My New Favourite Colour: QoR pigments review

I was given a set of Golden QoR Artists' Watercolors to try out, and while at first I struggled with the different consistency and flow of the paint, I've been reaching for my Qor's (pronounced "core") more and more in my recent projects.

I use a lot of Daniel Smith pigments and I always gravitate toward transparent, granulating colours. They make such interesting colour mixes, often separating as they dry for really fascinating textures. QoR pigments seem to be so finely ground that I don't get any kind of granulation, which confused me at first. I really love working with granulating hues and wasn't sure what to do with colours that didn't do that.

But. QoR has one amazing advantage, and I am loving it so much. They retain their colour from wet to dry. We watercolour painters are used to painting a little darker than we want, because watercolour paint does dry lighter. My QoR paints don't follow that rule, and it's so wonderful to come back to a wash to find the colours as vibrant as when I laid them down.

Look at that vibrant Quinacridone Magenta! And it does mix smoothly with other colours - there are some lovely transitions here. I'm hoping to free up some spaces in my daily palette for some of my favourite hues of QoR colours - definitely the Quin Magenta and Indian Yellow to start with. And my colour addiction has gotten so bad that I really should be using 2 or 3 palettes for all my favourite colours and really broaden my spectrum.

I entered my "Fine Feathers" painting, shown at the top of the post, in the Peace River Chapter of the Federation of Canadian Artists' "Dimensions of Reality" show, opening Friday at the North Peace Cultural Centre in Fort St. John, British Columbia, and I'm pleased to report that it was accepted and will be on display at the gallery there from May 2-17, 2014.