Jackson's Watercolour Paint, PANS

I give this paint 9 out of 10 acorns

Jackman's Art has their own line of watercolours that they sell in tubes and pans.  I got a few of both and the painting expierence was so massively different, that I'm reviewing each separately.  

This review is for Jackson's Watercolour Pans.



The packaging is very permaculture friendly.  The paints are in reusable plastic pans and come with a little card with the information on it.  The whole thing is bundled in a cellophane envelope which I'm going to keep for future use.  It's supposed to be compostable, but isn't in a home environment, which means it won't be at my local compost center.  If I remember from my tests, glassine would be a better choice, but I don't know if the price point has come down enough yet.

Price - that is where these paints shine.  These are about 1/3 of the price of buying student grade paint locally and 1/5th the price of professional grade watercolour paints from any of the big brands.  Maybe I will pay $13 for a half pan of cotman student grade paint locally, These Jackson's paints are about $4 for their professional watercolour line.  That's an incredible savings.

When I opened the packets, the Jackson's watercolour paints hit me with the smell of floral honey - like unfiltered clover honey.   It dissipated quickly and was pleasantly mild.  



SWATCHING TIME!

For my primary trio I choose a full pan each of:
Naples Yellow Hue PW4,PW6,PY35
Venetian Red PR101
Indigo PB15:1,PB60,PBk7
And because my trio's are almost always four colours these days, a half pan of
Permanent Sap Green PB29,PY154



This is a colour selection I'm very comfortable with, but it's colours that a lot of makers seem to um... well, these aren't the flashy glory colours that we see on youtube very often.  Very muted and not a large colour gamut (aka, we can't mix a lot of different colours with these primary).  It's also a very opaque selection of colours.  

First impressions:

All of the cakes fell out of their little plastic boxes.  I 'glued' each one back in with a drop of honey which did the trick (it always does).  This is pretty normal for watercolours sold in plastic pans and half pans.

All of the paints rewet easily and there is no need to spray the paint before using.  Mixing was easy-ish.  The naples gave me a bit of grief, but more on that specifically in a bit.

The "travel" or eagerness for the paint to move on a wet puddle was moderate.  Probably on par with Winsor and Newton.  More than Holbein, less than Rembrandt.  

The four colours were pretty similar in how they behaved and it felt like a decent staple, professional level paint.  At about 1/3rd the price of student level paint.  


Okay, I can't procrastinate any longer.  

NAPLES YELLOW

I'm not taking any acorns off for this, as it's very much a user expectation issue.  

I come from a world where Naples yellow is an earth pigment.  Okay, it's brown with yellow-ish personality.  Although the original PY41 could range from fairly bright earthy-yellow to redish-brown, brownish-yellow, and even green-brown-yellow kind of colour that's hard to describe.  What I really want in a Naples yellow is for it to be an earth colour.  

Jackson's watercolour Naples yellow is a bright cadmium yellow with white pigment.  It's basically bright yellow with white.  milky bright yellow.  The point is, it's not brown-yellow.  Let me show you the expectations:



The samples above are oilcolour Naples Yellows including one sample of original pigment before it was discovered to be not so healthy.  See, desaturated, earthy, yellow.  These are almost always listed in the browns or earth colours.  Watercolour seems to have a different idea.

Holbein did this too with their Naples yellow - they took the yellow part to heart.  Unlike Holbein, the Jackson's Naples yellow is less easy to mix with.  It's like a split personality paint - not sure if it wants to behave like a yellow or a white.  This may be because they choose a bully yellow - cadmium.

And it's my own fault for not checking the pigments - but usually cadmium isn't in the lower series (price range) of paints, so it's normally safe to buy a series 1 without checking.  As we have a closed waste system on the farm, I usually try to avoid heavy metals in my painting.  

Anyway, my quest for the perfect Naples Yellow watercolour continues.  


BUT CAN IT PAINT A CHICKEN?

I'm not sure.  

A first wash, some details... I'm feeling like I've missed some important negotiation with this paint.  It's far more sensitive to paper and water quantity than I expected.  



I think layering is going to be the way to go here - less wet in wet, more let it dry then put another layer on top.

The layers are content to have another wash on top, but will re-wet if worked.  I also realize at this time, there was no staining information on the website or packaging.  These seem to be non- or low-staining colours.  

It's not helping that I choose such opaque colours and the more I paint, the more I feel this was not the best way to showcase this paint.  But after a while I get the feel for these colours.  Grab the green to help darken the red (I was trying to paint with just the red, yellow, blue).  

Is it the best chicken I ever painted?  Not even a little bit.



But it is chicken shaped.  

I enjoyed working with these paints.  They are pretty standard big brand professional paint.  I would put it on par with W&N or Rembrandt.  Not quite as much flow as M Graham and no where near the personality as Beam Paints.

When combined with the Jackson's watercolour tube paints I also got at the same time, this will make a nice little pallet... hopefully... still some drama to sort out before writing that review.



Jackson's Watercolour Pans would be good for students and professional painters alike and is permaculture friendly if a local paint isn't available.