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Difference between watercolor grades
🕑 Added 2017-11-15 14:53:02 +0000 UTC Today is a little watercolor paint grade talk.There is two grades: artists and students. Also there is some cheap stuff that is mostly for kids and school and not really good for artworks you want to use, store, exhibit or anything.
So, basically, watercolor is made of pigment and binder. For artists grade paints paint factories use better and more expensive pigments (so it's brighter and clearer) and better binder, that's why it's so expensive. It has more lightfastness (that means that you can keep your work on the wall and it will remains it's colors longer than students grade paint).
Also because of better binder it works better on your paper (students grade paints sometimes can fall off your paper, I noticed that with Winsor&Newtons Cotman).
But the perk of students grade paint is obviously that they are cheaper, ways cheaper than artists grade. Though you can find pretty cheap artists grade like Shinhan PWC, which I absolutely love.
If you have more questions please feel free to ask, maybe I forgot to cover some parts of a topic!
Comments
ashiyaart
yeah that's important, you anyway have to check these things before buying. Oh I hope they will arrive soon if they didn't already!
Cynea
Yes! :D I just wanted to make sure that people don't assume that student grade = not lightfast, artist grade = lightfast. I'm glad I didn't fell in love with the irreplaceable opera because I don't want to use any fugitives. Btw, super excited for the prints I've ordered from your shop <3
ashiyaart
yeah, but it's more like these colors won't be lightfast anyways, I mean, it doesn't depend on the grade, so it's a bit different topic, I talked about more basic overall things how to differ the grades :D but a very good addition, I wanted to write about watercolor qualitys next time! C: I love Opera though, it's still good for scanning and can bear a few years of exhibition
Cynea
Ah, and one still has to check the lightfastness of the artist grade paints because they offer non-lightfast paints (like Opera) for illustrators, too :)
Cynea
Good explanation! :) just a little addition: another big difference is the lack of fillers (like dextrin) in the artist quality paint whilst most student grade paints actually use the same binder - gum Arabicum - which is rather inexpensive.
