Watercolor Paints

Colorwheel

All novice students of mine start out with 7 tubes of Watercolor Paint in Professional Grade Paint Only.

When I see an artists palette containing 20 or more colors it sends a message maybe they don't know a whole lot about mixing colors. If this is you, no not you, the person behind you, you might try looking at Jim's Free Club.

Buying lots of Watercolor Paint in different colors is not a very sound financial decision. It's just as bad as my wife buying up every bottle of spice and herbs she finds in the grocery store. Asking what does that spice do? Reply, I will figure something out for it, as it is placed in the 6 foot x 6 ft. spice rack.

Winsor Newton Artist's grade Watercolor Paint is very much in the fore front as first choice.
But be careful. They also produce a "Student Grade" paint called Winsor Newton Cotman, not the same quality as artist's paint.
There is also another "Grade" so to speak made in China (never tried it). Buy the tubes made in England.

You can mix and match any professional or artist's quality Watercolor Paint from any of the following manufacturers. If I omitted any major producer, sorry about that, just send me a case or two of your paints and I will try them. No cash on delivery accepted. Just joking.

Tubes must say something like this on the label:

I have some of the above on my palette most of the time. Normal palette for me is between 8 and 12 different tubes of color at any given time.

Be sure to make a note, color names may be identical but the color may and will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

The color "Black" is best to be omitted from your palette, more vibrant darks can be mixed. I use the white of the paper rather than white paint.

What it really boils down to is, don't buy "student grade" Watercolor Paint, sometimes referred to as mud in a tube. Often, I have seen 4 different pigments in one tube, obviously the paint chemist trying to produce a certain color from 4 cheap inferior pigments.

Well guess what happens, here comes Mary or Bill and she or he mixes two tubes of student grade paint together, there is the possibility they mixed 8 different pigments.

MUD - MUD - MUD.

INTERFERENCE PAINTS

The way Interference paints achieve their sparkle is fascinating. It is caused by a special surface on the pigment that causes light wave interference. An easy way to understand this is to think of the waves caused when you drop a stone into a pool of still water. Positive wave interference occurs when you drop in a stone at exactly the same spot and the second waves are in sync with the original ones causing more powerful waves. In the case of light waves, this makes for the appearance of brighter light.

Negative light wave interference occurs when the second waves are out of sync with the original ones causing a reduction in the waves power or in the case of light- a reduction in brightness. The combination of positive and negative interference causes the pigment to appear to sparkle.

The special pigment surface that causes light wave interference consists of flat transparent mica particles, coated on both sides with highly refractive titanium dioxide.

Different thickness in the titanium layer give the appearance of different colors. In the gold and copper toned interference paints the titanium is replaced by either yellow and red iron oxide pigment.