Winsor & Newton Artists’ Watercolour

Windsor & Newton Artists’ Watercolour (8ml tubes)

 

 

Since 1832 when Henry Newton and William Winsor introduced the first moist water colours to the world, much of our reputation for supreme quality has stemmed from the Artists’ Water Colour range.

Since then Artists’ Water Colour continues to be formulated and manufactured according to our founding principles; to create an unparalleled water colour range which offers artists the widest and most balanced choice of pigments with the greatest possible permanence.

Each colour within this wide and balanced spectrum of 96 colours, has been selected and formulated to offer the greatest choice so that artists can use a unique palette that best suits their work.

You can view all of the colours in this range by going to our colour chart.

Single Pigments in the Range

Just like people, each and every pigment differs in shape, size, colour, and ‘personality’. Pigments, especially in water colour, serve as a set of tools or vocabulary to help artists manipulate their work and alter their expression

Wherever possible, single pigments have been used in Artists’ Water Colour to ensure that we offer the widest choice of colours and pigment characteristics or positions, such as hue, particle size, transparency, tinting strength, etc. This helps broaden the artist’s creative expression.

We use single pigments wherever possible. Single pigment formulations are purer in hue and cleaner in colour than mixtures of pigments, providing a larger number of colour mixes before resulting in muddy effects. Within the new Artists’ Water Colour range there are 75 single pigments amounting to 78% of the range.

Although mixed pigments inevitably lose some degree of chroma or brightness, there are many reasons why we still choose to formulate with them. In some instances, we can achieve a higher level of permanence over a single pigment alternative, e.g., Permanent Alizarin Crimson and Hookers Green.

In other instances, some pigments have to be mixed to achieve a given formulation. For example, Quinacridone Gold where the pigment itself is no longer available.

For more information on Types of Pigments in Artists’ Water Colour, Pigment Family Groups and the History of Pigments see our Pigments in Water Colour section.
Colour Series

The Artists’ Water Colour range is split into 4 groups termed ‘Series’. The series indicates the relative price of the colour and is determined mainly by the cost of the pigment. Series 1 is the least expensive colour and Series 4 the most expensive.

If you go to the Colour Chart for Artists’ Water Colour, you can find out the Series numbers for each of the colours in the range.

Colour Strength

The strength of each colour in the Artists’ Water Colour range has been maximised by combining the most advanced colour manufacturing techniques with the most recent developments in pigment technology. Optimum colour strength offers the artists greater tinting possibilities.

Colour Range

We choose our colours according to mass tone (colour from tube), undertone (bias of colour when in a thin film), colour strength, relative opacity and the character of the pigment in water colour, ie. granulating, staining or even wash. The resultant colour spectrum ensures the largest number of colours can be mixed from the range.

Today the Artists’ Water Colour range benefits from continued advancements in pigment technology and production methods to enable us to build upon our already high standards to produce even brighter, more transparent and more stable colours. Equally important, many of our formulations remain the same – proving that they cannot be bettered!

Brilliance

Brilliance can be defined as the richness, intensity and depth of the colour. The optimum brilliance of every colour in the Artists’ Water Colour range is unparalleled by any other water colour. Remarkably, this brilliance is combined with high permanence. Botanical painters will benefit particularly from the excellent and unusual combination of brilliance, purity and permanence, especially in the red area of the spectrum with colours such as Quinacridone Red, Quinacridone Magenta and Permanent Carmine.

Find out more about Quinacridone colours in our Pigments in Water Colour section.

Transparency & Opacity

Our Artists’ Water Colours exhibit unrivalled transparency due to the unique pigment dispersion in the manufacture of the colour. This is particularly important because transparency is the key characteristic of water colour. As a result of the thinness of the water colour film, all colours have a transparent quality on paper, allowing the reflective white of the paper to shine through. However, pigments do retain their natural characteristics to some degree. For example, transparent pigments refract light in much the same manner as stained glass, making jewel-like brilliance and clean mixing. Opaque colours such as cadmiums are likely to cover significantly more than transparent colours.

The varying transparency and opacity of a pigment will affect the optical character of the individual colour as well as how the colour mixes with other colours. The most transparent colours will enable you to create a pure glazing effect by applying a number of washes on top of one another. The more opaque colours give flatter washes and greater covering over previous washes. Opaque colours are also useful for toning down colour mixtures.

On the Winsor & Newton Artists’ Water Colour chart, the transparent colours are marked with or T, the semi-transparent colours are marked or ST. The relatively semiopaque colours are marked with or SO and the opaque colours are marked with or O.

The addition of Gum Arabic will also increase transparency. By adding Gum Arabic to a colour wash, you will achieve even greater transparency and luminosity from your washes.

Granulation

Some pigments show a characteristic called granulation, where the way in which the pigment particles settle in the paper creates a mottled effect. For many artists, granulation is highly desirable because it adds visual texture to their paintings. Even within granulating colours, different effects are apparent when they are brushed out onto paper. Some fine pigments rush together in huddles, more commonly called “flocculation”, whilst other heavy pigments fall into the hollows of the paper surface.

As a general statement, the traditional pigments granulate, e.g., cobalts, earths, ultramarine, etc… The modern organic pigments do not, e.g., Winsor colours.  They are detailed in the Colour Charts and the Spectrum Colour Lists.

In our ongoing search for new pigments, we have introduced a number of new granulating colours, as follows:

Granulation Medium gives a mottled or granular appearance to colours that usually give a smooth wash, such as Winsor Blue (Red Shade). By adding Granulation Medium to colours that already granulate, such as French Ultramarine, the effect is further enhanced.

For more information on Granulation Medium, see our Water Colour Mediums section.

Staining

As water colour relies upon the relative absorbency of the paper surface for stability, more powerful colours such as Prussian Blue, Alizarin Crimson, and the modern organic pigments such as Winsor colours penetrate or stain more than others.

These colours cannot be lifted completely with a damp sponge. The traditional inorganic colours and earths tend to lift more easily from the paper. Those colours that are more likely to stain a surface are marked “St” on the Artists’ Water Colour colour chart and the Composition and Permanence Table.

Lifting

Lifting colour entails sponging water colour from a surface. It can include anything from a complete wash down under running water, to getting a “smoky” background, to the sponging out of a small area in order to lighten or rescue it.

Winsor & Newton Lifting Preparation helps ensure that colours, including those that stain, can be more easily lifted from paper with a wet sponge or brush.

Lifting Preparation must be applied to the paper first and allowed to dry before removal.

Permanence

Since 1832, one of our founding principles has been to offer a range of Artists’ Water Colours that has the greatest possible permanence. Fortunately, the 20th century featured enormous improvements in the lightfastness of colours, helping us in our quest.

In fact, over the last few decades, advancements in this area have been nothing short of remarkable. New pigments developed for the car, ceramics, and plastics industries have provided us with an astonishing array of colours with unparalleled permanence.

As a result, 93 out of 96 colours in the Artists’ Water Colour range are classed as “permanent for artists’ use”. This means that 97% of our Artists’ Water Colours are rated AA or A for permanence to ensure that the colours used today will appear the same for generations to come.