Working With The Blues - Windsor & Newton Cotman Watercolours 

So pleased to find another artist who enjoys using Cotman paints. These are my favourite paints, because I can use as much as I like of these because they're not expensive. They seem perfectly good enough for me!

You are doing a great service to us novice painters by showing the benefits of the Cotmans. I was won over to watercolors by using my Cotman travel set. I do use pro paints in my studio as I do see a difference in how they perform in loose styles. They move better and are brilliant but for plein air painting and sharing with my grandkids it is Cotman hands down. We have an organic farm, we drink from a well and the animals drink from native springs so the non toxic Cotmans are simply a healthier choice for our acreage as that water is dumped outside after use and as well as limiting toxic substance exposure for my grands . There are some pro paints that are safe in this regard but using Cotmans removes my worries. In my home the dirty water from my pro paints goes into a jug for disposal with toxic substances at specific recycle locations.

That was quite nice, thanks for sharing

Patrick I started to watch your videos and I’m feel very motivated to paint again! All my life as student and professional I painted with W&N Cotman watercolors I loved alway it’s colors and pigments are beautiful! I ‘m totally agree there is no need to used professional color, I think that it is a marketing issue and for snobbish artists I think! Thank for your lesson! You are excellent painter! HUGS FROM PERU!

From what I have read Cotman watercolors are lightfast and archival, in some cases more so then some professional brands. For example Cotman uses py175 for its lemon yellow; this is more lightfast then py3 which is still used in some professional brands. PY3 has proven to fade and turn brown fairly rapidly. I have used cotman and professional watercolors for some time. I do prefer a more saturated yellow (py97 or py154) that I can only find in a professional brand. But overall I believe Cotman has a good range of landscape colors. Not so sure about vibrant floral colors though. I really appreciate this video. It just goes to show that it's more often the skill and knowledge of the artist and not the particular brand of paint that makes a difference.

Good example of how adding darks bring out the lights on rocks. Very nice and the music is great, too.

I love cotman for skin tones💕🎨

I have always had a soft spot for Cotman as they were my first "Real" paints growing up and I thought they were amazing. I still have an old 24 full pan Studio pallet which I use frequently, however WN never provided open stock replacement full pans for the Cotman which was odd, but I have continued to refill the pans from a mix of artist and Cotman tube paint. Some colours like ultra marine are near impossible to tell the difference. I do find I have to add a drop of glycerine to some colours to stop them drying out too much but that's no big deal. Cotman paint did go downhill a few years ago when manufacturing was moved to China and some batches were shockingly poor in both pan and tube colour, however recent purchases of the 21ml tubes and a small 12 pan pocket palette have been fine. One slight difference I have noticed is a slight change in the binder which seems a little more gelatinous to the old stuff when used fresh from the tube - a little less eager to liquefy - this is also no real problem but more noticeable against other artist brands in particular my Jacksons branded (Sennelier) which lets down as soon as water touches it. I will continue to use Cotman side by side with my other artist grade paints as I see no reason not to - In particular I like their cerulean hue which behaves really nicely in mixes. I am currently paying about £3.99 for 21ml tube off ebay and I would definitely recommend sticking to the 21ml tubes as price per ml drops drastically. Most retailer sell the small 8ml tubes for about the same price as a half pan but for about a pound more you can get the 21ml ...so you do the math. On the whole price value issue, I'm of mixed mind. The cotman 21ml is a lot of paint for the money - but... you do use more - a lot more due to the lower colour density. I find I use up some of my tubes quite fast compared to a similar colour in an artist grade. I have been fortunate to have found some great deals online - careful searching of sales, stock clearance or used / dammaged listings has revealed a goldmine of paint and artist materials that I have managed to stock up on. Just this week I managed to get a 14ml tube of WN professional Indian yellow for £2.95 as it had some dried paint on the side of the tube (a pin hole - as I suspected) nothing my glue gun wouldn't fix. Jacksons have frequent sales on watercolour - recently their own branded Sennelier 21ml was around £4.70 for series 1 colours but even at normal price, the balance of value for money is harder to distinguish. The big brand names brought from High Street art shops and some online vendors follow "Manufacturers Recommended Retail Prices" which are often ridiculously high, but but good deals can be found. On another note, there are a lot of negative and biased comments online in regard to using "Student Grade" paints and I think they are grossly unfair. Issues like light fastness and multi pigment colours are often exaggerated and have largely been minimised with modern pigments and quality manufacturing. It is also of much less importance for us as amateur painters, not selling our work. Saying that... many professional artists continue to use Cotman or a mix of both, particularly Hake painters, so I wouldn't be put off by that.

Colours looked great Patrick. Also love the way you vary them.

What a beautiful painting Patrick! I love the colours you created on the rocks and the waves are wonderful, so alive. I'm so glad the Cotman paints are working out for you. I hope you'll share with us how you like them on watercolour paper. Thanks again for a great video.

Thank you, Patrick. I loved watching your method and found the music to my taste too so, kudos as I continue to learn from you.

Thanks for your input on the Cotman watercolors. I'm trying to get into watercolor painting on a limited budget and this helps. I enjoy your tutorials very much.

Winsor and Newton has a list of their own lightfastness ratings here: www.winsornewton.com/uk/discover/resources/composition-permanence/cotman-water-colour All the ones they have rated are ASTM I or II with a 'permanence' of AA or A. The professional series has some historic pigments that are fugitive but they are not used in the Cotman range. And there are 19 single pigment colours in the range, which is very good at this price point. Beautiful painting and I love your technique. Thank you for sharing and keep testing!

Great demo Patrick and lovely painting.

I love this video. Thank you.

There you go! Very nice. I really liked the music as well. Very relaxing to watch you paint (albeit as the speed of light) and listen to the music. :D

Very colorful, the paint seemed bright, blended easily and had good movement on the journal. Journal being a good key here, most of the time they are folded up on a shelf. I really think worrying about lightfastness could be a little over done at times. I appreciate that you have taken the time to help others enjoy art on a budget. I’m wrapping up a painting of a shipwreck to post on Instagram, I’m using Hobby Lobby’s affordable watercolor paper. Not speaking for me, I’m referring to you, the biggest key is talent and experience., the supplies are secondary. Have a great day, thank you for your time. Essie

I painted with Cotman paints for a good few years and they're great. Depending on the pigment, most of them are lightfast and well made, as well as excellent value. They are not as intense as professional watercolours but at a fraction of the price, they're a bargain and perform like watercolours should. A big difference is the pigments used in Cotman paints, which uses some different pigments to imitate more expensive pigments. Examples are the fact that their cadmium and cobalt paints are hues, not using PY35 (cadmium yellow), PR108 (cadmium red), or PB28 (cobalt blue). This allows them to produce a similar hue, which is still lightfast, at a fraction of the cost.

good job 👍👍👍 Patrick i love it ☺

You are fabulous , like to much your work thankyou very much

i like it! thank you patrick.

This painting is so fresh I love it!! Definitely will check out your website later..Thanks

This is awesome!

Thank you Patrick I have used Windsor and Colman also use Dalerrowney paints find they have so many faireions : I think it’s what suits you at the end of the day. I love all colours you used and hope to see more videos.

A couple years ago I bought the 45 half pan Colman set. It has all of Colman colors. There's only three I don't like. The sap green and alizerine crimson are weak. And the Prussian blue is just weird. Otherwise they are great. They take more time and effort to activate but this is easily remedied by spraying your pans with water a few minutes before using.

I’ve only ever had difficulty with one cotman paint and that is the half pan in Prussian blue. I’ve had multiples and it seems like the top layer always sort of seals and the amount of pigment you can pick up from it tails to almost nothing. I ve been using cotmans full set of half pans (individual refreshes over time)for years and other than that one they are fantastic.

What a treat! Beautiful work in both painting and video. Curious to see how you get on with Alizarin Crimson in Cotman. I find every other color easy to work with on sized or coated paper, but can't seem to get AC to behave.

Your sketches are always so wonderful! How did you achieve that turquoise in the water? I was thinking of buying a color like that.

I really enjoyed this. What were the tunes that were playing, I found the music was very cool to follow along with you.

How do you compare Cotman Cerulean blue hue with W/N artist grade cerulean blue? I found the artist grade Cerulean blue is a bit more chalky to me, but I like the softness of it. I tried two other brands, they are more like diluted phthalo blue. Now thinking about Cotman after watching your demo, could you please let me know about their difference? Thanks!

Thank you Patrick for sharing and l find most Windsor and Colman are good : also l found DaTheDiwal

Is aquafine any good

Beautiful painting. Do you think the paper would make more of a difference though? If you were to paint the same landscape on 100% cotton paper, would the watercolor paints be even less important? (Cotman vs professional Winsor)

😁

GREAT PAINTING BUT TERRIBLE MUSIC- DO WE REALLY NEED IT?