A J Ludlow English Red Professional Watercolour

English Red is just one of the bright and exquisite Professional Watercolours from A J Ludlow. Being based on a single pigment with excellent permanence and light fastness, ensures that this watercolour’s properties are exceptional. As with all our fine-art materials, English Red watercolour is lovingly handmade in the UK by a skilled artisan from the best ingredients and finest pigments.

English Red professional quality watercolour is supplied in a 15ml glass jar, because:

• The watercolour’s wet mass tone can be seen through the walls of the jar;
• The colour can be easily transferred from the jar to the palette with a palette knife.

But more importantly, there is no need for unnecessary additives or formulation changes to make processing in our colour manufacturing workshop easier, allowing the English Red watercolour made by A J Ludlow to be at the highest pigment concentration and the pigment’s unique properties to be uncompromised. Anything less would be at odds with the brilliance and performance demanded of a professional quality watercolour range.

This Professional Watercolour is prepared using the synthetic inorganic pigment, anhydrous ferric oxide, which gives the watercolour its bright and rich red colour excellent light fastness and opacity. It therefore affords an opaque watercolour (as can be seen in the figure 1a below).

Figure 1: Assessment of (a) the opacity/transparency and (b) staining power of A J Ludlow English Red Professional Watercolour*.

The English Red watercolour does not lift out completely (as can be seen in figure 1b above) and so has a propensity to stain the watercolour paper slightly.

This watercolour has a structured consistency, but is easily transferred from the jar to the watercolour palette using a clean spatula or palette knife. As with all the Professional Watercolours from A J Ludlow, once water is added, this watercolour has excellent flow and is a joy to paint with.

This professional quality watercolour from A J Ludlow has been named after and in celebration of the naturally occurring red ochre mined at the Clearwell caves under the Forest of Dean for 4500 years. By matching the colour of the naturally occurring red ochre from Clearwell caves with a synthetic anhydrous ferric oxide, reduces the colour variation that occurs from the small scale ochre mining, which is still done in the mine today. It also allows the remaining deposits to last just that little bit longer, but still allow today’s watercolourists to use this iconic colour on their palette.

Pigment Details: Iron Oxide / Colour Index Pigment Red 101 ( C.I. PR101)

Footnote:

*Details of how each watercolour is tested are given in the May 2021 ARTicle “Testing and Assessing the Properties of Watercolours – Part 1 ” (see also Part 2 of the ARTicle, which was published in June 2021).