QoR vs Ordinary Watercolors from Golden Artist Colors (video taken from the Golden website)
Julie Collins describes Golden QoR Watercolours as ‘a wonderful range’, and urges you to try them as they will enrich your watercolour paintings.
How are QoR Watercolours different?
The American company Golden make QoR Watercolour using a binder exclusive to them, called Aquazol, which makes the pigments extremely vibrant.
Aquazol is a watersoluble polymer, thermally stable and a nontoxic substance. I noticed that there is less wet-to-dry colour shift than in many other watercolours. This is a very attractive feature as over many years of watercolour painting I have often been disappointed when my bright watercolour has dried, sometimes 50 per cent lighter, and appears so dull.
QoR is a genuinely modern watercolour where they have expanded the range and versatility of each colour. The water solubility is excellent and the glazing qualities are wonderful. Most of the colours in the range have an excellent or very good lightfastness rating, which is very good news for watercolour painters.
Top features:
- Non-toxic binder
- Less wet-to-dry colour shift
- Great range of colours
- Excellent water solubility
- Good glazing qualities
- Lightfast
QoR Watercolours can be purchased from Jackson's Art Supplies by clicking here and from other art shops and online retailers.
Discover the colours
Transparent and semi-transparent colours:
- Transparent pyrrole orange is a bright warm orange and appears as a mid-orange with a slight red tinge. This is a great addition to my palette as it’s extremely versatile. It makes a beautiful pale orange in a diluted mix and a very strong orange in a strong mix.
- Quinacridone burnt orange is also transparent but appears more like a brick red than a mid-orange. In a mid or pale mix it appears as a slightly pink orange.
- Quinacridone crimson is a deep, rich red reminiscent of alizarin but much brighter and transparent. In its paler tones this makes beautiful pinks.
- Permanent gamboge is a useful transparent grey, which has warmth. In a heavier mix it is semi-transparent and is also a granulating colour.
- Bismuth vanadate yellow is a green-bias, cool semi-transparent yellow. In a heavier mix it can appear quite opaque.
- Cadmium yellow primrose is a semi-transparent cooler yellow. It covers extremely well and is a great addition to my palette for landscape, flower and still life paintings.
- Benzimidazolone yellow is a semi-transparent mid-yellow; a brilliant luminous colour.
Opaque and semi-opaque colours
There are very few opaque colours in the QoR range and this highlights the fact that the colours are extremely rich and bright.
Of the 83 available colours only 23 are semi-opaque and include:
- Aureolin modern
- French cerulean blue
- Cerulean blue chromium
- Diarylide yellow, which is a semi-opaque, warm orange yellow. It is an extremely strong colour in a heavier mix but in a paler tone appears like a beautiful peach orange.
- Cobalt blue is also semi-opaque; this clear, strong blue has a slightly soapy texture and in mid- to pale mixes it is perfect for skies in your landscape painting. It is also a granulating colour, like all the cobalts in the QoR range.
Staining colours:
- Bohemian green earth is quite a heavy colour in a darker mix but has a beautiful olive undertone in a lighter mix. It is also a granulating colour, useful for creating texture in your paintings.
- French cerulean blue is a turquoise version of the cobalt blue. In its pale forms it makes a perfect turquoise blue sea colour.
- Permanent scarlet is a vibrant colour; in pale mixes it creates fabulous warm pinks.
- Cadmium yellow primrose has a slight green tinge and is a fresh yellow.
- Permanent gamboge is a glowing yellow from the mid- to light-tone mixes.
- Titan buff. I want to mention titan buff as it is made from unbleached titanium dioxide rutile (part of aureolin modern). It is a semi-opaque off-white pale clay colour, which I use a lot in acrylic painting. It could be a very interesting addition to your watercolour palette. It is a specific pigment and cannot be mixed.
Bird, QoR watercolours, (14.5x20cm)
This painting shows the depth and richness of the QoR colours used.
In most of the picture I painted wet-in-wet and allowed the colours to mix on the paper.
The background dots were generally much paler mixes from the palette.
Colours used for this painting were:
- Quinacridone burnt orange
- Diarylide yellow
- Transparent pyrrole orange
- Quinacridone crimson
- French cerulean blue
- Cerulean blue chromium
- Permanent gamboge
- Bismuth vanadate yellow
Discover mixes for skin tones
QoR Grounds
The paper or surface for a watercolour painting plays a huge part in the look of the finished work.
The QoR range includes three grounds that can be applied to many different surfaces, including canvas, wood panel and paper.
Artists can move watercolours beyond traditional surfaces by using these grounds, which is an exciting development and gives the opportunity to experiment.
1. Watercolour Ground has a smooth surface like HP paper; it creates an absorbent surface that makes soft edges and is good for wet-in-wet techniques.
2. Light Dimensional Ground is a white, lightweight paste. The paint spreads very quickly on this surface.
3. Cold Press Ground dries to a rough surface that looks like handmade paper. The beautiful texture of the surface catches the watercolour paint and will allow for lifting effects that you can’t get with traditional paper. I suggest you try some of the colours and grounds discussed here to experiment and enrich your watercolours. This is a wonderful range of watercolours.
QoR Grounds can be purchased from Jackson's Art Supplies by
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Want to know more?
Click here to read more on QoR Watercolours with David Parfitt
For more information on QoR Watercolours please click here.