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What’s been going on at A J Ludlow Colours?

Andrew Ludlow • 1 June 2023

Launching the new iridescent and metallic Professional Watercolour range and the introduction of some interesting Special Limited Edition additions.


I am happy to share that over the last month, the Colours of the United Kingdom watercolour set has gathered a considerable amount of interest amongst you all. The set was created in celebration of the Coronation of His Royal Highness King Charles III, as detailed in last month’s ARTicle. It was composed of six watercolours not found in my range of 48 and it was these that got you excited and asking the question, will there be any more new colours?


Well, the answer is, yes there will be, or more accurately, yes there are!


Those of you who visited us at the Living Crafts Show in Hatfield Park over the Coronation weekend (5th to 8th May), will know that we were show casing our new range of iridescent and metallic effect watercolours. These watercolours have been formulated to the same high standard as our Professional Watercolour range and are available packed in 15ml jars, for the same reasons as our conventional watercolours; convenience of use, easy to “squeeze out the last drop”, the watercolour’s hue can be seen through the jar wall, the colour can be easily transferred from the jar to the palette with a palette knife, it can be easily inspected and if necessary mixed if separation occurs or if the colour dries, etc, which I am sure you are all aware of and don’t need me to tell you. Of course, you can still purchase the pigments and our Watercolour Binder and Painting Medium and make your own, which is so easy to do.


So, let us have a little look at what’s now in this range:


There are five iridescent watercolours based on the five high-performance interference pigments (also available in our range of Pure Pigment Powders), now identified by their colour flop, as you can see in figure 1.

Figure 1: The five iridescent Professional Watercolours.


Show cased in figure 2 are the four gold effect metallic Professional Watercolours. Although available in the Colours of the United Kingdom Gift Set, Celtic Gold and Sovereign Gold also form part of the new metallic watercolour range as does Lemon Gold and the rose coloured Welsh Gold, which was matched to a real example.


Figure 2: The four gold effect Professional Watercolours.


There are other metallic effect watercolours included in the range; Brass, Copper and a cream-shade Silver (again matched to a real example), as shown in figure 3, whilst in figure 4 the two shimmer effect watercolours are shown, based on the gold and silver twinkle effect pigments (also available  in our range of Pure Pigment Powders). 


Figure 3: Brass, Copper and Silver effect metallic Professional Watercolours.


Figure 4: Gold and silver shimmer effect metallic Professional Watercolours.


The final two Professional Watercolours in the range are in my view quite innovative and in a small way experimental. They are coloured metallics, using both metallic effect and conventional pigments. There are only two available at the moment, Emerald and Steel Blue, but I am open to new colour suggestions and will be happy to extend the number of these coloured metallics to five in the future. 


Figure 5: Coloured metallic effect Professional Watercolours.


For those of you who prefer the conventional type of pigmented watercolours, I have some good news for you too. Over the coming months I will be launching Special Limited Edition watercolours to add to your palette. Each one of these new Professional Watercolours will be formulated with the highest degree of lightfastness and permanence in mind. Their brightness, intensity and hue will be uncompromised; qualities that you expect from us and these new watercolours will be made from the same pure pigments and fine ingredients as our current colour range of 48 single pigmented Professional Watercolours.  So, June’s new watercolour is Hooker’s Green.


Figure 6: A J Ludlow Hooker’s Green Professional Watercolour.

According to the “Field’s Chromatography” as revised by Thomas Salter, Hooker’s Green was a compound of Prussian blue and gamboge. He notes that there were two variants in common use in 1869, “-No1, a grass green, in which the yellow predominates” and “No. 2, a deeper and more powerful green, with a larger amount of blue”. In the Winsor & Newton publication, “A Descriptive Handbook of Modern Water Colour Pigments” by J Scott Taylor, colour washes of both Hooker’s Green No1 and No2 are provided, which supports Salters colour descriptions. Furthermore, in the “Pigment Compendium” (page 192) Hooker’s Green is referred to as belonging to the category of mixed greens, which was coined by art material commentators in the 19th century.  

The hue that I chose for my Hooker’s Green is the No1 “grass green” variant. The original pigments listed in its composition would not give a satisfactory watercolour for inclusion in my professional range, as gamboge has very poor lightfastness and is derived from the poisonous exudate from the clusiaceae tree (found In Cambodia). I have therefore matched the original hue with lightfast and non-toxic pigments, to give a bright and permanent colour, worthy of incorporation in the A J Ludlow Professional Watercolour range.

Out of curiosity (and to provide a more complete colour story), I searched the internet for reference to the artist who lent their name to this bright and fresh green and found that I was not the only one to do so. I came across a blog written by OrbisPlanis looking for the very same information as I was. He discovered that the Hooker in question was a William Jackson Hooker, an English botanist and botanical illustrator, who became the first director of Kew Gardens. Hooker’s Green, was the colour he mixed to capture the hue of the leaves in his paintings. 

It is an attractive and bright mixed green, which I hope you will find a useful addition, so, please do add A J Ludlow Hooker’s Green Professional Watercolour to your palette.

And finally, don’t forget each month will see a new Special Limited Edition watercolour becoming available to purchase directly from A J Ludlow Colours, via our on-line shop. If you keep in touch through our newsletter, you will receive the news directly. So, if you haven’t already subscribed to our newsletter, please do so.

References:
Salter, TW, “FIELD'S CHROMATOGRAPHY; OR TREATISE ON COLOURS AND PIGMENTS AS USED BY ARTISTS. AN ENTIRELY NEW AND PRACTICAL EDITION; REVISED, REWRITTEN, AND BROUGHT DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME. SALTER'S EDITION”, Winsor and Newton, London, 1869
Scott Taylor J, “A Descriptive Handbook of Modern Water Colour Pigments”, Winsor and Newton, London, 1887
Eastaugh N, Chaplin T, Siddall R, Walsh V, “Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary and Optical Microscopy of Historic Pigments”, Routledge, Abingdon 2013
Accessed on 31/05/2023 - http://orbisplanis.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-is-it-called-hookers-green.html

***

I hope this ARTicle has been of interest to you. In next month’s feature we will shine the spotlight on another interesting aspect of watercolour painting.

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