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Daniel Smith Advice please.

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Sylvia Evans

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Having sold a pic and a load of cards at a local exhibition last week.   I want to spend some of the spoils on Daniel Smith watercolours.  I can only find half pans…grrrr I dislike half pans and only want a dozen basic colours as I mix most of my colours. Any advice welcome please. This is the pic I sold and my hand painted cards…

Alan Bickley

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Nice pic Sylvia, I do remember it… And all those cards! Amazing ingenuity. Well if they don’t bo full pans you’ll have to move on… I’m currently trying out a set of W& N Professional Artists watercolours that I’ve been asked to review - for my money, I doubt you’ll find better quality watercolours, top quality pigments and many are AA lightfast. More than 100 colours in the range, half and full pans available!

Sylvia Evans

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Brill thank you Alan….i want something better than Cotman, is your review out somewhere ?

Alan Bickley

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Not yet Sylvia, we’re talking nearer to November before it goes live. Christmas gift ideas and all that stuff! Believe me, I’ve got several sets of Cotman, and I know that they are a decent student quality…But now I can compare the two having just been testing them out this week. These are in a different league, I can’t fault them and I don’t know how any artist could be disappointed with them. Just to add that Edward Wesson swore by their Professional range and used nothing else during his long and fruitful career! Look how crystal clear his washes are, and such vibrancy of colour he attained with them.

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by Alan Bickley

With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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W & N have always made good watercolours (and acrylics)  - I have some issues with their oil paints, but not with the watercolours.  I'm sure I've seen Daniel Smith available in tubes - I'll have a good trawl, and post any suppliers I find.  
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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https://www.jacksonsart.com/brands/daniel-smith These are tubes - were you really after full pans?  You can always squeeze the tube paint into pans.  
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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OK, well - same problem.  Can't find full pans, and it seems they don't do them.   Cotman or Aquafine are good second level paints - otherwise W & N or Daler-Rowney artists' quality should see you through; just avoid the "cadmium free" nonsense - while it would be good if there were a really top-notch cadmium free alternative - there isn't.  

Jenny Harris

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Sylvia, why don’t you try a few of the half pans of Daniel Smith watercolours anyway?  (The DS website only offers half pans.) Their wide range has some beautiful colours - I started off with W&N and Daler Rowney artist quality paints, but mainly buy Daniel Smith now.  Having said that, when Dawn asked me last year to review the W&N Professional Watercolour Field Pocket Set, the paints were lovely to work with, despite the range of colours in the set being very basic and rather uninspiring. (I was, though, mainly reviewing how useful the set was, rather than the actual paints.)  

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by Jenny Harris

Entwined, abstract

Sandra Kennedy

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Beautiful bright painting Sylvia and your cards are special. I especially love the daisies bottom right. I think it's the bluey/green in the foreground. I do hope that you manage to find satisfactory watercolours that you'll enjoy creating with.
Entwined, abstract

Sandra Kennedy

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OK, well - same problem.  Can't find full pans, and it seems they don't do them.   Cotman or Aquafine are good second level paints - otherwise W & N or Daler-Rowney artists' quality should see you through; just avoid the "cadmium free" nonsense - while it would be good if there were a really top-notch cadmium free alternative - there isn't.  
Robert Jones, NAPA on 27/08/2024 14:43:57
Robert, what is your opinion of some of cadium alternatives in other media, say acrylics or oils? I'm interested as I'm trying out pyrolle red and a couple of the napthols. Don't use a lot of red however and tend to mix it a bit when I do. Just interested. Still have cad yellow, but a different orange. Are cadmium colours harder to get in the UK? 
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Pyrrole red is a good pigment - but it doesn't pretend to be a cadmium; in many respects, it's a more useful colour than cad red, because it has greater subtlety; but it depends on what you want to achieve at the time.  It's always important to recall that the old masters didn't have cadmium pigments, and got on pretty well without them.  BUT - when you want a knock-your-eye-out red, or really opaque, powerful yellow, cadmium pigments stand alone in strength.  This is true across all media - just laying down a swatch of cadmium red next to just about any other will show the cadmium's power.  The fear about cadmium - which is a heavy metal: not one you want in the water supply - has been used by some suppliers as an artful ruse to push "cadmium-free" paints: it's entirely cynical, trading on understandable environmental fears.  The cadmium-free ranges don't begin to compete with genuine cadmium pigments, even though they may well have desirable features in their own right; so why not sell them as such?  Say that such and such is a pleasant and useful colour which could expand one's range - not that it's just as good as cadmium paint, or has the same features as cadmium paint, because it hasn't; not by a very long way.   We can still get paint containing cadmium, we have discussed this (as in, I've personally discussed it) with paint manufacturers and, back in the day, with the EU - i.e. when we were still members.  It's hard work trying to convince the EU: they demand evidence, and wanted to know about the totality of painters' experience.  Regulation has made lead white very hard to obtain, and the same could have happened to cadmium reds, yellows, oranges, green (by the way: cad green is repulsive!).  But it didn't, because the EU listened, understood, and consider cadmium paints to pose no threat to the environment. Be it said, this could change; and supplies of paint are dependent on industries way beyond our little corner of the colour world; but that's another issue.    I've nothing against any new colour, the more the better: it's the marketing in which the advertising departments of some of the big conglomerates indulge that I find unacceptable, and completely misleading.  (Incidentally - and ironically - I tend not to use cadmium colours very often - but when they're needed, there are no real substitutes.)

Sylvia Evans

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Thank you Sandra for liking my stuff.  Jenny I really dislike half pans,I am not a tidy painter so I think I will await Alan’s recommendation s coming onto the market. Robert thank you for your reply I am sure it is full of useful info.  But I really find it difficult to read  even with enlarged text…it would take me about an hour to read, and Sam needs a pee.🐾🐾🐾🐾 Truly no offence intended.
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