lake pigment derived from the madder root, Alizarin Crimson (C.I. PR83). This has led to C.I. pigment red 177 being referred to as a “Permanent Alizarin Crimson” in some watercolour ranges because of its good light fastness and as this particular anthraquinone pigment has an almost identical hue, it can be used on the artist’s palette as a cool primary red and in exactly the same context as C.I. pigment red 83 (Alizarin Crimson).

Figure 8: Three colour cool primaries mixing circle, showing the colour mixes with Anthraquinone Crimson

Traditionally, Alizarin Crimson occupies an important area on the watercolourists’ palette. Its blue-shade red is often considered as a cool primary red. It can be used to create a wide range of rich purples and browns and is often used as the red component in painting Caucasian flesh tones.

The original Alizarin Crimson was derived from an anthraquinone compound extracted from the madder root, eventually, the alizarin compound was synthesised in 1868 when Carl Graebe and Carl Liebermann produced a “synthetic alizarin lake” (C.I. PR83:1) from anthracene. Unfortunately, this synthetic equivalent’s permanence was no better and so still had poor light fastness. A number of Artists’ watercolour ranges, still contain the synthetic Alizarin Crimson based on C.I. pigment red 83:1 as well as the misnomer of a “Permanent” version, usually based on a pigment mixture.

Quinacridone Rose and Quinacridone Magenta:

Pigment Details: Quinacridone / Colour Index Pigment Violet 19 (C.I. PV19)

The pigments used in both the Quinacridone Rose and Magenta Professional Watercolours are from the quinacridone family of organic compounds, which are a versatile sub-group of polycyclic pigments that can vary in colour from deep orange (C.I. PO48 and 49), through red (C.I. PR122, 192, 202, 206, 207 and 209) to violet (C.I. PV 19 and 42) depending on the nature of any substituent groups.

First produced as pigments by Dupont in 1958, C.I. pigment violet 19 quinacridones can vary in colour from deep red to violet, depending on the way the quinacridone molecule (shown in figure 9) orientates itself within the pigment’s crystal structure.

Figure 9: Illustration of the chemical structure of the C.I. pigment violet 19 molecule.

The two forms I use are the red γ-quinacridone, which is used in the Rose and in the Magenta, β-quinacridone because of its deep reddish violet colour. According to Paulus et al , the γ-crystal modification is characterized by a criss-cross lattice, where each quinacridone molecule hydrogen-bonds to four neighbours via single H-bonds; whilst the β phase, consists of linear chains of molecules with double H-bonds between each quinacridone molecule and two neighbours. The formation of hydrogen bonding within the pigment crystal, increases the conjugation of the π-electron system of the molecule’s rings, shifting the colour from yellow (the colour of isolated substituted benzene compounds) to the characteristic red-violet colour of the solid-state pigment (Paulus et al ).

Figure 10 and 11: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Quinacridone Rose and Quinacridone Magenta Professional Watercolours and where the colours have been lifted out.

Quinacridone Rose and Quinacridone Magenta are two of the few organic pigments used in A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolour range. Organic pigments tend to have smaller crystal sizes than inorganic and mineral pigments and so exhibit considerably high colour strengths and staining power. This is true for both A J Ludlow’s Quinacridone Professional Watercolours, as they have a high tinting strength and so are best used sparingly when initially mixing with other colours.

Quinacridone Rose can be used to create attractive purples when mixed with Phthalocyanine Blue (Red Shade) and beautiful oranges, whilst Quinacridone Magenta can be mixed with Ultramarine Blue and Cobalt Blue to create attractive purples and beautiful oranges with Cadmium Lemon Yellow.

***

I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on the pigments used in the pink, mauve and violet colour space in my Professional Watercolour range.

Paulus EF, Leusen FJJ, Schmidt MU, “Crystal Structures of Quinacridones”, CrystEngComm, 9 (2), 131

Pigment Stories – Isoindolinone Yellow, Cadmium Orange and Titanium Orange

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 11:43:13 GMT

A periodic look at the stories behind the pigments used in A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolours

Following on from my earlier ARTicle, spotlighting the pigments used in the first three yellow watercolours in my Professional Watercolour range, I would now like to turn our attention to the next three pigments used in the next three, Isoindolinone Yellow, Cadmium Orange and Titanium Orange.

Isoindolinone Yellow:

Pigment Details: Substituted diamine azomethine-type terachloroisoindolinone / Colour Index Pigment Yellow 110 (C.I. PY110)

The red shade organic yellow pigment from the azomethine-type isoindolinone class (figure 1)of high performance and heat stable pigments is used in Isoindolinone Yellow watercolour. I selected this pigment for its red-shade hue, transparency and excellent light fastness. The isoindolinone pigments are part of the azo family of dyes and pigments derived from synthetic compounds that are characterised by the presence of one or more azo groups.

Figure 1: Drawing of the chemical structure of the isoindolinone yellow molecule.

The pigment was first discovered in 1946 and commercialised some 20 years later, so the isoindolinone pigments are relatively new to the artists’ palette. It can be synthesised so it is opaque as well as transparent.

Figure 2: Transparent (on the left) and opaque versions of C.I. pigment yellow 110.

In general, organic pigments tend to have relatively smaller particle sizes and larger surface areas, giving them a tendency to have higher tinctorial strengths (the strength of the colour increases with decreasing particle size) and be more transparent (as the smaller particle size scatters less light), which can affect the cleanness of the resulting watercolour’s ability to “lift-out” and so watercolours based on organic pigments have a greater tendency to stain. The structured consistency of the highly pigmented Isoindolinone Yellow, like the other watercolours based on organic pigments in my Professional Watercolour range, is due to the pigment’s relatively larger surface area, which absorbs more liquid binder, thus affecting the watercolour’s rheology.

Figure 3: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Isoindolinone Yellow Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

The Isoindolinone Yellow watercolour is a bright and intense red shade yellow, which can be used on the artist’s palette as a warm yellow. It is normally found in blended colours, rarely on its own, even though its hue is similar to that of traditional Indian Yellow (C.I. NY20) and so can be used as a lightfast alternative.

Cadmium Orange:

Pigment Details: Cadmium Sulphoselenide / Colour Index Pigment Orange 20 (C.I. PO20)

Although first discovered earlier, cadmium orange was first introduced to artists in 1862 at the International Exhibition in London. Its composition, may have been quite different from its modern counterpart, possibly based on cadmium sulphide or cadmium selenide, as the cadmium orange based on a solid solution of cadmium sulphoselenide was not fully commercialised until 1910 with further process improvements made in 1919.

The pigment used in my Cadmium Orange Professional Watercolour is a solid solution of cadmium selenide in cadmium sulphide. The ratio of the two cadmium compounds influences the pigment’s hue as the more cadmium selenide the redder the pigment will be. The temperature of calcination will also affect the pigment’s hue and colour strength; the higher the temperature the redder the colour. The pigment I use has a bright and clean yellow-shade orange.

Figure 4: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Cadmium Orange Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

The pigment has excellent heat stability, a high degree of light fastness and chemical resistance, making it ideal for use in a professional quality watercolour range. As with cadmium pigment based yellows mentioned in a previous ARTicle, this colour can be on the opaque side in heavier layers.

Although containing cadmium, this metal’s bioavailabilty in all the cadmium pigments we use in our watercolours is very low and so these pigments are considered safe for use in our Professional watercolour range.

Titanium Orange:

Pigment Details: Rutile-Tin-Zinc Complex / Colour Index Pigment Yellow 216 (C.I. PY216)

The Titanium Orange watercolour has a beautiful red-shade orange hue, which is different to Cadmium Orange. The pigment used in this watercolour is a mixed metal oxide inorganic pigment, containing zinc, tin and titanium oxides. In addition to its hue, I selected this pigment for its light fastness and chemical resistance.

The pigment’s structure is based on the rutile (TiO ₂ ) lattice (figure 5), which gives the rutile-tin-zinc complex its opacity, whilst the incorporation of the tin and zinc cations results in its colour.

Figure 5: Sketch of the Rutile crystal lattice, where the metal cations are found at each corner and one in the middle of the unit cell. Each metal cation is coordinated with 6 oxygen anions (in this sketch only the six oxygen atoms are shown coordinated to the central metal cation).

The resultant watercolour is opaque in heavier layers and easily granulates on rough watercolour paper (as can be seen in figure 6).

Figure 6: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Titanium Orange Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

The fact that this colour is opaque, does not follow that it is a gouache or body colour with the same properties. With gouache colours, white pigments are used to achieve opacity in water-based colours and when painted out produce a flat, uniform area of colour, which was why they were popular with designers and illustrators. By not using white to achieve opacity, but the actual physical properties of the pigment, Titanium Orange watercolour will have greater brightness and colour intensity and will not give a flat, uniform area of colour.

Today watercolour is generally defined as the traditional “transparent” technique, working from light to dark and using the white of the paper to provide the highlights in the painting, anything else is often frowned upon as not being pure watercolour. However, during its heyday in the mid-19 ^th century, the majority of watercolour artists during this time were using a mixture of transparent and opaque effects, showing that there is a place on the watercolourist’s palette for both transparent and opaque watercolours.

***

I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on the pigments used in the three Cadmium Reds, Anthraquinone Crimson and the two quinacridones, Rose and Magenta.

Testing and Assessing the Properties of Watercolours - Part 2

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 18:24:29 GMT

Continuing our look at the properties that define watercolours as a modern fine-art medium and how to assess them.

In last month’s ARTicle “Testing and assessing the properties of watercolours Part 1”, we looked at the properties that define watercolour as a modern fine-art medium. These properties were listed as:

1. Transparency and Opacity;

2. Permanence or light fastness;

3. Granulation;

4. Staining and non-staining.

5. Purity of colour

6. Colour intensity or brightness

7. Tinctorial strength;

8. Wet to dry colour shift;

9. Re-solubility;

10. Wet-in-wet flow.

I also went on to described the tests I use to assess the first five; transparency and opacity, permanence or light fastness, granulation, staining and non-staining and purity of colour.

Let us now continue to review the other five tests in this month’s ARTicle and remind ourselves that the majority of the test pieces are prepared as granulated washes, as this method of preparation helps to control and reproduce the exact film weight when painting or brushing out watercolour.

Test 6: Colour intensity or brightness

The test piece is prepared by painting each watercolour out using a graduated wash. In so doing, it makes it easier to compare samples at similar film weights by moving the wash of the test sample up and down the one its being compared too, until the equivalent film weight can be seen. Colour intensity or brightness can be checked by eye.

Figure 1: By cutting the side off one of the test sample washes, the watercolours can be compared directly by placing them against each other.

Test 7: Tinctorial strength

This is very much a comparative test of watercolours with identical pigments, as subtle hue differences will make it very difficult to assess tinctorial strength. The test watercolour is diluted with a white gouache.

The white should be kept standard and the same tube/pot used for each test. Add to the colour in the ratio of 1 part to 10 parts white. The mix should be mixed thoroughly and then allowed to dry before making the comparison.

Figure 2: Tinctorial Strengths of 3 different qualities of watercolour made using the sulphur containing sodium aluminosilicate pigment (C.I. Pigment Blue 29).

Test 8: Wet to dry colour shift

Paint out the colour and then allow it to dry. Then, at the same dilution paint the watercolour out again next to the dried film and make an immediate assessment of the colour between the two.

Test 9: Re-solubility

Place the watercolour on the palette and allow it to dry. Once dry draw a wet brush over the colour ten times and paint out the colour out in a block. Note the strength of colour of the painted film once it is dry. To compare against other watercolours, simply repeat the test as closely as possible and compare results.

Test 10: Wet-in-wet flow

Wet an area of watercolour paper in an approximate square, slightly lift one edge of the paper and support it. In the centre of the wet patch, dab a brush loaded with watercolour and hold it there for 5 seconds. Lift the brush up and monitor the flow of the watercolour.

Figure 7: Measuring the wet-in-wet flow of a watercolour.

An assessment of how far the colour has travelled can be made once the paper is dry.

***

Professional and artist quality grades will perform differently to student grades, which in turn will behave differently to the ones primarily for education and children. Sometimes it is quite difficult to tell which is which from the labelling and packaging, and on painting them out. I recommend using these 10 tests to compare the performance between a Professional and student grade watercolour, the difference will be like “chalk and cheese!”

I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. Its content is presented as a video, “Assessing Watercolour Properties” and can be found on our YouTube channel, “Ludlow Colours” along with our other videos.

Testing and Assessing the Properties of Watercolours - Part 1

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Sun, 02 May 2021 11:15:35 GMT

A look at the properties that define watercolours as a modern fine-art medium and how to assess them

In my first ARTicle “ Watercolour ”, I looked at the historical development of watercolour as a modern fine-art medium and put forward my thoughts concerning the reasons why it had become so popular. There is no doubt that it is seen as a traditional art medium and any technological advances in its manufacturing or materials used in its formulation, have been kept low key, so that it retains its old-style charm. But it was because of the chemical advances in the latter half of the 19th century that the techniques that we now recognise as being of the essence of modern watercolour, began to be used; the overlay of transparent washes, using the white of the paper for highlights, painting onto wet paper in order to allow the colours to mingle and blur, the techniques that are unique to this fine-art medium.

In this respect, the artists who experimented with watercolour and developed these unique techniques and the colourmen that formulated with the new raw materials, defined modern watercolour and the properties that are seen as unique to this art medium. But what exactly are the properties that are so prized by today’s watercolourists, who are following on from these 19th century pioneers?

The Properties of Professional Watercolour

There is a lot of information out there, in magazines and on the internet that describe the properties of watercolours that are highly prized by watercolourists.

1. Transparency and Opacity;

2. Permanence or light fastness;

3. Granulation;

4. Staining and non-staining;

I am intrigued that this list of properties follows the information that is generally found on each watercolours label, or in the manufacturers’ marketing information and doesn’t include what I would consider the most important properties a watercolour must have, purity of colour and its intensity (or brightness)!

My own list extends the list further to 10 properties:

5. Purity of colour;

6. Colour intensity or brightness;

7. Tinctorial strength;

8. Wet to dry colour shift;

9. Re-solubility;

10. Wet-in-wet flow.

Now we have our list of properties to assess, how do we prepare our test piece, which should not vary in film thickness, but be the same every time?

In general, it is difficult to reproduce the exact film weight when painting or brushing out watercolour. Dilution may also be difficult to control, as the brush will almost certainly contain additional water after it has been cleaned between painting out the watercolours on test. Therefore, it is normal to prepare test pieces by painting each watercolour out using a graduated wash, (preparing a graduated wash is covered in part 1 of “Tips for Practicing Traditional Techniques”). In so doing, it makes it easier to compare samples at similar film weights by moving the wash of the test sample up and down the one its being compared too, until the equivalent film weight can be seen.

Test 1: Transparency and Opacity

Painting a watercolour over a dark background will determine if a watercolour is transparent, semi-transparent or opaque. Assessment should only be made after the colour has dried.

A word of warning, painting over a pencil or ink line may interfere with the lay of the colour over the line (as can be seen in figure 2a), so I use black card in order to avoid a false result (see figure 2b).

Test 2: Permanence or light fastness

Watercolours should be labelled with the pigment number to show which pigment they are made with. If there is just one pigment number, they are a single pigment colour. If there are two or more, they are made from mixed pigments. The pigment numbers are a form of classification of the chemistry, by the Society of Dyers and Colourists.

These pigment numbers form the Colour Index, which not only gives the chemical composition, but also commercial names and manufacturers. In terms of the Colour Index pigment numbers, light fastness test data and permanence can be simply obtained from a quick internet search.

A simple to do light fastness test can be done by taking a graded wash of the colour to be tested, cover one half and then place it in a position inside a window where it will receive the most direct sunlight. Leave it for several months, checking it every week by examining the uncovered part against the one that is covered (figure 2). Note any difference.

Figure 2: Checking watercolour wash for any colour changes during a test for light fastness.

The light fast watercolour will show no change, either by darkening or lightening.

Test 3: Granulation

On painting out, there are 2 ways a pigment granulates to give a mottled appearance, it either flocculates as the water evaporates or if the pigment is heavy, it settles out in the dimples of the watercolour paper. By painting the watercolour out on smooth and rough paper will determine if it flocculates and by which mechanism.

If you use only one type of paper, you will most likely only be concerned how the watercolours behaves on your paper, so just paint out a graduated wash and inspect at the different graduations.

Figure 3: Granulation of A J Ludlow’s Titanium Orange on Cold Pressed (NOT) watercolour paper.

Test 4: Staining and non-staining

To check if a watercolour is staining or non-staining, the test is fairly simple. Paint out the colour and then when it is dry, use a wet brush or cloth/tissue to lift out a portion of the painted colour.

It the watercolour lifts out cleanly with no staining, then it is a non-staining colour.

Again, if you use only one type of paper, you will most likely only be concerned how the watercolours behaves on your paper, so just paint out a graduated wash and inspect how the colour lifts out at the different graduations.

Test 5: Purity of colour

Figure 5: By cutting the side off one of the test sample washes, the watercolours can be compared

can be compared directly by placing them against each other.

In next month’s ARTicle, I will continue looking at how to test for the other five properties listed above.

Pigment Stories – Nickel Titanate Yellow, Cadmium Lemon Yellow and Cadmium Yellow

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 11:15:38 GMT

A periodic look at the stories behind the pigments used in A J Ludlow’s Professional Watercolours

All my 48 Professional Watercolours are single pigmented colours and each one of these 48 pigments has a story. I have included these in the descriptions of each watercolour on the website, but I thought it would be interesting to expand and spotlight these pigments in a series of ARTicles, telling their stories periodically. So, let us first spotlight the three pigments in the first three yellow watercolours, Nickel Titanate Yellow, Cadmium Lemon Yellow and Cadmium Yellow.

Nickel Titanate Yellow:

Pigment Details: Antimony Nickel-Titanium Oxide / Colour Index Pigment Yellow 53 (C.I. PY53)

The pigment used in Nickel Titanate Yellow is the complex inorganic pigment, antimony nickel-titanium oxide, which is thermally stable and has high light fastness. The antimony nickel-titanium oxide pigment is a mixed crystal system based on a rutile lattice (figure 1).

Figure 1: Sketch of the Rutile crystal lattice, where the metal cations are found at each corner and one in the middle of the unit cell. Each metal cation is coordinated with 6 oxygen anions (in this sketch only the six oxygen atoms are shown coordinated to the central metal cation).

Incorporation of the Sb ³⁺ and Ni ²⁺ ions into the rutile (TiO ₂ ) lattice creates a pigment (NiO·Sb ₂ O ₃ ·20TiO ₂ ) with a light lemon (green shade) yellow with high hiding power (the pigment’s opacity is a direct consequence of the rutile lattice) and so affords an opaque watercolour, which is semi-transparent in thin washes.

Figure 2: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Nickel Titanate Yellow Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

Although a muted colour (even to the point of being considered dull by some), Nickel Titanate Yellow is used to create dark flesh tones and by floral and flower artists (watercolour’s derived from this pigment are sometimes called “primrose yellow”), while some artists find it a very useful light yellow for inclusion in an “earth” palette.

Figure 3: Selection of colour mixes with Nickel Titanium Yellow and other watercolours in A J Ludlow’s Professional Range.

The pigment’s tinctorial strength is low, its staining power is also on the low side and the watercolour is easily lifted out. The watercolour’s lemon yellow hue produces attractive pastel mixes with violets and greens; with burnt sienna it produces a pastel brown, similar in shade to Naples yellow. Other names for this pigment include Sun Yellow, Titan Yellow and Nickel Rutile Yellow.

Although containing antimony and nickel, these metals’ bioavailabilty in the pigment used in our watercolour is very low and so the pigment is considered safe for use in our Professional watercolour range.

Cadmium Lemon Yellow:

Pigment Details: Cadmium Zinc Sulphide / Colour Index Pigment Yellow 35 (C.I. PY35)

Cadmium Lemon Yellow is prepared using a light lemon (green shade) mixed crystal inorganic pigment, cadmium zinc sulphide. The pigment is a solid solution of zinc sulphide in cadmium sulphide and its hue depends on the ratio of the two sulphides; the higher the amount of zinc sulphide the greener the cadmium yellow pigment will be. It therefore stands to reason that this pigment contains relatively more zinc sulphide than the cadmium zinc sulphide pigment used in my Cadmium Yellow watercolour.

Figure 4: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Cadmium Lemon Yellow Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

The pigment has excellent heat stability, a high degree of light fastness and chemical resistance, making it ideal for use in a professional watercolour range. On the artist’s palette, this colour is often used as a cool primary yellow.

Figure 5: Three colour cool primaries mixing circle, showing the colour mixes with Cadmium Lemon Yellow.

Cadmium Yellow:

Pigment Details: Cadmium Zinc Sulphide / Colour Index Pigment Yellow 35 (C.I PY35)

Although the pigment cadmium sulphide (C.I. pigment yellow 37) has been synonymous with the colour name “cadmium yellow” since its introduction as an artists’ pigment in the early nineteenth century, the early forms darkened on exposure to air and light. Eventually a more stable yellow cadmium based pigment was found when cadmium sulphide was co-precipitated with zinc sulphide (C.I. pigment yellow 35) to produce a solid solution of zinc sulphide in cadmium sulphide.

My Cadmium Yellow Professional Watercolour is prepared using cadmium zinc sulphide, which as hinted above, contains less zinc sulphide in order to produce a redder cadmium zinc sulphide pigment. Cadmium based watercolours have a reputation for being on the opaque side, especially when applied in heavier layers, which can be used as an advantage when overpainting. In thin washes, my Cadmium based watercolours are bright and show good transparency due to the fact that only the pure pigment is used and the degree of pigmentation ensures a strong colour even when heavily diluted.

Figure 6: Graduated washes on white and black paper of Cadmium Yellow Professional Watercolour and where the colour has been lifted out.

T he mixed crystal cadmium zinc sulphide pigment has excellent heat stability, a high degree of light fastness and chemical resistance. When used in watercolour, this pigment can be used on the artist’s palette as a brilliant mid-shade yellow, which can be mixed with blues to give a selection of bright greens or with reds to create warm oranges.

Figure 7: Three colour warm primaries mixing circle, showing the colour mixes with Cadmium Yellow.

***

I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. I will from time to time introduce the other pigments I use in my watercolours in future ARTicles, but in next month’s feature we will look at how to assess (and ultimately compare) watercolours and I will provide you with the test methods I use.

Tips for Practicing Traditional Watercolour Techniques

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 09:25:07 GMT

Part 2

Just starting out or a seasoned watercolourist, it is fun to go back to basics and “play” with your watercolours

In my last ARTicle, “Tips for Practicing Traditional Watercolour Techniques (Part 1)” I suggested trying something that’s just a little outside of our comfort zone, finding inspiration through having a bit of fun playing with our watercolours, by practicing the traditional techniques and feeling the “buzz” again. I promised to continue this theme in this month’s ARTicle, sharing with you other techniques and so here we are.

Continue Playing wi th Te chniques:

In this ARTicle (Part 2), I thought we could look at some interesting ways of adding wet-into-dry, preserving or creating white and a little look at, what I would call, more contemporary techniques using a palette knife and plastic films; intrigued? All these techniques, will once again be presented as a series of exercises without any pressure to create work and leave you the task of exploring ways in which they can be used to great effect in your paintings.

Wet-into-dry – applying wet colour onto a dry painted surface:

This technique can also be described as glazing and layering, which is the application of thin transparent washes over a dried under layer. It can also describe any kind of painting, where the wet colour is applied over or up against the dried previously painted watercolour.

Figure 1: Brushing a transparent wash and more concentrated Cadmium Yellow, over a dried dilute wash of Prussian Blue (both are Professional Watercolours from A J Ludlow).

The reason to exercise this technique for me, is to determine which colours do not lift and contaminate the over painted ones and the resulting layer’s colour. Different concentrations and whether the watercolours are transparent or opaque will have a big difference on the result.

An interesting adaption of this technique is splattering, flicking small droplets of watercolour randomly over dried watercolour. This technique can create interesting patterns on and off the painting, so care is needed to protect the area on the painting where the splatter pattern is not required (see the central photograph in figure 2, where a sheet of paper is used to protect the rest of the painting) and to keep the work area in the studio clean.

Figure 2: Creating the sense of wild flowers splattering and flicking droplets of watercolour.

Creating and Preserving White – simple but useful techniques for keeping the watercolour paper clear of colour:

There are a number of terms used to describe this action including:

“reserved white” – leaving an area of the paper untouched;
“stopping out” – protecting a part of the paper with water-resistant materials;
“wet removal” – lifting wet paint out using a variety of tools;
“dry removal” – scraping or scratching dry paint away.

“Reserved white” is fairly self-explanatory and is what watercolourists try to do normally to achieve highlights, leave the area clean of colour.

“Stopping out” uses materials that cover the paper and so preserve its whiteness. These materials include rubber latex based art masking fluid, masking tape, wax and the more traditional gum Arabic solution. Each has its own positives and negatives, for example, masking fluid and tape are removable, but are prone to damaging the surface of the watercolour paper, whereas wax is a permanent mask and gum Arabic can be removed, but requires dissolving from the paper and so care is required not to disturb the surrounding area as the gum is washed away.

To use wax, draw on the paper with a non-coloured wax crayon or candle (see figure 3), then when the area is painted over, the watercolour is repelled by the wax. Wax can also be used in the same way, to protect the colour of an earlier layer (the bottom two photographs in figure 3).

Figure 3: Using wax to mask the white of the paper (top) and under colour (bottom).

Un-diluted gum Arabic solution (approximately 35% to 45% gum solids) can be used as a mask either by painting out on the paper using a brush, or drawn out using a dip pen. Once completely dry, the area can be over painted, in this case using a series of washes (figure 4).

Figure 4: Using gum Arabic to mask the white of the paper.

The area masked by gum Arabic can be over painted, but the gum needs to be carefully washed away.

“Wet removal” and the success using this technique, are very dependant on the surface nature of the paper and whether the watercolour is saining or non-staining. A paper that has been well coated with size to prevent the watercolour seeping into the paper’s fibres too quickly, will be better for wet removal. Likewise, a non-staining colour will be better than one where the pigment particles penetrate the paper’s surface and get trapped in its fibres.

“Wet removal” can be done, either whilst the paint is still wet or after it has dried. When the colour to be removed is still wet (immediately after application) use a clean damp brush to lift colour out, wiping the colour on a damp tissue to clean the brush or by dabbing the area with a dry cloth or tissue. In figure 5, the base colour has dried and so it is necessary to first wet the area to be removed using a clean wet brush. Once the area is wet, the watercolour is removed by dabbing with a dry tissue.

Figure 5: Creating a cloud using the “wet removal” technique after the base colour has dried.

“Dry removal” using a sharp knife blade and coarse glass paper is shown in figure 6. Care is needed (and this is where experience and technique are required) not to damage the surface too much.

Figure 6: Creating flying gulls and wave tips using a sharp knife and glass paper.

Charging – applying wet colour into the middle of a wet area of another colour:

Arguably a wet-in-wet technique, where the wet colour is introduced into an area of wet watercolour. It differs from mingling, as the wet colour flows out from where it is added and creates a boundary of tendril like patterns, the severity of which, depends on how wet the added colour is compared to the watercolour already applied. A similar effect can be created by adding clean water to wet area of applied colour.

Figure 7: Charging A J Ludlow’s Cobalt Turquoise Professional Watercolour to a damp granulated wash of Phthalo Blue (GS).

This effect is often not wanted when created accidently and can be responsible for blooms and back runs if a wash is not completely dry before further painting in the area. However, it can create a very interesting effect. In the first photograph in figure 2, the deep blue line which looks like hills in the distance has been created by feeding A J Ludlow’s Dioxaine Violet into a wet flat wash of Cobalt Blue and allowing it to flow, pushing the displaced cobalt blue pigment before it.

Contemporary Playfulness:

Creating “pigment traps”:

Scratching with a palette knife when the paper is wet, produces grooves in the paper, which can act as “pigment traps” when over painted. In figure 8, the grooves have trapped both the pigment’s in Manganese Mauve and Prussian Blue, giving a series of dark lines in the variegated wash.

Figure 8: Creating an interesting effect by scoring wet watercolour paper and over painting with a variegated wash of Manganese Mauve and Prussian Blue Professional Watercolour.

Making textured marks:

In figure 9, a small selection of items has been used to make marks on dry watercolour paper. In the top two photographs I used crinkled up thin polyester (or “cellophane”) film to produce a stippled pattern, by dipping the film in wet watercolour and then dabbing it on dry watercolour paper. In the middle two photographs I used the edge of a palette knife blade to draw the Cadmium Orange watercolour lines, after first painting the blade edge with the watercolour. The final set of two photographs show a natural sponge being used with Manganese Mauve Professional Watercolour.

Figure 9: Making a variety of marks with different tools on to dry watercolour paper.

Cellular patterns:

An interesting effect that can look like rock formations is created by covering a wet wash (in the case of figure 10, a variegated wash of Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Scarlet) with scrunched up food wrap (or “cling film”), allowing the wash to dry and then peeling the film off.

Figure 10: Using scrunched up food wrap to create a cellular pattern.

Whilst in the contemporary mood anything goes, but I would suggest drawing the line using household items and materials that may attack or degrade the watercolour paper, or be harmful to the artist’s health. Afterall, we don’t want to use a technique that puts our health at risk or once we’ve created and sold a valuable painting, have it returned because it is disintegrating or changing colour!

As in last month’s ARTicle, I urged you not to just read about these techniques, but to get on and try them yourself. Well, halfway through, my inspiration took over and instead of just practicing a few exercises, I started to develop a simple idea into a painting; the temptation was just too great!

Tips for Practicing Traditional Watercolour Techniques

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 12:35:03 GMT

Part 1

Just starting out or a seasoned watercolourist, it is fun to go back to basics and “play” with your watercolours

There is a lot to be said about taking a break from doing things the way we feel comfortable with and trying something that’s just a little outside of our comfort zone, so that once again we feel the buzz of doing something new and keeping our skills fresh. This could be trying out something new or challenging ourselves by doing it a different way, so I believe it doesn’t matter where you are on your watercolour journey, we can all benefit with a bit of fun playing with our watercolours and go back to basics and practice the traditional techniques.

If you are just starting out on your journey, it goes without saying that you will want to learn how to paint in watercolours and so will be looking to develop your technique through painting classes, tutorials, step-by-step-paint-along courses in books or magazines, watching and following videos of artists painting, etc, with the subconscious goal of producing your own completed and attractive work. But is this the best and most comprehensive way? Well, it is a good way to get you started and as I stated in my previous ARTicle, “ Watercolour Choices for the Budding Watercolourist ”, it is important during the early stage of your journey to easily create art that is fulfilling, so that you go on to create evermore complex and rewarding paintings.

From my own experience I found that by always looking to paint completed and attractive work following the teachings of other artists in the ways described above, I became proficient in my own style very quickly and tended to paint watercolours in a similar way. I was comfortable with the particular techniques I had mastered and knew my artistic endeavours would always yield a good painting, albeit, similar to the previous one and the one before that!

I remember being asked by a friend to help them develop their watercolour painting skills. They had got stuck painting in one particular way, which they were comfortable with, but could not seem to improve. If the truth be known, that was where I was too, so in order to help, I suggested we go back to basics and together we explored different styles and techniques, through a series of exercises. It was fun to just try different techniques, to play with our watercolours and not feel any pressure to create work. Instead we explore each traditional watercolour technique in its pure form and then look at ways in which it could be used to great effect in our paintings. We both found it very rewarding and refreshingly inspirational and I now do the same when I need to keep my painting fresh for my own enjoyment or for just a bit of fun with some new colour combinations.

Playing with Techniques:

In this ARTicle (Part 1), I thought we could look at covering the paper with background colour, using a variety of different washes. In my previous ARTicle, I mentioned wet-in-wet, so I thought it would be interesting to contrast it with dry brush and also to look at different brush marks, which feature a lot in Chinese brush painting, as it is also quite an interesting and fun technique to experiment with and develop. Other traditional techniques can be explored in future ARTicles.

Flat wash – a simple but useful technique using a single “flat” layer of colour:

To actually cover a large area with flat wash and keep it even is a challenge, which I find, requires practice. Load a large, flat brush with watercolour and with the tip downwards, so the wash naturally flows from the hair, sweep the brush across the paper creating a relatively even band of colour. Some artists find it easier to angle the painting surface so that the watercolour pools at the bottom of the stroke, but I prefer the paper flat.

Reload the brush and sweep it back and forth across the paper, ensuring that each stroke touches the lower edge of the previous band of watercolour, in order to pick up the paint that has pooled there. By keeping the washes fluid and continuous, a smooth and even surface will be achieved (figure 1).

Figure 1: Flat wash of Cobalt Blue Professional Watercolour from A J Ludlow

At the bottom of the paper, remove the excess watercolour by wiping along the edge with a tissue or damp cloth.

Variegated wash - combination of loose wet washes of different hues:

On a wet sheet of paper, apply successive liquid washes of colour (figure 2). Add each new colour where the last brush stroke finished, so that the colours run together. This type of wash can also be applied using successive strokes of colour to create a striated effect.

Figure 2: Variegated wash using Cadmium Red, Orange and Yellow watercolours

The technique of “mingling” is very similar to the variegated wash, but is kept to a localised area. It is where different coloured washes are placed alongside each other and are allowed to naturally blend at the point they meet (see figure 3).

Figure 3: Blending watercolour by “mingling”

Graduated wash – also known as a gradated or graded wash:

This type of wash uses the same process as the flat wash, but the colour’s tone gradually lightens with each successive sweep across the paper. This can be achieved either on dry paper by dipping the brush into clean water after each sweep, or alternatively on wet paper by allowing the colour to flow out of the brush whilst drawing it rapidly from side to side as it is traversed down the paper (figure 4).

Figure 4: Graduated wash of Prussian Blue watercolour on wet paper

Wet-in-wet – applying colour to paper that has been previously wetted:

It could be argued that the technique of wet-in-wet is the same as a variegated wash as it involves the application of colour (from a wet brush) on to a wet surface, but the use this technique can be used to do so much more than just washes. It is said that the resulting effect of this technique is that which defines watercolour and cannot be reproduced in any other medium (with the exception of acrylics). This technique can be used to soften and blur simple brush strokes, creating objects in the distance or reflections in water. It is ideal for using colour spontaneously, allowing the watercolour to run evenly outwards from where the brush has touched the wet surface and feather out attractively as the colour dilutes. There is always an uncontrollable element to this technique that allows the watercolour to take over, which is great to watch.

Figure 5: Wet-in-wet application of watercolour show softened and feathered edges

Dry brush – refers to brushwork done on dry paper, giving crisp-edged marks:

Figure 6: Dry brush marks on CP (NOT) watercolour paper showing the white of the paper through the brush stroke

The effects of dry brush are dependent on the type of brush used and are greatly influenced by the paper’s surface; whether it is smooth (hot pressed), lightly textured (cold pressed) or heavily textured (rough), the brush marks will be different. With a variety of different brush mark, using different brushes an astonishing array of patterns can be created (a selection is shown in figure 7).

Figure 7: Some examples of different brush strokes to give a variety of different watercolour marks

In next month’s ARTicle , I shall continue sharing with you other techniques, but like the ones above, just reading about them is not the best or fun way to develop or improve skills. There is no other way but to get on and try these techniques for yourself. Halfway through, inspiration may take over and the flat wash of cobalt blue may be just too tempting to leave and so becomes the start of a dramatic sky or bright seascape. You never can tell.

Watercolour Choices for the Budding Watercolourist

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 14:11:59 GMT

A Personal Reflection of How to Begin the Watercolour Journey

There is a lot of information out there, in magazines and on the internet(1), about choosing which watercolours to buy, personal preferences as to the best brands, student quality verses artist or professional quality, pans verse tubes and quite a lot of advice for beginners (some of which is frankly condescending). A whole host of information that can seem overwhelming, full of personal opinions and bias, even if given with good intentions and eagerness to help the “less well informed”.

“Well here comes some more of the same, from a manufacturer of watercolours”, I hear you say, but hopefully this will not be the case, as I not only paint in watercolours, but can also speak from the perspective of a Chemist and modern day Colourman too. And, even if my thoughts are considered bias and irrelevant to the beginner, I’ve also actively sought the opinion and experience of my co-author, Meiru, who was a complete beginner in February last year and is now enjoying painting quite complex and challenging subjects in watercolour.

Over to Meiru for the first point she considers to be important when she was just starting. “There are a few Watercolour painting techniques that make Watercolour so different and attractive. For example, the most popular Watercolour painting technique is wet-on-wet. Colours infuse into each other on a wet surface or wash in a nature way to capture this delicate effect. It’s relaxing and fascinating to watch how the colours work on a wet surface to infuse into each other. This was so much easier and the results more satisfying, because I used high-quality watercolours, which are also called Professional Watercolours.”

There is a formulation difference between student and artist/professional grades, which does affect how they perform. There are obvious differences between brands(3), where some student grades perform better than others and some artist grades have similar performance to the better student ones, but when compared to a true high-quality professional watercolour, the result is like “chalk and cheese”. High-quality watercolours are generally loaded with pigment and so are intense, bright on drying and due to the amount of pigment, tend to be used more dilute and so tend to go further. In fact, for some colours they may even be more cost effective than the less expensive student grades. The student grades tend to have the same powder to binder ratio, but contain less pigment, which means the space is taken up with extenders (that are sometimes referred to as fillers, but may be regarded as very weak white pigments). When the student watercolours dry, they are less intense and duller than the high-quality grades; in some cases, there is a colour shift on drying to a slightly lighter shade. I agree, student grade watercolours are harder to use and the results are less fulfilling than using professional ones, which all in all is an unnecessary hurdle when you are just starting out.

Asking Meiru what watercolours are suitable for beginners, she suggests “to get a limited palette of between 6 to 12 single pigmented colours covering the full colour spectrum range. The single pigmented colours make colour mixing much easier to control”. I would also recommend this as colour mixes with colours that are already a blend of pigments will look muted and dull. The intensity and purity of colour is governed by the sharpness of the light absorption spectra(4). In pigment mixtures each pigment will obviously absorb light and so there are a number of absorption bands, which broadens the spectra and so results in a distinctly duller hue. This is true for high-quality professional watercolours that are composed of mixed pigments, but even more so with student grades as each watercolour will have, not only the pigments to achieve the hue, but also the extender, which, as already mentioned, acts as a weak whitener.

References

1. For example:

Jessica Stewart, “17 Best Watercolor Paint Sets Both Beginners and Professional Artists Will Love”, Nov 30, 2020, accessed 21/12/20: https://mymodernmet.com/best-watercolor-paint-sets/

Bob Davis, “A Guide to Buying Watercolour Paints & Colours”, Aug 16, 2018, accessed 21/12/20: https://www.arttutor.com/blog/201808/guide-buying-watercolour-paints-colours

4. Bittler K and Ostertag W, “Developments in the Field of Inorganic Pigments”, Agnew Chem. Int. Engl. 19, 190 – 196 (1980), page 191

5. Emma Pearce, “Hints, Tips &Techniques, Watercolour”, Winsor & Newton, 1997, page 13

Watercolour

183:812426463 (Andrew Ludlow) — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 18:16:59 GMT

A brief look at its composition, history and development as a popular fine-art medium

As a serious art medium, watercolour has had a chequered history that can be traced back to the early cave paintings of Palaeolithic Europe. It has long been associated as a sketching medium and when it did gain some precedence during the 19th century, the use of fugitive materials caused a decline in the medium’s popularity and a sharp drop in the value of painted work. Nevertheless, a few artists continued to work with watercolours and with the various watercolour societies and art material manufacturers, developed it into the popular art medium it is today. So, what is the fine-art medium, watercolour?

Watercolour consists of four principal components; the binder, the colourant, ancillaries and water:

• Binder: Transparent and opaque watercolours are predominately based on a resinous gum extracted from the tree, acacia nilotica, which grows in the region of North Africa, commonly known as the “Gum Belt”. Although acacia trees are found throughout this region of sub-Saharan Africa, the plant is most abundant in Sudan. The gum that is predominately used is generally referred to as gum Arabic or gum acacia.

• Colourant: There are hundreds of different types of pigments. Some are formed by nature in mineral form or derived from natural sources, but most of them are synthetic materials either produced from petroleum chemicals or metal compounds. Pigments are coloured because they selectively absorb and transmit (rather than reflect) light at specific wavelengths in the visible spectrum (electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths approximating to 380nm to 740nm). The pigment’s colour is not only influenced by its chemical nature but also the particle size and shape. In general, colour strength increases with decreasing size, whilst the purity of hue depends on the shape of the pigment’s absorption spectrum; sharper the absorption spectrum, the brighter and purer the colour. Furthermore, when mixtures of pigments are used to achieve a specific colour, each pigment will selectively reflect and absorb different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation and so the absorption spectrum broadens. This can lead to a less brilliant shade compared to single pigments with the required colour. A similar broadening of the absorption spectrum is seen when "fillers", which are in essence weak white pigments, are used to extend (and cheapen) the formulation.

• Ancillaries: These are materials that are necessary for the performance, application and life of the watercolour.

Since the earliest civilisations, watercolour has been used as a colouring medium. The ancient Egyptians used water-soluble colours to illustrate papyrus manuscripts, whilst in Asia the Chinese, Japanese and Korean artists created watercolour paintings of both simplicity and complexity. Its early history in Europe however saw it used primarily for illuminating manuscripts during the Middle Ages and after the Renaissance, as a medium for sketching and tinting woodblock illustrations, even though some artists like Albercht Dürer (1471 - 1528), were demonstrating its qualities as a serious medium by using it to create extremely fine and detailed botanical, wildlife and landscape paintings.

It was in the tradition of botanical and wildlife illustrations and the recording of scientific expeditions that watercolour continued to be used in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. Architects, engineers, geologists and archaeologists also used watercolour to document designs, present ideas for commissioned projects and illustrate discoveries. Then during the 18th century its popularity spread, particularly in England, where it became the fashionable pastime of the elite and aristocratic classes.

Transparent watercolour became popular in the United States of America during the 19th century. However, on the continent it was less popular although some of the post-impressionists used it in France. In England and Scotland there was a lot of interest in watercolour and so saw the formation of several watercolour painting societies. These societies provided annual exhibitions and acted as “agents” for many artists, they also engaged in status rivalry and debates, particularly between the supporters of the traditional “transparent” technique (footnote 1) and the use of denser more opaque watercolours (footnote 2). These opaque colours are often referred to as gouache or body colour (footnote 3). Incidentally, it has been remarked that the development of opaque watercolours was a direct result of the popularisation of opaque techniques by the Impressionists and Post Impressionists (footnote 4).

Opaque watercolours produce a flat, uniform area of colour, which was why they were popular with designers and illustrators. A “mixed” technique uses white opaque watercolours to provide the highlights and pale tones. However, despite their opacity, these watercolours can be applied thinly, in transparent or semi-transparent washes, but when used like this, they appear less brilliant than high quality transparent watercolours. Opaque watercolours that are primarily aimed at children are often known as poster colours and are of inferior quality.

With the advent of a commercial market, art material manufacturers began producing commercial watercolours, supplying them not only in blocks but also in the newly invented tube. Technological development soon followed and the pigments and materials available today have greatly improved the fastness and permanence of the colours, resulting in its status as a serious art medium.

Prior to the 19th century, artists had to make their own colours using simple hand grinding equipment, using materials purchased from an apothecary. Although it is still possible to purchase colourants and binders from a specialised colourman, use the many recipes available in the various text books and grind the colour using a pestle and mortar or grinding stone, the quality will never reach the same standard as professionally produced watercolour. There is now a high level of sophistication required to produce quality watercolours, coupled with an understanding of the science and technology required to manufacture them.

The first commercial European watercolours were produced in the 18th century and consisted of a hard block, which required considerable rubbing to dissolve in water. Similarly, traditional Chinese watercolours were based on water soluble glue extracted from animal bones, which when mixed with pigments were cast into sticks. These too needed considerable rubbing in water on a special stone to dissolve them. The invention of the collapsible metal tube allowed art material manufacturers to supply watercolour in liquid form, which was easier to use. The pan colours available today are related to the solid watercolour cakes of the past, but changes to their formulations ensure they have improved solubility when used. Their formulations are similar to the watercolours supplied in tubes, except they contain very little or no water and many artists prepare their own pan colours by emptying tubes into small dishes and allowing them to dry out before use.

The preference of pan or tube is based on personal choice as both have their advantages and disadvantages. It is often remarked that pan colours have more pigment in them, in one way this is true as the dried colour is more condensed and so they tend to be sold in smaller amounts and relatively more expensive than the same tube colour. However, the ratio of pigment to binder, which is usually the same as in tubes, is the most important factor as this will dictate the amount of pigment in the dried film. So, with all things being equal in the finished painting, it makes no difference whether pans or tubes are used.

Although watercolours are seen as traditional and their formulations and methods of manufacture appear relatively unchanged, modern technological advances in materials and processing methods have been put to good use behind the scenes. The charm of watercolour is steeped in its traditional roots, but to keep its popularity as a serious professional art medium relevant for today’s artist, requires fusing the old with the new, in a way that accentuates the medium’s performance, but at the same time retains its old-style charm. One way to do this is to understand its past and the aims of the colourmen who developed the traditional watercolours and to use this ethos in creating future professional quality watercolours.

Footnotes:

1. The traditional “transparent” technique involves the overlaying of thin, transparent washes that rely on the white of the paper for their effect. The white of the paper provides the highlights in the painting and as more washes are overlaid the tone and colour deepen. Being water soluble, the paint can be modified in different ways by the addition or removal by water and by the use of brushes, sponges, cloths and tissues.

2. It is interesting to note that some of the earliest pioneers like Paul Sandby (1731-1809) used both “transparent” and “opaque” techniques.

3. One of the earliest references to gouache was by a 16th century Italian writer in a remark concerning the overlay of oil colours on tempera paintings, describing the technique as “guazzo” (or gouache). It is now widely accepted that the term gouache refers to the technique of using white to achieve opacity in water-based colours, as well as the name given to opaque watercolours.

4. Reference is made to Winsor and Newton’s Designers Gouache product literature.