Ken Bromley artists' watercolour paints

In common with many hobbies and pastimes, watercolour painting can prove to be expensive, especially for those on a limited budget. It is all too tempting to try new papers, paints and brushes in the quest to achieve that "look" -- and before you know it, the bank balance is considerably reduced!

While I would always recommend supporting a local business if you have one (use it or lose it!), one way of saving the pennies a little can be to shop on-line and buy in quantity to offset (or reduce) the delivery charge. I have heard good things about Jackson's Art Supplies, but I have been a repeat customer of artists' materials supplier Ken Bromley Art Supplies for a few years. In common with Jackson's, Ken Bromley market their own branded range of artists' watercolour paint, so I was curious to find out more about it.

The website says that the paints are made in the UK: this is printed on the tubes as well. The 14 ml size of the paint tube and shape of the cap looks remarkably like the packaging of Winsor and Newton Artists' watercolours up to 2012. However, the similarity ends there, as the paint colour numbers match neither W&N, nor Daler-Rowney for that matter.

The range is currently made up of 41 colours, all supplied in 14 ml tubes, most of which are priced as Series 1. (There are nine colours in Series 2.) Twenty-six colours are single pigment, eight are two pigments, four are three pigments, and three are made of four pigments. Catalogue prices for Series 1 is £4.32 per tube, and for Series 2 £4.73 per tube. (They usually go on offer at least once a year, so a further savings can be made.) To the experienced watercolour paint buyer, I suspect it sounds more like a student range in terms of number of paints, series and pricing.

Some of the pigment choices seem a little unusual, especially given recent findings about lightfastness. Both Alizarin Crimson (PR83:1) and Aureolin (PY40) are listed in the range. Alizarin Crimson is notorious for fading badly on exposure to light, and Handprint recommends that PY40 is best avoided. Fortunately, the Ken Bromley website lists pigment information with a mouse click, so it makes sense to do a little pigment research first before you buy.

In my examples, the tubes themselves were well-filled, and I had to be careful not to get paint everywhere! I had no difficulty in filling empty half-pans from the tubes. Once the paint in the half-pans had dried, it re-wetted easily and performed as well as it did fresh from the tube.

What are they like to paint with? Well, so far I have only made some small colour swatches and run a lightfastness test. I found that the paints compared favourably to Cotman colours in most cases, although I hoped the Burnt Umber (Dark) would have been at least as dark as the Cotman version -- which it wasn't in my sample. Permanent Rose (PV19) was redder than I expected, and not like the Cotman colour of the same name and pigment. But on the whole, the paints seemed at least as good as the Cotman equivalents.  (Another unscientific comparison, then!)

With some caveats, I would recommend these paints (to less-experienced painters like me), especially if bought on offer.

Digital camera colour...

To start this posting, I have included a hasty photo of my back garden -- not simply to show how poor a gardener I am -- but to show the sort of image that might be produced from a compact digital camera on the Auto setting. (Just point and shoot!) It wouldn't surprise me to learn that this is the setting that most people use on their digital cameras, even when their devices are capable of some creative decision-making by the photographer... It is a JPEG image straight out of the camera, apart from being scaled down in size to be more Internet-friendly. What do you think about the resulting colours? I think they are too blue.

I regard a camera as principally an image recording device, able to make a record of light in a moment of time. The matter of reliable colour reproduction is rather more complicated: I understand that museums and art galleries sometimes use multiple monochrome images and colour filters in order to accurately record colours for posterity... Therefore, wishing for reference colour from a camera could be big ask!

When film cameras were the norm, achieving even reasonable colour was a challenge for the enthusiast. Kodachrome slide film helped reduce the number of variables, but still left correct exposure and light temperature (white balance) up to the photographer. Consumer print film and mini processing labs made things even more unpredictable. No wonder that black and white film was still readily available decades after colour film entered the market.

Digital photography seemed to offer a new freedom for enthusiasts. Using a computer and printer, colour printing could now be done at home -- with better results than the consumer film processing labs. Photographic film and processing became a niche market. And digital cameras should have produced consistent colour results, regardless of the make and model of camera? Er, no, not in practice.

The camera manufacturers realised that most people don't actually prefer realistic colours, and found that by boosting certain colours, the digital results were more appealing. Consumers were inclined to choose the digital cameras that made the colours "pop", rather than the cameras that more faithfully captured the scene they had viewed. People wanted their skies to look blue and their foliage to look green, as well as their people to look healthy, even when they weren't necessarily so in life!

Once it had sunk in that my small collection of digital cameras was not doing as good a job at reproducing colours as I had assumed, I was determined to do something about it -- ideally without having to spending more money. The first thing I did was to make sure that the computer and monitor combination that I normally use to view (and sometimes post-process) my images was calibrated. I have a Mac, so this was easy to do without needing to use an external device and associated software. This helped me to see better what was wrong with my photographs.

My memory for colour, like many (most?) people, is not reliable, so I needed some sort of colour reference that I could photograph and then compare with the results. I could have bought a purpose-manufactured colour card -- probably with related software -- but decided that I had the materials and it wouldn't take me all that long to make my own. (I used Cotman watercolours and Cotman 90 lb Not paper.) The result is shown here, and measures 16 cm by 12 cm in real life. Most of the colours were taken from a paintbox which has been equipped with a secondary palette.

To use my colour reference, I position it close to the monitor, and photograph it with the camera I wish to check -- using the Custom White Balance setting adjusted for the natural daylight illumination. I find it helps to increase exposure by 2/3 EV over normal exposures. It only takes a matter of seconds to view the resulting image on the computer, and I judge by eye as to how well it resembles the reference. Then I make a slight adjustment in the Custom Color settings in the camera, and keep repeating the process till I feel I have the closest match. Not very hi-tech, but it works for me... (Fortunately, the compact digital camera that I used here has a limited amount of individual control over red, green and blue colours -- something surprisingly not available in some more expensive DSLR cameras.)

For comparison, I conclude with another photograph of my back garden taken only a few seconds later, using the same camera as before, but this time with the adjustments that I feel produce a more pleasing and realistic result. You are free to disagree of course; but it looks more like my garden to me and I'm happier. Perhaps the greens are still a touch on the blue side though?... (For the record, the camera was a Canon PowerShot S95 in P mode, with Custom Color set to Saturation -1, Contrast -1, Sharpness +1, Red +1, Green 0, Blue -2 and Skin Tone +1. Exposure used Custom White Balance.)

Now made in China

When I first started dabbling more seriously with watercolours in early 2012, my Winsor and Newton  Cotman paints were labelled as being made in England. Not long afterwards, the packaging was revised on all ranges, and to ring in the changes, the labelling on the Cotman range indicated that it was made in France. Now -- perhaps predictably -- Cotman paints are made in China.

Snippets of information on the Internet reveal that this came about because Winsor and Newton is a part of ColArt. The W& N paint manufacturing factory in Harrow was closed in 2012, and production transferred to the Lefranc & Bourgeois factory in France. As of the time of writing the Cotman and Galeria ranges are now manufactured in China.

Humbrol paints -- popular with model makers -- followed a different path a number of years ago, but also ended up being manufactured in China. Then, users started to complain about quality control in the Chinese-made paints. Some paints were so viscous as to be unusable. Other tinlets contained paint with poor covering power. Matt paint dried satin or gloss. Not at all like the old reliable Humbrol paint from Marfleet, Hull. Thankfully, Hornby Hobbies (the owner of the Humbrol brand) took notice of the adverse comments, and brought paint production back to the UK -- and quality seems to have since improved.

Hopefully, Winsor and Newton have done their research, and will not repeat the Humbrol mistakes. With its quality somewhere between artists' and students' watercolours, Cotman may not be unduly affected by the move to China. But it would be a pity if in the pursuit of profits for shareholders, the Winsor and Newton reputation for reliability and quality is lost.

Who Downed Roger Coverley?

Today, 15th September 2015, marks the 75th anniversary of what the United Kingdom remembers as Battle of Britain Day, recalling a Sunday in September 1940 when it was made clear that Fighter Command of the Royal Air Force (RAF) was still very much in being. An invasion of Great Britain was postponed two days later. Sadly, it was also the day that the body of Flying Officer W.H. "Roger" Coverley was found hanging from his parachute, caught in the top branches of a tall tree near Tunbridge Wells in Kent. F/O Coverley had been shot down eight days earlier during the first Luftwaffe daylight attack on London, his aircraft crashing near Tonbridge.

It is not this "downing" that I am interested in, but an earlier shooting down of F/O Coverley on 25th August 1940, as recorded by his commanding officer, Squadron Leader Sandy Johnstone in his book Spitfire Into War. Coverley and Johnstone were both pilots of No. 602 City of Glasgow Squadron, a well-trained and well-organised unit formerly based in Scotland. They were sent with their squadron to Westhampnett in Sussex, at the height of the Battle of Britain in August 1940 to replace a depleted Hurricane fighter squadron, and soon found themselves in action.

I read Sandy Johnstone's account in the late 1980s on the recommendation of a friend, and I remember being enthralled by this account of a close call during a sortie on 25th August:

. . . A quick glance in the mirror showed a 109 glued to my tail, when I pulled back hard on the stick, expecting it to pass underneath. But he was a wily character and clung on, while I continued to urge every last ounce of power out of the trusty Merlin. But it was too much for it. I suddenly flicked over in a violent stall turn.

   The manoeuvre must have taken Jerry by surprise, for he hesitated momentarily and, before he could get out of the way, I was almost on top of him as he presented a broadside target, which even I could not miss. I can still see the look of agonised surprise on the German’s face when his canopy shattered around him and the Messerschmitt went into an uncontrollable flat spin, from which it never recovered. I followed him down until he crashed into a spinney on the outskirts of Dorchester and burst into flames.

Earlier in this action, Sandy had also shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 110 twin-engined fighter, as he mentioned that the entire tail unit exploded and the crew baled out. It was noted that the squadron lost two aircraft in the engagement: Sergeant M.H. Sprague baled out over the sea and was rescued a Walrus amphibious aircraft; Flying Officer W.H. (Roger) Coverley baled out of his blazing Spitfire over Gloucestershire, but was unhurt.

In the early 1990s, I discovered the existence of the book The Battle of Britain Then and Now, and soon acquired my own copy. (The Mark V edition.) A must-have for students of the Battle of Britain! As well as an abundance of photographs, and histories of all the fighter aerodromes involved in the Battle, the book contains the daily damage and loss records from all units on both sides involved in the conflict between July and October 1940.

It then occurred to me that I could use the Luftwaffe's daily loss records to tie-in with Sandy Johnstone's account. In theory, yes, but I found that considering the number of aircraft involved -- and the number that crashed into the English Channel -- it is difficult to link losses to a particular squadron, let alone a pilot!

But what of Sandy's Bf 109 that crashed near Dorchester on 25th August 1940, and was so vividly described? Surprisingly, Then and Now has no clear record of it, although a Bf 109 was force-landed at Tatton House Farm, Buckland Ripers, near Weymouth. Could this be the same aircraft? (The claim went to a 152 Squadron pilot, with no mention of 602 Squadron involvement.) Four twin-engined Bf 110s from four different units are listed as missing around the time of the engagement, only one of which crashed on land -- so one of these could have been the aircraft that lost its tail after Johnstone attacked it? But no German aircraft are recorded as having crashed near Dorchester on this day.

The 602 Squadron losses do tally with Sandy's account: Sergeant M. H. Sprague baled out unhurt and was rescued from the sea, while his aircraft crashed into the sea off Portland. But there is a startling difference in the entry for Roger Coverley, which I reproduce in full. Spitfire P9381. Shot down in combat with enemy fighters over Dorchester. Crashed and burned out on Galton Heath 5.47 p.m. Flying Officer W.H. Coverley baled out unhurt. Aircraft a write-off.

Galton Heath appears to have been closer to Warmwell than Dorchester. It is certainly not Gloucestershire, which would be something like 100 miles away to the north west as the crow flies! Sandy Johnstone's recollections are in general remarkably accurate, but this seems like an anomaly. I hate to suggest it, but there is a hint that this might have been a blue on blue incident, but we will probably never know -- and it is not important.

What is important is that 75 years ago a group of young pilots -- supported by capable men and women on the ground -- resisted the onslaught of what had been an unstoppable force of death and destruction, and prevented a hostile invasion of Great Britain. They, The Few, are my heroes: I will always remember them and the sacrifices they made for freedom.

Escoda Versatil Brushes

Earlier in the year, I made some crude comparisons of commonly-available synthetic and synthetic blend watercolour brushes, to help decide what worked best for me. Although the Winsor & Newton Cotman example came top of the pure synthetics, I chose the Pro Arte Connoisseur and W & N Sceptre Gold II synthetic blend brushes as they took the top two places in the trial.

However, I became aware of the Escoda Versatil range of synthetic watercolour brushes around the beginning of the summer, and read some good things about them. When I found that Ken Bromley had started to stock them, I had to try one for myself. I chose a No. 10 round (short handle version). Could it be as good as others had said?

Despite being imported from Spain, it came as a surprise that the Ken Bromley price is less than the No. 10 round in the Pro Arte flagship Prolene Plus range. The Versatil brush appears to be well-made, and looks superb with a bright nickel? ferrule contrasting with what seems to be a highly varnished wooden handle with a black lacquered end. (I love the wood grain effect.) The hairs are usually the giveaway on a synthetic brush, but Escoda have taken the game to a new level and these really do look (and point) like animal hairs -- with a fatter belly and exquisite pointed tip.

The proof comes in the painting, and I found the Versatil brush a delight to use. By varying the pressure, I could paint thick, juicy strokes, or very fine lines. The brush did not display the familiar synthetic characteristic of being reluctant to start, and then delivering too much paint: it handled very much like a brush made with natural hairs. I was actually not worrying about the capability of the brush and was simply enjoying making marks on the paper. Bravo!

I have always liked the idea of synthetic brushes, but as a long-time user of natural hair brushes, I felt that 100 percent synthetics didn't quite deliver the experience I wanted. With the Escoda Versatil, this may have changed! (I now await the response from Daley-Rowney and Pro Arte with interest...)

Watercolour lightfastness tests

One remarkable source of information on the Internet for watercolour painters is the Handprint Web site. It contains a wealth of detail about colour palettes, paints and pigments -- much of it of a technical or scientific nature. (But don't let that put you off.)

Handprint makes a strong case for testing paints in the way they respond to sunlight: the property of lightfastness. It is clear that some pigments are notorious for the way they fade or change colour after a certain amount of exposure to daylight. (These have been recorded as ones to avoid.) The recommendation is that a painter should test any new or unknown paints to ensure that they will not cause disappointment (or worse) after a couple of years.

Should this worry a beginner? I am inclined to say no, but it really depends on what happens to your initial paintings. (Are they for your eyes only -- to be kept filed away -- or will you share them with other people?) It looks as though some form of testing would be a good idea, if only to determine how resistant your first paints are to fading, and whether you need different paints in future.

Lightfastness testing is not as daunting as it sounds. The basic idea is that a piece of watercolour paper (archival and acid-free) is painted with a colour swatch, and this is exposed to natural daylight for at least six months. In order to assess the effects of daylight, either a part of the swatch is masked-off, or a separate piece of paper is painted at the same time and kept in a dark location. At the end of the test, the daylight strip and the masked/separate strip are compared for any changes. As is to be expected, the Handprint site gets quite scientific about the amount of light exposure, but for UK purposes a year should be sufficient to show up any issues.

I have scanned the outcome of my first test, which ran from March 2014 to March 2015. (Thankfully we were blessed with a fairly good summer in south central England in 2014!) I used Cotman 90 lb CP paper from a gummed pad, trimmed to 5 x 7 inches. The paints are predominantly W & N Cotman, although there is at least one W & N Artists' paint. I made masks out of strips of aluminium foil to cover the painted strips before fitting the sheet into the photo frame. The frame was placed in a south-facing (double-glazed) window for maximum light exposure.

The results initially looked a little disappointing. Eight paints (more than half) showed some evidence of fading. Only the three earth colours, Payne's Gray and Intense Green appeared totally lightfast.

However, things are not as bad as they seem. The two green paints in the leftmost column (column 1) were expected to be poor. The top one is the now discontinued W & N Artists' Sap Green: my tube must be close to 25 years old. It is obvious why W & N replaced it with Permanent Sap Green! The bottom paint in the column is Cotman Hooker's Green Dark of a similar vintage, and suffers from similar issues. I now know that I need to keep these tubes away from any paintings that I may later value...

Moving to the right, column 2 shows that both Cadmium Yellow Hue and Hooker's Green Dark have faded a little. This is more apparent in the more diluted pigments. The fading in the yellow may be due to the use of pigment PY97, which Handprint says can suffer a substantial loss of color in tints in some brands. Similarly, convenience greens made with pigment PG7 depend on the lightfastness of the yellow or orange pigments, in this case PY139 -- which is reported to have very slight fading in tints.

Column 3 shows fading in both the Cadmium Red Pale Hue and the Sap Green. Pigments PY65 and PR255 are used in the red, and Handprint says both have excellent lightfastness -- so this is unexpected. The Sap Green uses pigment PY139, so the comments above about Hooker's Green Dark apply.

In column 4 we have Permanent Rose (top) and Yellow Ochre (bottom). The Permanent Rose displays some slight fading. This is pigment PV19 (gamma quinacridone). Handprint notes that some brands of paint are rated very good rather than excellent, which can be down to the pigment suppliers. No fading was apparent in the Yellow Ochre.

The Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna in column 5 showed no obvious fading, nor did the Intense Green and Payne's Gray in column 7.

Finally to column 6. The Burnt Umber on the bottom is fine. The surprise is the Cerulean Blue Hue paint on the top, which showed some slight fading. W & N's Website claims it is pigment PB15 only, but compared next to a half pan of Intense Blue (also PB15 only), they are different animals! There seems to be an additional white pigment in the Cerulean Blue Hue, and whatever it is, it appears to be causing a degree of fading in sunlight. (Could the mystery white pigment become more opaque after prolonged exposure to sunlight, leading to apparent fading?)

I think this test has been useful. It has raised a couple of questions about the pigments that go into Cotman paint, and indeed whether the pigment labelling is as accurate as it should be? Perhaps it serves to illustrate that a budget range does keep costs down by using less expensive pigments? (But a side-by-side test would be useful here.) Reassuringly though, the modern Cotman paints have not faded into oblivion. Phew!

Advice for watercolour beginners?

Part of the fun of being a self-taught beginner in watercolours is the process of experimentation and learning at one's own pace. Inevitably, Internet surfing has featured in my quest for advice and information. One thing I do know: there is no substitute for practice. (As in the adage "Practice makes perfect.") This got me thinking as to whether the number of finished paintings could be used as a guide to a painter's progress?  As in:

• Beginner (the first 9 paintings)

• Novice (between 10 and 99 paintings)

• Intermediate (between 100 and 999 paintings)

• Experienced (more than 999 paintings)

(Mathematically, magnitude 0 is beginner, magnitude 1 is novice, magnitude 2 is intermediate, etc.) The scale is logarithmic, as the assumption is that each level is a step up in proficiency. It would be interesting to know how many paintings a trained artist completes in the course of their studies...

Much of my Internet searching has focussed on recommendations for paper and paint. Repeated advice for beginners seems to be "buy the best" or "buy the best you can afford". (Especially if you find yourself in the Wet Canvas forum!) But what is "best" to a  beginner, who knows very little and has little experience to compare with? "Best" usually equates to "most expensive" -- but why should someone who may not take to watercolour, spend a king's ransom for equipment and materials that they may throw away in frustration?

In general, I consider this to be poor advice, however well-meaning it might be. (Do we advise learner drivers to buy the most expensive car they can afford?) It is the same as telling someone that they need to buy an expensive camera in order to take photographs. Wrong! (Just ask Ken Rockwell.) I have no issue with upgrading to better paper, brushes and paints when experience dictates -- but I want to practise and learn without minding too much about the cost. Similarly, an up-market camera can be a delight to use once the basics are mastered.

Thankfully, there are a few people out there who take a more pragmatic approach to the learning process, and don't insist that starters rush out and buy professional grade materials and equipment. Special mention goes to John Lovett, Dave Hendry at the West Houghton Art Group, and Laura Jolliffe for some gentle beginner's recommendations. (These were the first matches in my Google search.)