A limited palette with 6 QoR watercolours. Another with 6 Daniel Smith colours.

I tested quite a few QoR colours when they first came out in 2014 - 6 from tubes I was sent as samples and others from small dried out sample dot cards. You can see them all here.

They are all on my website in the Painted Watercolour Swatches section, which is creeping to almost 800 different painted samples now. If you have some more watercolours and would like to send me a sample to paint out, please get in touch :-)

I've been asked about adding some mixing information about these paints.

They are made with a new type of synthetic binder rather than the traditional gum arabic. It makes them feel and behave differently from traditional watercolours - a bit like painting with liquid acrylic, I felt. Golden make wonderful acrylics but I'm afraid I don't find these to be wonderful watercolours - I guess they are just not what I am used to. However, for those who are starting out they may work well. There are certainly some excellent colours but also some that are simply.... weird.

Anyway, I'll include a paintout I did using the palette of 6 that I chose. I decided to go with a balanced full gamut palette of nickel azo yellow PY150, transparent pyrrol orange PO71, quinacridone magenta PR122, ultramarine violet PV15, ultramarine blue PB29 and viridian PG18. No earth colours, and all transparent with three normally granulating pigments. Viridian and ultramarine violet are often quite weak colours so I thought these would be good to test the QoR claim of stronger colours. They are pretty powerful if you pre-wet them well before use, but not very granulating and quite difficult to lift.

QoR exploration - 6 colour full gamut palette.

I was intending having three neutralising pairs in this little palette. As you can see each pair doesn't quite make a grey but there's a lot they could do.

QoR have a much more powerful purple than this - Dioxazine purple, and a much more powerful green - Phthalo green. So this palette could be made up with stronger colours. Bismuth Vandate yellow could be used instead of Nickel Azo yellow. They also have a strong crimson which is the mixing opposite to Phthalo green, which could be used rather than the magenta. So this palette is not intended as a recommended palette, just an exploratory one.


That's the limit of my exploration of these paints. Partly, I guess, since I would actually very rarely set up a palette without burnt sienna, cerulean and a good warm yellow. Also, though it's a pretty colour, and a great mixer, I don't like painting with quinacridone magenta. While I love exploring what limited palettes can do but I don't actually choose to paint with them :-)

I don't know how well this brand would mix with traditional watercolours as I haven't tested them further. If anyone else has, please comment below.

Here is a similar full gamut palette made up with Daniel Smith paints - a powerful crimson (Pyrrol crimson), and the very strong Carbazole violet (the same pigment as Dioxazine violet) and phthalo green. There is more about this palette here. Once again it isn't a palette I would necessarily choose to paint with though even though they are so much fun to explore! My smallest palette contains lots of earthy pigments including burnt sienna and is shown here though I do have a full gamut palette in a silver locket ;-)

Daniel Smith 6-colour full gamut palette exploration 

A Question of Hues - Jane's Gold

I recently found an old pan of Winsor and Newton genuine Quinacridone Gold watercolour. PO49. (I had already stocked up on old supplies of the W&N acrylic version :-) Needless to say I snatched it up as I was curious to see how their version compared with the Daniel Smith colour I know and love. Daniel Smith bought up the last supplies of this pigment many years ago and are the only ones still making the genuine version. On the screen they look very alike, though in real life the DS is a little warmer. It is interesting to note that a number of the DS colours that used to have PO49 are now using PO48 or other pigments.

What I have always tried to understand is why Winsor & Newton make such a complex and ugly hue of this colour. They use PY150 - a lovely slightly acid transparent yellow that is an excellent base colour, and is available in W&N as Transparent Yellow or M.Graham and Daniel Smith as Nickel Azo Yellow; PR206 a burnt red, available in W&N as Brown Mader, Daniel Smith as Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet and Daler Rowney as Transparent Red Brown; and PV19 - a rose to violet pigment. W&N Quin Gold (hue) ends up being a very dirty colour, with too much violet-red though once again that is difficult to see on the screen. If they simply mixed the PY150 with their own Burnt Sienna PR101 they would have a cleaner colour that exactly matches genuine Quinacridone Gold. Other companies make the hue with PY150 + PO48 or other variations. Once again, the simplest solution is the best? Anyway, my quin gold hue - Jane's Gold - is PY150 (DS Nickel Azo Yellow) + PR101 (W&N Burnt Sienna) :-)

So how much of each? Making Jane's Gold :-)

 I have used with a half pan and added a decent blob of Nickel Azo Yellow PY150, but left room to mix. Then a much smaller blob of W&N Burnt Sienna PR101. It really depends on the brands you are using how much you need. I mixed these thoroughly with a very fine quill (or use a metal skewer of needle) and came up with a colour that is still too yellow.

 Here is the first mix - not enough PR101

So I added another small blob using the tip of a palette knife - you can see the small blob in the corner of the palette

 The second mix is warmer, but not deep enough and still too much yellow in a wash.

So I added the third small blob amount again, stirred it well, and came out with a very close match, pictured on the left.

Here is my mix compared with the actual PO49 paint. I estimate it is 5 parts PY150:1 part PR101, but the different brands will be different thicknesses so there is no magic formula.

Here is my testing page. You can see Quin gold mixed with Ultramarine on the top left, Jane's gold with Ultramarine below it. It could still have a little more PR101 but is very close. The thing about making your own custom mixes is you can decide exactly what warmth to take it to.

Other good Quin gold hue mixes are PY150 + PO48, PY129 + PBr7 and even PY97 as a base yellow colour.

And here are the pigments in their pure form.

Happy custom mixing :-)

To see my Jane's Grey custom mix, click here
For Jane's Black and other custom mixes click here
For more custom mixes (Jane's golden Earth, Jane's Sienna and Jane's Earth Rose) click here.