I found the Dayler Rowney paints to mainly be of a good mix and little separation had occurred in the tubes, apart from the mars violet which required emptying some liquid for some time before any paint came out of the tube. This is not uncommon even in good brands of paint I find this more often when they are a little older, and have had this even in Windsor and Newton artist ranges.
A couple of days ago I visited an art shop I hadn’t been to for years, hidden at the back there were these older tubes of watercolours (there is something oddly charming about old art materials). I’ve been wishing to expand my collection of watercolour tubes for some time so I thought lets give them a go! These paints are Dayler Rowney artist watercolour as apposed to the more affordable student ranges.
To begin with I started some simple loose colour swatches, here I decided to include some of my other tubes to create a nice comparison plus I was yet to actually swatch any these other paints. There are three different ranges in total, the first is the mentioned Dayler Rowney artists range, the second some Windsor and newton artist range and a Daniel smith watercolour.
After the Swatches and Quick mixes I began to notice some differences in the various paints. Unfortunately overall I found Rowney to be of a lesser quality that the other two brands, some of the paint dried a little ‘chalky’ in comparison however, the bismuth yellow was fantastic and a really strong pigment (shown as thee yellow in the mixes above) requiring little paint to water for a rich colour.
The Windsor and Newton do range slightly in there quality, generally it is very high however there is often some separation in the tube which for the cost is a bit of a let down (we all know there not exactly cheap). For some reason my series 2 ‘potters pink’ is terrible for separating not only in the tube but also on the paper, it tends to behave completely differently from all my other watercolours (it behaves more like my Japanese Gansai Tambi Pallette), perhaps the chemicals haven’t been balanced correctly as you can see from this small swatch and my cliff painting here. Although it separates I still love the colour of this it compliments my new mars violet (Rowney) very well.
This is the first Daniel Smith watercolour I have used and I have to say I love it, it works so easily and is so richly pigmented it will last and last, it easily beats Windsor and Newton for its quality. I have had no separation issues and the watercolour is so much easier to use mixing the right opacity just becomes effortless, the colour always dries beautiful im yet to have an issue with this paint. I will definitely be investing in more of this range. Below is my unfinished cliff painting using a mix of these different paints trying to use each ones various properties to my strength.
