David Parfitt takes a critical look at Golden QoR Watercolours and finds they have a high pigment content and give pleasing results.

What are QoR Watercolours?

QoR Watercolours (pronounced ‘core’) are made by Golden Artist Colors and there are 83 colours in the range, including three iridescents.

The significant difference between these and other watercolours is that QoR use an exclusive binder, Aquazol®, rather than gum arabic.

Details about Aquazol can be found by

CLICKING HERE

What Golden say about QoR Watercolours

I do not pretend to understand the science but it is this binder that is at the heart of these ‘modern watercolours’ and allows QoR to claim the following:

• Vibrant, intense colours that stay brilliant even after they dry
• Exceptionally smooth transitions, flow and liveliness on paper
• Excellent re-solubility in water and glazing qualities
• Vivid depth of colour with each brushstroke
• Greater resistance to cracking and flaking
• More density of colour than traditional watercolours
• Exclusive Aquazol® binder used in conservation

David's top findings:

• The paints are marketed as high-quality artists’ materials and the 11ml tubes have a classy look and feel.
• The pigment, lightfastness rating and opacity symbols are clearly shown, along with the series number (1 to 4).
• Squeezed from the tube the paints are all consistently viscous but not overly so, which minimises any danger of spillage/leakage during transportation, which is especially useful if using them en plein air.
• In testing vibrancy and flow I made a small colour wheel (see below) on Langton paper and a three-colour wash on Whatman paper.
• The colours are bright, have an even flow and I like the subtle variations and mixes in the transitions.

QoR Watercolours can be purchased from Jackson's Art Supplies by clicking here and from other art shops and online retailers.

Making a colour wheel

A small colour wheel painted to look at vibrancy and how the colours mix together

Colours used (clockwise from top): permanent alizarin crimson, quinacridone red, Indian yellow, cadmium yellow medium, manganese blue, Prussian blue and French ultramarine blue

How do QoR compare?

Next I made some comparison sheets (see below) and detected a number of variations with ‘my colours’ so detailed the pigments used in the table below.

It only goes to highlight that when choosing one’s colours it is essential to pay attention to the pigments.

A QoR colour and pigment chart is downloadable by

CLICKING HERE

Some of the watercolours on the QoR colour and pigment chart show N/A for lightfastness, but Golden have every confidence in their durability, based on the company's own initial testing and that the same pigments are used in Golden oils and acrylics.

Details can be found here: www.justpaint.org/qor-lightfastness-testing-update/.

Colour comparisons

French ultramarine blue QoR vs Winsor & Newton

Permanent alizarin crimson QoR vs Winsor & Newton

Prussian blue QoR vs Daler-Rowney

Quinacridone red QoR vs Daler-Rowney

Raw sienna QoR vs Winsor & Newton

Testing for a three colour wash

A simple wash to see how the colours flow and mix together

I used manganese blue, permanent alizarin crimson and Indian yellow to create a simple wash to see how the colours flowed and mixed together.

QoR Watercolours in action

Ultimately the only way to test a range of watercolours is to make paintings – I tried three.

QoR painting test one

Wet Hill, QoR watercolour on Arches Aquarelle 300lb, (56x76cm)

In Wet Hill, I liked the way the colours mixed together, whether it was dry-into-wet or wet-into-wet. Really heavy applications of colour dried quite flat with hardly any sheen.

In addition, when adding a glaze over the central area the underlying colours seemed to lift more easily than I would expect.

When re-working the sky and more heavily painted bottom third however, the ‘lifting’ helped me to unify both those areas.

I used various combinations of the three blues in the distance then added quinacridone gold and small amounts of cadmium yellow medium or raw sienna/transparent brown oxide for the greens.

I reworked the sky and foreground fairly heavily and noticed how the underlying wash lifted fairly easily and allowed me to unify those particular areas more easily than ‘normal’.

Colours used: cadmium yellow medium, French ultramarine blue, manganese blue, permanent alizarin crimson, Prussian blue, quinacridone gold, raw sienna, transparent brown oxide

QoR painting test two

Glimpse of Water, QoR watercolour on Bockingford 140lb, (38x40.5cm)

For Glimpse of Water I used a completely different approach with heavier, layered applications. This included more wiping/lifting of colour; on the Bockingford paper I could almost get back to white when lifting with a stencil mask and damp brush.

Adding washes was tricky but I still managed to rework the lower third with delicate random marks over a heavy underlying wash.x

Here I tested fairly heavy applications of QoR colour, bearing in mind how easily paint lifts from this paper and the way QoR paints have an advertised rewetting quality.

I found I could wash the colour away and almost get back to a white surface. I was also able to carefully overlay one colour wash over another.

Colours used: French ultramarine blue, Indian yellow, manganese blue, quinacridone gold, quinacridone red, raw sienna, raw umber, transparent brown oxide.

QoR painting test three

February Hill, QoR watercolour on Arches Aquarelle 300lb, (56x76cm)

QoR state that their colours easily blend with other traditional gum arabic brands and mediums. I tested this in February Hill (above) and I couldn’t detect any noticeable difference between the ‘gum arabic’ and QoR combinations.

Testing how QoR colours mixed with my traditional gum arabic colours, the central third was painted first using my normal colours, including French ultramarine, cobalt blue, raw sienna and quinacridone gold while gradually introducing QoR colours raw sienna, quinacridone gold, transparent brown oxide and Prussian blue.

I reworked the bottom third quite heavily to further test how QoR colours reacted to lifting and a number of layered washes.

The sky is one wash of QoR manganese blue and permanent alizarin with touches of Winsor & Newton raw sienna and Ultramarine

Final thoughts:

• These are high-quality artist materials and I will consider using them in my palette.
• I especially like the way I can apply paint heavily, almost neat, and it dries quite uniformly.
• The paints re-wet easily after drying on the palette (a bonus for plein-air work) and they also seem to ‘lift’ from the paper a little easier, too.
• The colours are strong and interestingly I did seem to use less paint than normal, bearing out QoR’s claim of ‘more density of colour’. Quantifying exactly how much is difficult but what I can say is that for the tests I have undertaken for this review, the most I have used of an individual colour is half an 11ml tube. This is one of the reasons why these paints are expensive; the exclusive binder allows for greater amounts of pigment than the same amount of gum arabic.

Want to know more?

CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW STEVE STRODE GOT ON WITH QoR

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About David

David Parfitt is an elected member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) and he has won the Neil Meacher Sketching Prize (2011) and the Frank Herring Award (2014) in their exhibitions.

David has exhibited widely, including with the RI and the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, and the Sunday TimesWatercolour Competition. www.davidparfitt-art.co.uk