Welcome to a new series! In Brand Overview, multiple contributors will provide their opinions and favorite colors from a watercolor manufacturer.
Schmincke Horadam is a professional watercolor brand manufactured in Germany. They offer 139 watercolors, and additional 50 colors in their supergranulating range. On a regular basis they have limited edition colors. Their watercolors use gum arabic and ox gall as well as a biocide in their binder. The watercolor formulation in the tubes is the same as in the pans. Once poured, the colors really stick to their pans.
Our hot takes and favorite colors
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Sandra
As I live in Germany, in every art store Schmincke jumps into my face. My basic collection of watercolors is from Schmincke. I enjoy the smoothness of the colors. On the other hand, some colors are not as strong as in other brands (for example PY150 and the phthalo colors).
My favorite colors are:
- Delft Blue, the violet leaning version of PB60. I like it much better than Indanthrone Blue, PB60, from Daniel Smith, which doesn’t have the smooth texture that I prefer. I like it just by itself as well as for non-granulating dark mixes. [Buy Delft Blue]
- French Ultramarine, PB29, is another favorite because of its heavy granulation. The versatility of PB29 is unmatched for all kinds of mixes. [Buy French Ultramarine]
- Limited edition Wild Purple, PV19, PB29, PG17, because I love muted violets. Including its granulation it hits a sweet spot for me.
- Mahogany Brown, PBr33, is a favorite because it mixes nice violet leaning darks with Ultramarine Blue, PB29. [Buy Mahogany Brown]
Colors to avoid:
- Schmincke’s dot card has really tiny dots. It’s barely enough for a small swatch. If you want to do more with the dots than just swatching, avoid the dot cards.
Logan
I’m getting better at using Schmincke, but when I was first starting out, I found that I got a lot of blooms and cauliflowers, especially in the transparent, smooth colors. I think there’s something about the binder they use that makes their paints a little trickier to work with for beginners, but if you’re good at water control, they’re gorgeous. In the United States, they can be expensive and hard to find, so I tend to only opt for Schmincke when I strongly prefer their version of a color.
My favorite colors are:
- Cobalt Turquoise (PG50), strong, super bright and cheerful with moderate granulation. No water control problems here, this was one of the first professional paints I got, and it has always treated me right. [Buy Cobalt Turquoise]
- Aureolin Hue (PY151), a lovely strong and transparent mid-to-cool yellow. I prefer it to the Daniel Smith equivalent Azo Yellow. [Buy Aureolin Hue]
- Ultramarine Finest (PB29), because I am the opposite of Sandra and I like an ultramarine blue with almost no granulation. Schmincke has us covered for all levels of granulation preference! [Buy Ultramarine Finest]
Colors to avoid:
- Phthalo Green (PG7) – I have tried two different 5ml tubes and both had separation problems with the pigment split from the binder.
- The Supergranulating line: I’m not much into granulation anyway, but I also resent their mixing up 40+ individual mixes for you to buy out of ~20 single pigments. Smart marketing on their part, but bad for your wallet.
Lynne
When I first got serious about painting with watercolor in 2015, I researched and chose Schmincke as my first set of 12 professional pigments. As with all sets, there were some hits and some misses. I love the subtle hues of a number of colors, and found myself frustrated by a few colors that don’t get as dark as I would like.
My favorite colors are:
- Transparent (fka Translucent) Orange (PO71), a mid-orange with nice transparency. It’s beautiful on its own and also lovely in mixes. [Buy Transparent Orange]
- Manganese Violet (PV16), a red-leaning violet with fantastic granulation. For a while this was my go-to shadow color, and it is perfect for flower petals. It mixes beautifully with any number of blues for a deeper purple hue, and creates a wonderful granulating mustard yellow or ochre when combined with a mid-yellow such as PY151. I also like to brush it over rolling green hills for a muted olive effect. [Buy Manganese Violet]
- Indigo (PB66, PB15:1) is my longtime favorite dark, more often my choice over Indanthrone (PB60) in a limited palette. Similar to many Payne’s Grey mixes, it is a deep, somewhat green-leaning blue. Unlike Indigo in most brands, it does not contain black, which seems to help it avoid reading as flat. It makes a beautiful night sky, and with just a touch of yellow added, deep dark pockets in forest foliage. [Buy Indigo]
Colors to avoid:
- I find both Helio Cerulean (PB15:3) and Phthalo Green (PG7) frustrating to use. While I haven’t had any issues with binder separation, neither of them get dark enough as compared to other brands.
Hanna
While I do not live in Germany, I spend a lot of time there, so, like Sandta, I see Schmincke around frequently. In real shops, but also second hand on ebay.de and kleinanzeigen.de. As a result, I have tried quite a few of their colours in half-used halfpan sets. I also own tubes of several favourites.
In general, I find Schmincke very well-behaved in the pan: it pours easily, dries smooth, and stays put even in humid weather. It also activates well. In terms of overall brand characteristics I would consider it very dispersive (all that oxgall), medium-staining (it does not lift easily like Isaro or Rosa, or stick to the paper like M Graham) and on the granulating side compared to other European brands.
My favourite colours are:
- Volcano Red (PR108): Strongly granulating reds are rare outside the earths, so this cadmium version is rather special. I keep it on my urban palette to add interest and distract from my sloppy linework. [Buy Volcano Red]
- Maroon Brown (PBr7): A brown-leaning Burnt Siena sort of colour with very visible granulation. I use it mostly to mix granulating neutrals with ultramarine, but the tint can be nice in landscapes. [Buy Maroon Brown]
- Walnut/Mahogany (PBr33): Another highly granulating brown pigment. The cooler Walnut version is discontinued, replaced by the warmer Mahogany. Can be used like Maroon Brown, but I think I prefer using it as a glaze to add a bit of texture to an existing area. Opaque in masstone. (I am including swatches of both shades as Walnut can still sometimes be found.) [Buy Mahogany Brown]
- Delft Blue (PB60): Like Sandra, I like this version of PB60 the best. A great mixer for moody darks, or just dark darks. Warmer and with less of a drying shift than Schmincke’s other PB60, Dark Blue. (I do not have it on me so cannot swatch it, but Sandra has covered it beautifully.) [Buy Delft Blue]
- Aureolin Hue (PY151): A bit of a trendy colour that has been popping up in more and more brands; Schmincke’s version is very nice. I like it as the only yellow in a small palette because it is versatile: cool enough to mix bright greens, but not so cool that it ruins oranges. Also it is more transparent than the more usual PY175 and PY154. More opaque than PY150, but without the dispersion and the earthy masstone, so just easier for me to use in small, quick sketches. (Again, this colour is already swatched above, by Logan.) [Buy Aureolin Hue]
As for my unfavourites:
- I agree that the supergranulator mixtures are generally meh, and I think the market agrees: I am always seeing them on sale second-hand–and have bought and tried a random set containing many. I particularly dislike anything with PY159 in it, as I find all those paints hard to work up to a decent strength. A lot of the others are just mixtures of French Ultramarine (which I own) with other granulating paints I also own (see above), so I can reproduce adjusted versions of them easily. The one exception is, of course, Volcano Red, which is a single pigment.
- I am also not very fond of PR207, which is like a weaker, more orange-leaning PR209. I have the QoR version of that pigment, and it is much stronger.
See Also