It is arguable that the most influential person in Watercolor painting in the 2000s is Bruce MacEvoy. He had done this not with winning prestigious honors from watercolor societies but from sheer dogged, intense and careful scrutiny of the nittty, gritty details of watercolor painting with close logical analysis of paint, paper, and procedures. His website (see link on the side bar), Handprint.com is the single best source of information on the full range of watercolor topics. Most important, of course has been his long-term study and description of exactly how watercolor paints are produced and their important characteristics. As such he is part of a watercolor “movement” that is striving to bring watercolor to a new level of professionalism through the consistent use of very light fast paints and procedures. However weaning people away from some of the favorite “transparent” old school workshop colors like aureolin, alizarin crimson, or (shudder) rose madder is a long-term process.
MacEvoy’s standard operating procedure is to look at a problem and then devise methods for testing all of the a) available products or b) possible techniques. He applies a clear eye to a problem like “what is really inside a watercolor paint tube” and then tests his way to a better understanding.
Every watercolorist should read at least his analysis of paints, an extensive list organized by colors and easy to work through, and check out their own paint choices. His basic insight is that when at all possible we should be choosing single pigment paints for our palettes so that we can have a better basis for deciding on the paints we want to use. A related observation is that you cannot depend at all on manufacturer’s paint names, instead make sure to locate the color index name (PB 27 for example is prussian blue) on the tube and if it isn’t there don’t buy the paint. His further testing showed that the behavior of paints from different manufacturers had more to do with ingredients the manufacturer has added other than the actual pigment (such as gum arabic, brighteners, humectants and dispersants) generally added to aid in manufacturing or product line consistency. These can all seriously affect how the paint reacts in use, especially in wet into wet passages, and there is no guarantee that the specific formula of any manufacturer will remain stable over time. There is a need for every serious watercolorist to be aware that a favorite paint right now might have a serious change in formula because of the manufacturer’s need to control costs by getting a lower cost ingredient from a new supplier. An example of this is the recent discontinuation of production of quinacridone gold (PO 49) and the only manufacturer with a current supply seems to be Daniel Smith who still produce a single pigment, PO 49, quinacridone gold paint. Windsor & Newton create their quin gold with PY 150, PR 206 and PV19 (a yellow, red and violet mix) while M Graham does it with PY150 and PO 48 (a yellow and an orange). A large number of people, myself included, love the W&N quin gold but with 3 pigments already in the tube we need to continually evaluate each new tube to see if it is still really the paint that we love.
Check out Handprint.com it will develop both knowledge and skill.
Pondering Watercolor 