Schmincke Limited Signature Editions

Schminke have released a set of limited edition watercolours, developed and produced in collaboration with various artists. I’d thought about ordering some of these, but generally tried to behave slightly, until they appeared in Fred Aldous, when I was in town shepherding my child about on a shopping spree, which generally requires some retail therapy of my own to stay sane.

These are a set of interesting mixed colours with specific themes and ideas in mind and there’s some more infomation about them here. https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2024/12/18/schmincke-horadam-limited-edition-watercolours/

Here’s a quick swatch:

Cologne Bridge Green

In collaboration with Dirk Schmitt this green is inspired by the bridges in Cologne and is obviously useful for that common green tone often appearing deliberately, or as a result of oxidation, on many examples of architecture. It is, in a sense, pastel as it is opaque and contains white – but it still comes across as a saturated colour.

It contains a fairly large number of pigments – Viridian PG18, Phthlao Green PG7, Disazo Scarlett PR242, Zinc White PW4, Titanium White PW6, Yellow Oxide PY42 – something you would expect to just create mud, but in this they have been very skillfully blended into a consistent whole. It’s powerful, opaque with a subtle yellow undertone and granulation when pulled out into a wash.

Wild Purple

This was created in colaboration with Carolin Benkhe a Berlin artist specialising in animal paintings. It’s built from Quinacridone Violet PV19, Ultramarine PB29, and Oxide of Chromium PG17 and while dense and wine-like in mass tone pulls out to a wonderful mixed granulation in washed.

This is perhaps my favourite of these and similar to a couple of mixes I have made.

Atoll Blue

I also really love this one – it’s kind of like the best of both worlds, being created from Cobalt Turquoise PG50 and Phthalo Turquoise PB16, so it gives an intense colour which is both staining and granulating – the latter coming out more in mixes. I’ve used this to great effect in a few special paintings which I’ll post in due course.

Here’s a quick test sketch that I did when I got these (I’ll just note this scan was done on the office scanner as my Epson died, and does not really do justice to seeing the colours on paper, but it does a good job of showing their characteristics.

There are a couple more in this range which I have not picked up yet.

Cochineal

While I am here, I’ll include this one – also a Schminke Limited edition made from genuine Cochineal NR4:1. This is a gorgeous cool red, though obviously lightfastness may be a concern. I’ve had this for a while and used it in a few paintings, but not got around to really writing about it.

Schminke do produce some gorgeous special editions, and it is very tempting to jump on these when they come out. Sadly, for my wallet at least, I may be doing so more when I see them.