Friday 2 August 2019

Rembrandt Artist Watercolours by Royal Talens

I have just returned home from Amsterdam, home of the Urban Sketchers Symposium for 2019. It was a pleasure and an honour to be part of the faculty, and we were treated to a tour of the Royal Talens factory. It was an hour outside of the city but well worth visiting. Of course, no photos were allowed. We saw parts of the processes of many of their large range of paints and colours. We were also able to try the Van Gogh (student range) watercolours and the pencils and other tools.

I've posted a blog about the previous 80 colour Rembrandt watercolour range here, but it has been updated this year to celebrate the 120th anniversary of these professional watercolour paints. Is is now a range of 120 colours. 18 colours have been reformulated and 40 new ones added in this complete overhaul. I was able to try many of the new colours at the factory experience centre, but they were not able to find all the colours so there are still some missing.

Having tried to work out all that had been done, I then found a very useful brochure here.

I'll make a note of the discontinued colours in case you particularly love any and want to stock up before they are gone.

Once again, they painted out very nicely. They tend to be on the runny side straight from the tube but dry smoothly and rewet with ease.


The number of cadmium colours has been reduced so Cadmium Yellow Light is discontinued.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Chinese White, Transparent Titanium White (not shown), Opaque White (new - not shown), Cadmium Yellow Lemon (improved formula), Permanent Lemon Yellow (not shown).

The yellows are almost all single pigment now.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Transparent Yellow Medium (new), Azo Yellow Light (changed in number from 268), Cadmium Yellow (new name and was 271), Azo Yellow Medium (new formula and number - was 269),
Azo Yellow Deep (not shown - new number and new formula was 270)

Rembrandt Watercolours - Indian yellow (not shown), Aureoline, Gamboge, Naples Yellow Deep (not shown),
Titanium Buff (new).

Three new oranges have been added, with the mixed pigment 266 Permanent Orange removed and replaced with Brilliant Orange. I've used a photo here and for the next reds, rather than a scan, to try to show the brilliance of these oranges and reds. I just love the oranges made with PO71 and PO72.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Naples Yellow Red (not shown), Benzimidazolone Orange (new), Pyrrole Orange (new),
Brilliant Orange (new). 

303 Cadmium Red Light and 370 Permanent Red Light were removed and a number of single pigment reds added.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Vermilion, Permanent Red Medium (not shown, but a lovely warm red pigment).

Cadmium Red (replaces 413 Cadmium Red Medium), Permanent Red Deep, Perylene Red Deep (new).

Rembrandt Watercolours - Cadmium Red Deep, Quinacridone Red (new), Perylene Red (new),
Naphtol Red Bluish (new). Alizarin Crimson (not shown).

Rembrandt Watercolours - Madder Lake Deep (not shown), Permanent Madder Lake (new formula),
Carmine (new formula), Permanent Madder Brown, Permanent Madder Purple (not shown).

Rembrandt Watercolours - Venetian Red, Indian red, Permanent Madder Light (not shown), Quinacridone Rose, Quinacridone Rose Reddish (new)

Many new rose reds have been added.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Quinacridone Rose Magenta (new), Rose (new), Permanent Red Violet,
Quinacridone Red Violet (new), Benzimiazolone Violet (new)


568 Permanent Blue Violet has been removed, a number of other purples added.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Mauve, Quinacridone Purple bluish (new), Manganese Violet (new), Blue Violet (new),
Ultramarine Violet (not shown)

Rembrandt Watercolours - cobalt Violet, Lavender (new), Ultramarine Deep, French Ultramarine
(now from a new source so very granulating), Cobalt Blue (Ultramarine) (not shown).

Rembrandt Watercolours - Cobalt Blue, Phthalo Blue Red, Phthalo Blue Green, Prussian Blue,
Indanthrene Blue.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Indigo (not shown), Cerulean Blue, Cerulean Blue Greenish (new - with PB36),
Crerulean Blue (Phthalo) (improved), Cobalt Turquoise Blue (new).

 Cobalt Green has been removed and replaced with a more brilliant pigment.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Turquoise Blue, Cerulean Blue Deep (new), Cobalt Turquoise Green (new),
Bluish Green (not shown), Viridian.


Rembrandt Watercolours - Phthalo Green, Emerald Green, Phthalo Green Yellow (new), Permanent Green.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Permanent Yellow Green (not shown), Sap Green, Hooker Green Light (not shown),
Hooker Green Deep, Chromium Oxide Green.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Green Earth (not shown), Olive Green (not shown), Azomethine Green Yellow (new),
Yellow Ochre, Gold Ochre (improved).

Rembrandt Watercolours - Transparent Oxide Yellow, Raw Sienna, Quinacridone Orange (new), Transparent Red Oxide,
Burnt Sienna.

 408 Raw Umber was removed, as was 426 Transparent Oxide Brown.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Burnt Umber, Greenish Umber (new), Transparent Oxide Umber (new), Sepia,
Vandyke Brown.

The Spinal Grey is made with a newly developed synthetic grey pigment - I'll be interested in exploring this further.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Spinal Grey (new), Neutral Tint, Payne's Grey, Davy's Grey (new), Oxide Black (new).

Rembrandt Watercolours - Ivory Black (improved), Lamp Black (improved), Dusk Yellow (new), Dusk Pink (new),
Dusk Green (new).

 The new Metallic colours are best seen on black watercolour paper or over dark pigments.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Silver (new), Light Gold (new), Copper (new), Graphite (new).

 The subtle sparkle of Interference colours doesn't show up in a scan but I'll include them for reference.

Rembrandt Watercolours - Interference White, Blue, Violet and Green. Chameleon Gold/Red/Violet,
Chameleon Red/ Violet/Blue

Rembrandt Watercolours - Chameleon Violet/Blue/Green, Chameleon Blue/Green/Gold, Spark Green, Spark Blue,
Spark Violet, Spark Pink.


Index to symbols used:
+++ means will last for at least 100 years under museum conditions.
++ 25 - 100 years under museum conditions.
+ 10 - 25 years under museum conditions.
G = granulation
Empty box = transparent
Diagonal line in box is semi-transparent
Half filled box = semi opaque
Filled box = opaque

These lovely Dutch watercolours are available in half pans, 10ml tubes, 20ml tubes and a range of sets.

Happy painting!

9 comments:

  1. New colors Not available until 2020....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Another great swatchout, thanks Jane! :^)
    Would you say that Rembrandt are pretty liberal in their assessment of transparency? I was looking at Transparent Yellow Med, whose pigment PY184 is almost always considered semi-transparent. At a glance it looks like they consider 3/4 of their non-earths to be fully transparent...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It would have been very helpful if I had done all these swatches over a dark line so transparency could be judged more easily, but having not started that way it felt wrong to change half way through.
      As for Transparent Yellow Medium, I think it is a fair call as it is so bright and strong that you'd have to be laying it on very heavily to get coverage so it works as a transparent.

      Delete
    2. You are right to be suspicious; PY184 is indeed almost always considered semi-transparent, and semi-opaque or opaque when it isn't. The reason for the confusion is that "PY184" is an error; Transparent Yellow Medium 272 (in both Rembrandt and van Gogh lines) is actually pigmented with PY128.

      Delete
  3. These look awesome, thanks so much for the upload!
    Does the Greenish umber look so much like Buff titanium or is it just the scan?
    And that Perylene red (PR149) looks like a good, transparent scarlet substitute for the very opaque cadmium red deep, a hue that is pretty hard to find in transparent variants...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Greenish Umber is fairly accurate. The buff is much lighter. I wasn't totally impressed with either of those tow colours - I prefer buff titanium made with PW6:1 and I prefer a far deeper and darker raw umber. Many of the other colours are lovely though :-)

      Delete
  4. did royal talens change their formula again? according to both you and Des illustrates (links below), 272 trans yellow medium is made from PY184 while their site says PY128. i wonder what the truth is.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNzlAfLfv9A&t=1099s (at 6.30)

    https://mediabank.royaltalens.com/royaltalens/file/96a0b1421fb38b18030aeb8bf12a4d77/5e456e38/documents/dir1/Rembrandt%20water%20colour%20ENG.pdf

    https://cs.lnwfile.com/_/cs/_raw/uk/tc/ni.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  5. 272-transparent yellow medium, contains pigment PY128.

    ReplyDelete
  6. It looks like the Ivory and Lamp Black are old versions here. The new/improved versions are monopigmented: Ivory Black is PBk9 now (warm/brownish), Lamp Black is PBk6 now (cool and strong), see: https://www.royaltalens.com/en/news/rembrandt-watercolour-has-been-renewed/.

    ReplyDelete