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“Finally watercolour paint that’s not in the same boring tubes, with all the problems that go with them, like separation, tubes splitting and pigment drying hard in the tube making it impossible to use.”
What makes A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours unique?
There are many things that makes A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours unique, but the most obvious is our watercolours are packed in clear glass jars. Out of all the artist quality brands, we are the one who supply professional quality watercolour in jars and pots. Something that many artists have seen as an absolute benefit.
There are of course other reasons for using jars and pots that may not be so obvious, but makes our brand’s quality stand out from the crowd. In essence, it is our watercolours’ rheology; the property that defines how liquids flow. Rheology plays a crucial role in the formulation of watercolour paints, especially as each pigment affects flow differently.
To create a uniqueness that defines our brand and our brand values, we set about preserving each pigment’s natural properties and ensuring that each colour was formulated to its full pigment concentration; something that would be a major benefit to all watercolourists and the key to our watercolour’s exceptional performance and quality. So, in order to give each paint its highest possible pigment loading meant that the rheology of each watercolour would vary, hence some are free flowing, whilst others have stiff consistencies and so are too thick to be packed into tubes. To accommodate the variation in rheology, we re-design our packaging and A J Ludlow’s “jar colour” was born.
By packing A J Ludlow’s watercolours in glass jars instead of filling into tubes, allows artists to manage paint separation and drying out; issues that are all to common with "tube colour". Furthermore, by using our fully recyclable packaging, is a sustainable practices, offering an eco-friendly alternative to paint soiled tubes going to landfill.
“I’m fed up sending so much pigment to landfill, it’s no good for my pocket and the environment. So, its brilliant you’re putting yours in jars. No waste and no fuss!”
Can A J Ludlow watercolour paints be used to make home-made pans?
Not all brands’ moist watercolour paints are suitable for use in pans, but our Professional Watercolours are formulated to be easily re-wet after drying out on the palette, so are well suited for using to make home-made pan colour. We even recommend that the watercolour supplied in our smaller pot be allowed to dry and used as a pan colour.
Having exceptional re-solubility and the high pigment loading of each watercolour, ensures that several criticisms aimed at pan colour, for example, difficulty in working up an intensely coloured or very large wash, are no longer an issue if A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours are used.
"Our personal preference is to work from watercolour on ceramic tiles and use it just like a palette.
A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour paints have excellent re-wettability and so can be left on the tile until the next painting session."
What are your primary colours or which watercolours are the essential ones to begin with?
Whether you are beginner or seasoned watercolourist, you will want to mix your own colours and the Professional Watercolour range from A J Ludlow, has been specially designed to help you create the most vivid hues and shades possible.
As watercolourists, we often talk about warm or cool primary colours, as these are often considered to be the foundation of our colour palette and the building blocks of colour mixing. Sometimes they are also referred to as split primaries and by using both cool and warm yellows, reds and blues (six colours in all) the range and purity of the colours that are possible to mix, is much greater.
In the A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour range, the following watercolours have been designated:
Cool Blue – Phthalo Blue (GS), C.I. Pigment Blue 15:6
Warm Blue – Ultramarine Blue, C.I. Pigment Blue 29
Cool Yellow – Cadmium Lemon Yellow,
C.I. Pigment Yellow 35
Warm Yellow – Cadmium Yellow,
C.I. Pigment Yellow 35
Cool Red – Anthraquinone Crimson,
C.I. Pigment Red 177
Warm Red – Cadmium Red, C.I. Pigment Red 108
Even with these six single pigmented watercolours, I would be inclined to add Phthalocyanine Green (Yellow Shade), C.I Pigment Green 36, Dioxaine Violet, C.I. Pigment Violet 23 and the very versatile earth colour, Burnt Sienna, C.I. Pigment Brown 7, to my regular palette, just to have a wider selection of single pigmented watercolours to draw on.
Six colour mixing star for the three warm primaries (Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red and Ultramarine Blue) and the three cool primaries (Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Anthraquinone Crimson and Phthalo Blue (Green Shade)).
Hand painted colour chart showing all 48 of the exquisite single pigmented and permanent Professional Watercolours from
A J Ludlow.
What types of pigments are used in A J Ludlow Professional Watercolours and why isn’t a permanence rating provided?
Our Professional Watercolour consists of 48 single pigmented watercolours, which have not just been selected for their colour, but also on the basis that their permanence and lightfastness rating were excellent. So, without exception every pigment selected has excellent lightfastness according to the ASTM and Blue Wool scales, so all our watercolours would be rated the same.
Other artist quality watercolour brands use a mixture of pigments with varying lightfast ratings, which may or may not be presented as single pigmented or mixed pigment watercolours and so it makes sense for them to highlight possible watercolours with inferior lightfastness.