Understanding Watercolor Paint Quality

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m John Junger. I do the paintings that we’re going to be taking about, the watercolors. I’m here representing expertvillage.com. There’s a myriad of companies making watercolors, they’re imported now from China, from India, from all over the world. Some are good and some are maybe not so good. Wizard Newton puts out a chart that shows the watercolors and how they look, not only as more of a solid but as a wash coming down when you’re washing them onto the watercolor paper. One thing you can count on is when you buy quality; you’ll buy a better brand of watercolor. The permanence is also listed on these colors; they have a code that tells you just how permanent the color is. I like to work mostly with the most permanent colors. Sometimes I’ll go to the next color down if it has a particular value that I want. But to go to a fugitive color, one that’s going to gone in 10 years, is kind of fooling yourself and your public as well. The other factor is the pigments themselves can be very expensive, especially traditional pigments. If you buy the traditional pigment, it might cost more. If you buy a substitute, it might look kind of like that pigment, but it won’t be the same thing. There are chemical pigments or dyes that are used in watercolors now. Also, they are rated in permanency. They can be very effective. It gives you another tool in you pallet of colors. They don’t look exactly like rose matter, but they look similar. It depends on you, to just how you want to set up your pallet. "