Royal Talens the company that produces Van Gogh watercolours, updated recently this line of watercolours by adding some new colours and improving the consistency of the already existed ones.
Van Goghs are the watercolours that I favour, partly because I use them for countless years due to their high quality and affordable price but mostly because they have never disappointed me. So I was curious to test ( some) of the new additions and check the improvements.
So I ordered some of these new colours and one of the older ones that according to Van Gogh belongs to those that they were updated and improved.
The colours I bought and I’m giving my review today, are the following.
Dask Green PBk11/PG7
Azomethine Yellow PY129
Copper Metallic PW20/PW15/PW6/PR101
Lavender PB29/PV15/PW6
B. Siena PR101
Quinacridone Purple Red PV55 I
Quinacridon Purple Blue PV55 II
As you can see from the list above I bought some convenience colours that are made by two pigments and some that are monopigmented.
Now lets see what these particular colours are all about. Dusk Green is actually a mix of PBk11 that is the most granulating kind of black with Phthalo Green. As you can see at the swatch below it is a a transparent granulating dark green that is probably a good mixer if someone wants to make granulating super darks.
Azomethine Yellow, that is marketed as Green Gold by W&N, is a fantastic mixing colour for all greens existed. The V. G one has the exact same hue with the equivalent by W&N that I used to buy before. It is heavily pigmented and gives the exact same mixes with the other one, but in a by far better price.
I wouldn’t say though that the same applies on the Copper metallic colour that I bought. This is a metallic colour ( unfortunately my scanner was unable to catch its shining ) but is not that much pigmented and shrinked in the pans that I placed it. But it is probably useful for decorative details so I don’t think that its pigmentation makes that much of a difference. I don’t think that anyone will try to fill with it an extremely large area in order to have a problem with the pigmentation.
Lavender is another convenience colour made of three pigments. It is not particularly transparent but it is the kind of purple-mauve hue that can brake your nerves to mix it when you need it and a such a very useful addition for those who paint florals and botanicals.
The B. Sienna I bought as a replenishment, is one of the colours that they were improved. This one is monopigmented, ( the previous one was made by two colours ) made by PR101. It is semi transparent and doesn’t granulate that much. I use rarely B. Sienna ( I prefer my own made B. Umber) and so it is – at least for me- another “just in case” colour.
The Quinacridone Purple Red and its equivalent Blue are two purples made by the same pigment PV55 in two different and rather unique hues.
These two additions compliment nicely the other two colours made from another pigment ( but both from the same) that V.G line offers and all these colours together make a very nice quartet of purple and roses.
The other two colours that I’m referring to, are the Quinacridone Rose and Quinacridone Red Violet that are both made by the two different variations of PV19.
I added these two colours in my swatch that you can see below, side by side with the two purples in order to see how these four colours, two warm and two cool in different hues, can complete your range of purples mauves and roses.
All the colours that I bought are light fast, according the tests of the company but also due to the pigments that are made off, heavily pigmented ( except the metallic one) as you can see in my swatch, easy to rewet and are offered in 10 ml tubes that I buy locally for about 2,5 euros per tube. In other words, they are IMNSHO a very good option for those who don’t want to break their bank account in order to paint with high quality watercolours.
I’d recommend to give them a try.
Bellow you can see the swatch template that I’ve made with these colours which you can download in HR and zip file from here.
If you have any queries or you want to ask for a particular review you can do that in the comments below.
Thank you for visiting my webside and reading this review.
Nice review Marialena.Pyrrole orange PO73 and Rose PR122 are also beautiful colours.I thought Quin. Purple Blue was a bit weak compared to the Horadam version
Hi Thanos and thank you for your suggestions. I’ll definitely test at some point these too.
The Pyrrole orange though, seems a bit opaque to me while the Rose on the other hand, looks as a very decent substitute of Opera Roses. It looks very bright on the sample swatches and V.G claims that it is mono pigmented and so is not mixed with any fluorescent additives that might compromise its light fastness.
I can’t say if the Q. Purple Blue is weak or not, because I haven’t used this particular colour again.
For the price that it is offered though from V. G, I think that it is more than adequately pigmented. At the end of the day you get what you pay for. ( most of the times….not always! LOL)