Glad to see this. I've thought about trying it. I probably won't now, especially since I don't mind the lower tinting strength of most granulating pigments. I'm wondering if mixing a cobalt with a phthalo might give better results. The tiny Phthalo pigments and the larger cobalt pigments should separate and you'd have the cobalt granulation going on. Seems like this granulation medium is very tricky/touchy. It's more like a clumping medium and looks like it needs *exactly* the right amount of paint, water, and medium to give decent results. And even the best result looks kind of weird, more like a granulation analog. I'm not sure why true granulation is, in fact, so very pretty, but I agree that this looks more just dirty.
i’ve tried that but not it’s maybe 50% accurate. cobalt colours are generally granulating and opaque. but other opaque colours like cadmiums dont generally granulate even when mixed with transparent colours
Perhaps the granulation medium is causing flocculation because it's reacting to the filters and optical brighteners in the Van Gogh watercolor. It's student grade paint so extenders have been used. I wonder if professional grade paint would have a slightly different result.
Yeah I agree -- the quin rose looks so opaque to begin with, it seems strange. Student grade paints are often made to lay down smoothly because beginners tend to hate granulation. I do think it'd be interesting to see if a slightly granulating paint could be made MORE granulating with the medium.
I love experiment videos! I wish I was a TH-camr, I'd film all the playing I did with masking fluid...so much fun! On the examples where you dropped the medium onto the paint, did you manipulate or spread it out, or just dropped it on in places? I liked the results you got there. It reminded me of how Jean Lurssen paints. Thanks so much for sharing these experiments with us! 🎨
Probably goes without saying, but cobalt turquoise granulates better because it is made from a metal (cobalt), while phthalo and quin colors are synthetics that contain carbon rather than a metal or an earth. The metal and earth pigments contain larger, irregularly shaped particles that are more noticeable when they clump. The carbon pigments contain smaller, regularly shaped particles that don't clump as noticeably. If I understand it correctly, the granulation medium contains a solvent that causes a paint's pigment to separate from the binder so that the pigment particles can clump together more noticeably. But the effect can't match that of pigments made from metals or earths. As someone else here has pointed out, because student-grade watercolors contain less pigment, they granulate less than artist-grade paints. But the carbon pigments in artist-grade paints still aren't going to granulate as much compared as the metal/earth-based paints. If you look at Daniel Smith's list of granulating colors, for instance, no phthalos or quins appear - not one. But you do see eight cobalts on the list, which also includes paints named for their mineral or metal pigment like ochre, bronzite, apatite, chromium, and manganese. The ultramarine colors granulate because they contain aluminum. Prussian blue contains iron.
@@PaintinHiding HI! Thank you, Vee!!! I have been peeking at your videos from time to time. Life got crazy, I got sick, life got crazier, and it is only now that I can start to think about painting a little bit again. I hope you've been well.
I haven't tried this but I guess this is why. It's not really going to make non granulating paints granulate, more just like separate. I'm not sure if this is true with the medium -- but I always get the best granulation when I pre-wet my paper and then let watery pigment flow over the paper, tilting it. Granulation happens when wet pigment *flows*... some of your swatches were too pigmented to allow that flow to really happen. But it showed up well in the lighter tints. I know Schmincke's granulating spray is just alcohol in a spray bottle. I might try that.
Hmmmm......I think it'll work better if you use the medium in place of water. I think I'll have to buy some and test it out! Edit: and it looks like it doesn't truly granulate the paint, but just kind of clumps the pigment together into little pieces.
@floralauraproactive I will buy whatever I want with the money I earn. And every single product that is available for purchase was made with the express purpose for making the company money. Including those watercolors that you have been using since you were a child. That is the entire point of retail business. Regards.
i feel you! i've been going back and forth betweeen watercolours and coloured pencils as of late. i have a set of gouache i want to get into but fear that i'll love it so much i'll abandon my other mediums hahaha
@Paint in Hiding it can be very hard to balance when u enjoy different supplies 😉 I know I am struggling going from oil paintings to digital and still doing some Gouache and Watercolor I hope if I change up my art space it might make it easier to switch but honestly I don't know it's just hard to only use one thing
Thank you for the heads up on the dried paint in the pans returning to it's original state. I would have used it in the manner you had described, expecting the paint to granulate at a later date, find nothing happening, and then spend hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.
I love this medium but when I used it I paint on the paper and then drop in the medium on top of the paint. Lots of water and medium great result for cliff sides. Also try it with FW sepia acrylic ink magic result. 😊
At the very start you said that your favorite phthalo turquoise blue is PB16, but the Van Gogh tube you are using is a mix of PB15 and PG7. A two-pigment phthalo mix might behave different to a single pigment.
This video is timely! I'm thinking of buying the granulation medium (but I'll stick with buying locally since Jackson's doesn't send W&N anymore outside of Europe 😢) but now considering if it's worth the investment since the local price for this medium is like... Thrice the price on Jackson's. I'll keep looking for reviews on TH-cam, but yours is the most recent. I don't like this flocculation effect much... Schmincke's granulation spray seems to do the same trick as well :p
maaaaaddyyyy!! how are you? i hope you're well! miss you~ after having tried the lukas cobalt violet you sent me, i finally got a tube of it recently hehe ;P anyway, W&N granulation medium, yeeeaahh, i'm kinda disappointed it looks more like 'sedimentation' rather than granulation that we all love. i do think it's incredible for when painting loose landscape pieces though. drop it wet on wet in those rocky areas and it's perfect.
Thank you for this demonstration! I first saw a W&N demo video that uses F Ultramarine with the granulation medium, so I was like...this demo is useless, what about the Phthalos? And so I found this video, which is perfect! Thank you so much. I think I want to buy this.
Interesting video as I actually have this medium, but have not yet experimented. You have helped me skip the step shown here and probably go straight to dropping it directly onto a painting in the areas I wish to disturb. Overall though, I have to say it seems to me that Winsor and Newton may be more than a little cheeky in the naming of this product. It is extremely misleading. 👍🏻🖌🎨👩🏻🎨
I'm not sure I particularly like the results with this product. They look too unpredictable even for granulating/flocculating colours and natural granulation is in my opinion a lot nicer to look at.
Why do some people want watercolors to granulate? Aren't companies putting a lot of effort to grind their pigments to prevent them from granulating? Genuinely curious, since I prefer my watercolor paintings to look "flat" with no granulation texture since it can kinda make the painting look bad in places where you want an even wash.
it all depends on your subject and painting style/aesthetics, I guess :) Some artists like to work with abstract effects and texture. The effect you get depends on the paper, since its texture is heavily emphasized by the settling particles. For example on a handmade cotton paper the granulation looks like natural earth/vine patterns and it can be a good look if someone wants to paint rocks, land masses, tree bark. I use it a lot to paint abstract backgrounds.
i agree with what @magenta indigo art said. for me, sometimes i paint more illustrative style and for that, i dont always want granulation. but for abstract and/or loose watercolour pieces, i love the granulation
Depends on your subject and your style and your preferences. I wouldn't want granulation on the face of a child, but on an old guy it could work well. It's amazing for texture in landscapes.
I use it for my acrylic inks - they seem to love each other and the granulation is fantastic.
good to know, thank you pierre!
Gosh the combined colors was absolutely gorgeous
Glad to see this. I've thought about trying it. I probably won't now, especially since I don't mind the lower tinting strength of most granulating pigments. I'm wondering if mixing a cobalt with a phthalo might give better results. The tiny Phthalo pigments and the larger cobalt pigments should separate and you'd have the cobalt granulation going on. Seems like this granulation medium is very tricky/touchy. It's more like a clumping medium and looks like it needs *exactly* the right amount of paint, water, and medium to give decent results. And even the best result looks kind of weird, more like a granulation analog. I'm not sure why true granulation is, in fact, so very pretty, but I agree that this looks more just dirty.
couldn't have said it better myself :)
I have a working theory that opaque colors are more prone to flocculate when mixed with transparent colors.
i’ve tried that but not it’s maybe 50% accurate. cobalt colours are generally granulating and opaque. but other opaque colours like cadmiums dont generally granulate even when mixed with transparent colours
Perhaps the granulation medium is causing flocculation because it's reacting to the filters and optical brighteners in the Van Gogh watercolor. It's student grade paint so extenders have been used. I wonder if professional grade paint would have a slightly different result.
i tried with artist grade and it gave similar results but you theory is definitely valid! i didnt even think of that
Yeah I agree -- the quin rose looks so opaque to begin with, it seems strange. Student grade paints are often made to lay down smoothly because beginners tend to hate granulation.
I do think it'd be interesting to see if a slightly granulating paint could be made MORE granulating with the medium.
Oh that's intresting!
I love experiment videos! I wish I was a TH-camr, I'd film all the playing I did with masking fluid...so much fun! On the examples where you dropped the medium onto the paint, did you manipulate or spread it out, or just dropped it on in places? I liked the results you got there. It reminded me of how Jean Lurssen paints. Thanks so much for sharing these experiments with us! 🎨
i dropped the medium onto the paint and because it was sttill wet, i tilted the paper so the liquid swirled all around. ;D
thanks for showing us this. i've been curious about it.
Probably goes without saying, but cobalt turquoise granulates better because it is made from a metal (cobalt), while phthalo and quin colors are synthetics that contain carbon rather than a metal or an earth. The metal and earth pigments contain larger, irregularly shaped particles that are more noticeable when they clump. The carbon pigments contain smaller, regularly shaped particles that don't clump as noticeably.
If I understand it correctly, the granulation medium contains a solvent that causes a paint's pigment to separate from the binder so that the pigment particles can clump together more noticeably. But the effect can't match that of pigments made from metals or earths.
As someone else here has pointed out, because student-grade watercolors contain less pigment, they granulate less than artist-grade paints. But the carbon pigments in artist-grade paints still aren't going to granulate as much compared as the metal/earth-based paints. If you look at Daniel Smith's list of granulating colors, for instance, no phthalos or quins appear - not one. But you do see eight cobalts on the list, which also includes paints named for their mineral or metal pigment like ochre, bronzite, apatite, chromium, and manganese. The ultramarine colors granulate because they contain aluminum. Prussian blue contains iron.
susanaaaaa hi hi! hope ur well ;D miss you! also, thank u so much for so much info, you always have interesting info to share! :D
@@PaintinHiding HI! Thank you, Vee!!! I have been peeking at your videos from time to time. Life got crazy, I got sick, life got crazier, and it is only now that I can start to think about painting a little bit again. I hope you've been well.
@@susanavenir oh no! i hope you're recovering well D: my life's been rather hectic too but still goo all things considered.
@@PaintinHiding Doing okay now. I just have so much to catch up on! You were fainting, though. Have you gotten good help with that????
I can’t believe that I missed this video too! Whats wrong with me? 😮😂
Personally, I’m in shock! 😉😂
@@anitadavidson1266 can’t blame you 🤣
😂
I haven't tried this but I guess this is why. It's not really going to make non granulating paints granulate, more just like separate.
I'm not sure if this is true with the medium -- but I always get the best granulation when I pre-wet my paper and then let watery pigment flow over the paper, tilting it. Granulation happens when wet pigment *flows*... some of your swatches were too pigmented to allow that flow to really happen. But it showed up well in the lighter tints.
I know Schmincke's granulating spray is just alcohol in a spray bottle. I might try that.
Very good information; thank you, Vee!
Hmmmm......I think it'll work better if you use the medium in place of water. I think I'll have to buy some and test it out! Edit: and it looks like it doesn't truly granulate the paint, but just kind of clumps the pigment together into little pieces.
i've tried that method but not to my liking either. so far my fave method to use it is probably to just eyedropper it onto a piece of art while wet.
@floralauraproactive I will buy whatever I want with the money I earn. And every single product that is available for purchase was made with the express purpose for making the company money. Including those watercolors that you have been using since you were a child. That is the entire point of retail business. Regards.
Love granulation in watercolors 😊 but I have gotten more into Gouache but I do go back and forth
i feel you! i've been going back and forth betweeen watercolours and coloured pencils as of late. i have a set of gouache i want to get into but fear that i'll love it so much i'll abandon my other mediums hahaha
@Paint in Hiding it can be very hard to balance when u enjoy different supplies 😉 I know I am struggling going from oil paintings to digital and still doing some Gouache and Watercolor I hope if I change up my art space it might make it easier to switch but honestly I don't know it's just hard to only use one thing
Thank you for the heads up on the dried paint in the pans returning to it's original state. I would have used it in the manner you had described, expecting the paint to granulate at a later date, find nothing happening, and then spend hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.
you're very welcome! honestly i bought itt for just that purpose as well and no one talked about it so yeah, i'm glad i saved you some money lol
I love this medium but when I used it I paint on the paper and then drop in the medium on top of the paint. Lots of water and medium great result for cliff sides. Also try it with FW sepia acrylic ink magic result. 😊
thanks tracie! seems like many people like it with acrylic inks too
You just made your own beautiful Roman Szmals shadow violet
haha! i guess it is pretty similar!
Thank you for this. I'll save money 😉
my pleasure ~
At the very start you said that your favorite phthalo turquoise blue is PB16, but the Van Gogh tube you are using is a mix of PB15 and PG7. A two-pigment phthalo mix might behave different to a single pigment.
yes, i tried both and the results were the same.
This video is timely! I'm thinking of buying the granulation medium (but I'll stick with buying locally since Jackson's doesn't send W&N anymore outside of Europe 😢) but now considering if it's worth the investment since the local price for this medium is like... Thrice the price on Jackson's. I'll keep looking for reviews on TH-cam, but yours is the most recent. I don't like this flocculation effect much... Schmincke's granulation spray seems to do the same trick as well :p
maaaaaddyyyy!! how are you? i hope you're well! miss you~ after having tried the lukas cobalt violet you sent me, i finally got a tube of it recently hehe ;P anyway, W&N granulation medium, yeeeaahh, i'm kinda disappointed it looks more like 'sedimentation' rather than granulation that we all love. i do think it's incredible for when painting loose landscape pieces though. drop it wet on wet in those rocky areas and it's perfect.
Thank you for this demonstration! I first saw a W&N demo video that uses F Ultramarine with the granulation medium, so I was like...this demo is useless, what about the Phthalos? And so I found this video, which is perfect! Thank you so much. I think I want to buy this.
i'm so glald you found the video useful :D
!!!!!!!! Excited, excited!!!! 😫😫😫
Heheh, not a fan. I don’t understand the medium nor like it, but I do really like your colors.
And what does it smell like?👃
i don't smell anything from it. i mean, i dont want to put my nose up close but just wafting and i'm not smelling anything
@@PaintinHiding The appropriate way to smell stuff.
I think it would have different results if you tried the exact same techniques but applied to damp/wet paper.
is it safe to say that Windsor and Newton have found the streaky medium ?😅
hahhahaha~ tbh i'd be more happy if they named it flocculation or sedimentation medium
Interesting video as I actually have this medium, but have not yet experimented. You have helped me skip the step shown here and probably go straight to dropping it directly onto a painting in the areas I wish to disturb. Overall though, I have to say it seems to me that Winsor and Newton may be more than a little cheeky in the naming of this product. It is extremely misleading. 👍🏻🖌🎨👩🏻🎨
hi anita :D yesss, i find that i like it best when dropped directly onto a painting
I put my granulation medium in a spray bottle. Bad idea, it evaporated a lot and fast.
oh no! 😭
@@PaintinHiding yes and I forgot to mention the spray bottle was also capped. 😢
Does it say alcohol, ethanol or isopropyl alcohol on the bottle?
i'll need to get back to u on that
@@MrsBarnabas 😂😂. Hi MrsB!
@@PaintinHiding I would like to know as well
@@keepyourshoesathedoor check out my community tab
check out my community tab
Use ultramarine turquoise to have a granulating turq.
2nd 😂
I'm not sure I particularly like the results with this product. They look too unpredictable even for granulating/flocculating colours and natural granulation is in my opinion a lot nicer to look at.
hi antonela! yeah, same here, the only use i have for it right now it for abstract or loose landscape pieces of art
Why do some people want watercolors to granulate? Aren't companies putting a lot of effort to grind their pigments to prevent them from granulating? Genuinely curious, since I prefer my watercolor paintings to look "flat" with no granulation texture since it can kinda make the painting look bad in places where you want an even wash.
it all depends on your subject and painting style/aesthetics, I guess :) Some artists like to work with abstract effects and texture. The effect you get depends on the paper, since its texture is heavily emphasized by the settling particles. For example on a handmade cotton paper the granulation looks like natural earth/vine patterns and it can be a good look if someone wants to paint rocks, land masses, tree bark. I use it a lot to paint abstract backgrounds.
i agree with what @magenta indigo art said. for me, sometimes i paint more illustrative style and for that, i dont always want granulation. but for abstract and/or loose watercolour pieces, i love the granulation
Depends on your subject and your style and your preferences. I wouldn't want granulation on the face of a child, but on an old guy it could work well. It's amazing for texture in landscapes.
Companies will specifically make granulating colors