Advice

This article has been taken in its entirety from Winsor & Newton's website, the link to the original article can be found here. 2019 sees another Winsor & Newton world first, with the introduction of a new innovation in water colour: the world’s first Cadmium-Free formulas that provide true parity in colour and performance to genuine Cadmium paints. Cadmium pigments are much loved by artists due to their ability to deliver intensely bright, lightfast results. However, Cadmium is a heavy metal and - although there is no globally harmonised view - there are some concerns about its safety. Areas such as...

Watercolour paints Are a translucent medium that consist mainly of pure natural or synthetic colour pigment mixed with Gum Arabic. It is supplied in either tubes or pans (solid blocks of colour), when mixed with water the colour spreads easily onto paper.Watercolour painting can be a relatively inexpensive way of starting to paint with lots of resources, in the forms of books, courses, videos and on-line content available to help those starting out. It is also highly portable if desired, lending itself to working outside or producing sketches.There isn’t really any other medium that matches the delicate luminosity of transparent...

Traditional Oil Paint is a variety of a slow-drying paint made up of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil that on exposure to air forms a tough, bright, rich coloured film. The advantage of the slow-drying quality of oil paint is that an artist can develop a painting gradually, making changes or corrections if necessary. Oil paint is popular a popular choice as its translucence, sheen, drying time and thickness can all be adjusted with the use of mediums, waxes, resins, and varnishes. Typically the drying oil used in paint manufacture is a vegetable oil, with linseed oil...

White The technique used to acheive white in your watercolour painting is meant to be acheived by the lack of colour, instead using the paper to provide white to create highlights in a painting (commonly using making fluid or wax resist techniques), if that's the case why do manufacturers produce two whites in their ranges? Most typically Chinese and Titanium White. Chinese White is the traditional option, originally introduced by Winsor & Newton in 1834, it is semi-opaque and has a blue undertone, many artists using it at the end of their painting for highlights or to dull some colour mixtures during painting or mix...

When using a lot of water with thinner watercolour papers (less than 260 lb/ 356gsm in weight), it may cause the paper to cockle, warp or buckle as it dries. This happens because the application of liquid to one side of the sheet causes it to expand slightly more than the other dry side. As this is undesirable the common practice to stop this from happening is to stretch the paper before use. Soaking and stretching watercolour paper Using running water from a tap (another option is to use a container of water to evenly soak the paper), immerse the sheet of...