I’m now an official playtester for Schmincke Horadam. ;)
I confess I’d been unfaithful to Schmincke for a while. Most of that had nothing to do with the quality of the paint, which I always felt was one of the best watercolours in the world, but more with my desire to try out exotic stuff. Most of what I’ve been painting with in recent years has come from faraway, exotic, never-seen places like Korea, the Netherlands, or the US. As you know, I’ve been a great fan of Daniel Smith for years, though the tubes were ridiculously expensive for me. But the quinacridone and granulating paints were just too good to miss.
Now Schmincke has put in a great deal of work to reclaim those wayward and faithless European artists that have strayed away from the flock – and my word, they’ve released a new line of fantastic new colours!
I’ve been talking to Claudia Möller, who works for Schmincke and has been developing these, and I learnt a lot of things I hadn’t known – for example, that granulation was usually considered a mark of low-quality paint, which was why Schmincke didn’t have any granulating paint in its lineup – until it became cool. Now they’ve introduced a few wonderfully granulating colours. Some of my favourite ones are French Ultramarine (which granulates more strongly than Daniel Smith’s), Potter’s Pink ❤ and Green Umber.
The granulating paint seems to mix better (read: with stronger granulation) with non-granulating colour than the ones I’ve used before. See the top left blotches, where I mixed French Ultramarine with Transparent Sienna and Transparent Ochre.
Schmincke has also introduced Quinacridone tones, which I hadn’t known before discovering them with DS. They’re so wonderfully bright and transparent!
Top right there’s Geranium Red, which is the brightest red I’ve ever seen. I kept squinting at the paper because I thought it was still wet – it was so shiny even when dry! It’s even nicer than my dragon’s blood. So, my next battle piece will definitely have Geranium. XD
One of the new colours is the eye-watering Brilliant Opera Rose. The photo below doesn’t do it justice; the first photo, above, only half-captures just how bright it is. It retains that brightness when you mix it, resulting in bright candy colours. Unfortunately, it completely defeats my scanner, and even Photoshop. It’s definitely a colour that works best live.
Claudia also sent me a small spray bottle of granulation medium. It’s similar to Schmincke’s effect spray, but leaves no alcohol stains. The effect isn’t quite like granulating paint, but rather reminds me of Ishihara test plates for colour blindness. ;) It tends to leak into adjacent areas of the painting, so it’s best left alone in detailed stuff – though it can be dropped rather than sprayed, which is easier to control.
I’ll be having a lot of fun with these!
Jenny Dolfen Art 