Test colors

Meanwhile back at the ranch…..




While i paint only for pleasure, not for posterity nor profit, I do take some interest in the color fastness of various watercolor mediums.

For example I've found many of the colors used in Deewent's 'Inktense' watercolor pencils and and some of Cheap Joe's 'American Journey' line of watercolors to fade and change drastically over time.




So! I decided to do a test on paints I bought from Blick's art supply site.

Last January on 150 pound cold pressed watercolor paper I laid out some test strips of pain that I'd just purchased. In order from left to right they are:
1)Shinhan Premium's Hooker's Green
2)Shinhan Premium's Colbalt Blue (Their #618 'cobalt blue, not their #619 '"colbalt blue hue')
3)Shinhan Premium's Ultramarine Blue
4) ignore #4, I mislabeled 'brilliant orange.
5)Blick's Lemon Yellow
6) Shinhan Premium's Brillant Orange
7) Shinhan Premium'sScarlet Lake




I laid and taped a strip of, quite opaque, red construction paper across the test swatches, hung the paper in a south facing, non-UV protected window starting in January to see how light-fast the colors are.




I took it out of the window yesterday, after 220 days of exposure to, often intense, sunlight and this is the result.




The red construction paper faded drastically, as I expected, but I can see no color changes twix the areas that were covered by the opaque paper (I inked in a pair of lines across the colors, showing where the opaque paper was taped) and those exposed to sunlight.




Unsolicited testimonial: To date I've been quite satisfied with all the art supplies I've purchased from Blick.