A J Ludlow Ivory Black Professional Watercolour

Ivory Black 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, Ivory Black watercolour is lovingly handmade in the UK by a skilled artisan from the best ingredients and finest pigments.

Ivory Black 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 Ivory Black 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 bone charcoal powder, which gives the watercolour its black colour, excellent light fastness and opacity. It therefore affords a semi-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 Ivory Black Professional Watercolour*.

The Ivory Black 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.

Pigment Details: Bone Charcoal / Colour Index Pigment Black 9 ( C.I. PBk9)

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).