Winsor Newton Bockingford Watercolour Paper

Rain Clouds over Hill

5' x 7" Winsor & Newton Watercolour Marker

on Winsor & Newton 140lb Not surface Bockingford Watercolour Paper

I went out today for an appointment and decided to bring the Travel Set as my main art supply, just leave my usual backpack home. Filled the water bottle. That is one generous water bottle! Big as a pack of cigarettes, it'd be good for very sloshy washes and such techniques. No running out.

I packed some extras into it, my trusty Niji water brush and three Pigma Micron pens - size 01, size 05 and Graphic size 3 (chisel tip) which are all non soluble pens. Fit very nicely across the extra pocket. I'll be testing the Bockingford paper today in the waiting room, so stand by for another image and more about these fascinating artist grade markers!

Truth to tell, I have never actually ordered and used Bockingford paper, so this is another new experiment. I've also got my Winsor & Newton Artist's Field Kit in my pocket so it may turn into mixed water mediums.

Turned out I didn't need any extras. On the way, it rained. I got several good photos of reflecting wet streets and then we wound up at the top of a very tall hill looking across at another hill silhouetted against a cloudy sky so light it was white haloing the trees - and lowering clouds above it.

I loved those clouds. The camera wouldn't register the sky as anything but white. So I sketched fast with W&N Watercolour Marker, Ivory Black, hoping the water brush would dissolve it to get something like the cloud effect. Working fast, it did. In only two minutes I got the effect I wanted.

Something in me said Stop. You're done.

So I did, stopped, signed and dated it carefully at the next traffic stop. All this took place at one stop light. I was letting it dry before the van moved. I was just lucky there was a bit of traffic to slow us up so I could get it done.

Bockingford paper has a Not surface. I usually expect that to be a bit like vellum drawing paper - toothy, a little coarse but still something fine enough for the usual sorts of drawings. I was dubious about this paper once I stripped the plastic off because it seemed to have a weave texture like the rough side of Canson Mi-Tientes. It's not as harsh though.

The surface of the paper is strong. It took some scrubbing to turn the hard-edged black marks of the Ivory Black marker into those loose shifting grays but there is no texture deformity in the wash. It's a tough paper, high quality, designed to stand up to serious watercolorists' propensity for heavy washes, razoring, scrubbing, spattering. I'd meant to try spattering on it since that happened by accident onto the plastic but there is no right place for it in this painting.

The weave texture is small enough to give some bumps and valleys to broken color. As the brush dried, I got a good irregular edge at the bottom where the gray met dry paper. Within the clouds, other light passages appeared at random as I scrubbed out or as the brush skipped between broad marks. A watery splash at the bottom of the shading on the left hill (far hill) broke in some very interesting ways because of the texture and sizing. This is paper made for an expressive painter. It handles in some ways like rough, but I was able to get quite small details with the brush tip of the marker on it.

I have always liked and trusted Winsor & Newton watercolours for their strong, pigment-rich consistent high quality. They are the first of three artist grade brands I've loved and this is an old company from a country that loves watercolor. I shouldn't be surprised the Bockingford watercolour paper is that high quality too. It handles wonderfully.

Winsor & Newton also makes a less expensive student grade Cotman watercolour paper in 90lb or 140lb weights and an Artists' Water Colour Paper that is 100% cotton linter in 90lb, 140lb and 260lb. Bockingford is the mid-grade paper, suitable for artists, better than Cotman but not the top drawer all rag stuff.

Even the Cotman is acid free. Bockingford is internally and externally sized, which is probably why it performed so well in my wet and dry dashing crazed painting madness. Full sheets of Bockingford paper are also available in several tints if you want to experiment with Blue, Cream, Eggshell, Gray, Oatmeal and White. Cream looks decidedly pink-peach in hue and Oatmeal a little darker and slightly yellower. With this example for the texture, I know I'm going to enjoy the tinted Bockingford as well.

Dick Blick carries the Bockingford Tinted Paper full sheets of 22" x 30" Not surface 140lb paper, so the next time I order I'll try their different colors and review how this handles for pastels. With that broken color texture it should be interesting for dry work too. Colored pencil artists may find it easy or difficult to deal with the texture but it felt soft, as if serious burnishing would bring it down to a polished smoothness.

I'd recommend this paper for watercolorists who like to play and experiment. Winsor & Newton's products are usually a step up from their category and even though this is the mid range paper, its working qualities are great. It's very responsive, maybe that's the sizing or the recipe but it has a beautiful texture that actually improved my painting.

Winsor & Newton Watercolour Markers Travel Set

Ari Cat posing with the W&N Watercolour Markers Travel Set

For scale and because he's beautiful.

Winsor & Newton Watercolour Markers are a new product. Pigmented and archival, they join pan and tube watercolors plus their brand of watercolor sticks as another form of delivering artist grade watercolor. With 36 open stock colors, the range is small as markers go but very good as watercolors. Colors include a lot of hues, which suggests to me that modern pigments like quinacridones that are lightfast, transparent and vibrant form the backbone of the color mixes. Pigments are not listed but the color names with "Hue" suggest it.

Cheap Joe's has a sale on these for the holidays including tin sets of 6 and 12, open stock, sets of 24 or 36 and the 8 color Travel Set. Open stock is about $5 a marker and my Travel Set was $39.99 - the usual big discount at an online store. 

I have a great fondness for travel sets and portability. So with the case, two good if small W&N Sceptre brushes size 0 and 4 rounds, water bottle, clear folding water bucket and 7" x 5" Bockingford watercolor paper pad essentially free in the sale, I decided to go with this range rather than the 12 color tin. 

Case and accessories are all good. I'll review the paper later both with markers and with other watercolor techniques. The water bottle is generous, so is the bucket and the case is deep. There's plenty of room to add other markers and a small pocket between the water bottle and brush loops to add Niji water brushes, pens, or a candy tin with other supplies. There's room above the markers to put in a Sakura or other pocket watercolor pan set or any other self contained small field supplies you want. Pigma Micron pens fit across it neatly. So this case is a good choice to contain all your field supplies in one unit as many of my friends do for their journaling adventures. Small oblong art journals would fit in the paper pocket depending on flatness or width. Very useful zippered case with nylon over a sturdy stiffener.

Colors included are Alizarin Crimson Hue, Cadmium Yellow Hue, Dioxazine Violet, Prussian Blue Hue, Sap Green, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber and Ivory Black. Color swatches on the website seemed pale both on the Winsor Newton site and at Cheap Joe's but came out stronger in person although Alizarin Crimson Hue doesn't go as deep dark as I'm used to with Permanent Alizarin Crimson let alone the original pigment. 

The markers have a bullet tip with a pointed cap on one end and a brush tip with a blunt cap on the other. Warning! The blunt tip has to go down when you put them back in the case. If you put it in upside down with blunt on top and pointed cap downward, you can't get the marker cap out again. It gets stuck in the pocket and takes needle nose pliers to wiggle it loose to get it out. This is a weird, mildly annoying thing about the case but irrelevant in tins or other cases. Just remember that if you get the Travel Set, the case won't let you put them brush tip up even if you use it more. 

My first test was a monochrome sketch in Prussian Blue Hue.

Monochrome Prussian Blue Hue Skyscape and Mountains

Wow! Unlike my first color tests on printer paper, the color washed out beautifully. These perform well for pen and wash sketching using the bullet tip. I experimented with some techniques to gradate a sky using a very dark blue pen-wash and it worked well. Some lighter areas I just pulled color out of the darker ones or used what was on the brush after blending. I love how they wash out.

On the packing slip I tested each color to see if the markers all worked. I always do this with any set of markers, they can be factory defective even from the best companies. The color didn't wash out well on that slip so but both tips performed beautifully. The brush tip reminds me a lot of the Pitt Artist Pen Big Brush tip - pointed, springy, very sharp point good for precision and juicy.

I found out by accident knocking around one of them that they're juicy enough to splatter some tiny droplets of Alizarin Crimson Hue on the plastic coated cover of the Bockingford pad. So using a pencil and tapping the marker on it to do splatter effects will work, at least while the markers are new.

Sketches with W&N Watercolour Markers

Mixing and Blending

Next, I started testing overlays, color mixtures and wash textures. I had a lot of fun creating both mixed violet and dioxazine violet passages in the daisy. My life sketch of my sleeping cat worked well, similar to pen sketches of him but the soft wash on his brown back added another dimension plus gave me some brown on the water brush to darken the shadows on the pillows. I played with different colors on the pears, oranges and persimmon to see what kind of hues I'd get mixing and washing.

Sap Green is actually a vibrant, very bright neon green. I knocked it back with Alizarin Crimson Hue, Burnt Umber and Dioxazine Violet and it's still very saturated. If you're doing underpainting, this could be great or you may want to start off with Yellow Ochre and just bring in a little of the green on it. You'll find your own favorite combinations and techniques.

I easily pulled color off the tips with the waterbrush when I wanted to gently modify a wash without mixing as drastically as I would putting marks of another color or to make light marks. I've been using my Niji waterbrush for convenience but the included Sceptre brushes, water bottle and bucket would do the same thing. Mixing colors was very easy and on the brown-gold pears I was able to soften fresh marks and work them into the area gently. It takes a little getting used to, washing out marker lines and dots.

I love using a brush tip marker. That's one of my favorite sketch modes. My favorites to date were Tombow dual tip markers and Pitt Artist Pens Big Brush as well as their smaller Brush Tip. But the Tombow Dual Tip brush pens are not intended to be lightfast. They're fugitive design tools. Not something I'd feel comfortable underpainting a pastel sketch with or using for a painting on good paper for fine art or mixed media fine art.

Winsor & Newton has filled a big gap. Handle them as you would brush tip markers, but be aware this is real watercolor, strong, mixable and more lightfast. They have a few quirks but overall I'm glad I got them beacuse of that big gap.

Pulling the Ivory Black out and taking the cone cap off the bullet tip, I pulled the bullet tip right off once, but was able to put it back in place. It seems to be working right now. So handle them a bit gently, if they come apart put them back together and always put the blunt tip down if you're using the Travel Set.

These are not markers like Prismacolor markers or Copic or other design markers. You won't find a range of hundreds with gradated tints and darks to use individually, tints are created by wet brush pulling color off the tip or by pulling tints out of darker marks. Or by scribbling some color somewhere else and pulling it up out of that.

It's very easy to mix colors back and forth between areas, An accident putting violet into the green pear to mute it brought some green back to mute the violet shadow, so I started doing it deliberately to all the shadows to mute them a little. If handled delicately, the bullet tip can make very small dots. For the oranges in the back, I covered them with Cadmium Yellow Hue solidly and then dotted Alizarin Crimson Hue over it, then washed, giving a suggestion of orange peel texture while creating a good bright mixed orange. I could have smoothed out the persimmon but didn't because this is a typical quick sketch, not a refined painting.

In conjunction with other watercolor forms this can be a very powerful tool. They're fast for sketching, the tips are high quality, the paint's good and they're worth the money. Just be really careful about mechanical problems like putting them in upside down or pulling the cap off too hard. They're not quite as sturdy as other markers I've owned but those were all fugitive except the Pitt Artist Pens. Those really did need tint markers because there was no thinning out the colors once down. 

I bought these largely to use for underpainting field pastel paintings but with how they handle, sketching and painting is irresistible. It'll take a while to discover all the techniques possible with this new form of watercolor. I've often thought some of my Tombow sketches could be taken seriously as paintings but it's frustrating that they're fugitive. 

As a combination with Pitt Artist Pens it's great. These are watersoluble, the Pitt product is also archival but permanent and nonsoluble. Marks you don't want to move go in Pitt, marks you want to be able to soften in Winsor & Newton. I may invest in the full range eventually or not, but this set is going to prove very useful. The travel kit is a good bargain and can become a carryall for assorted small field supplies.

EDIT: 11-19-2014

Went out, decided to make the Bockingford paper a new entry.

Winsor Newton Field Box

Winsor & Newton makes a variety of 8 to 12 color pocket sets to suit any budget. There's the cute little 8 color Cotman Mini that flips open like a cell phone, there is a very inexpensive Cotman 12 color Sketch Box that's got 12 half pans and a good Sceptre pocket brush inside, there's the 14 half pan Compact set in both Cotman and Artist ranges and a beautiful metal box pocket set of 12 Artist's half pans with water bottle included. Out of all this variety of pocket sets, W&N's best for taking anywhere from Renaissance faires to camping trips is the Field Box pictured above.

I first bought a W&N Cotman Field Box in 1978 or 1979 at Flax in San Francisco. It was horribly expensive for a 12 color watercolor set and the same colors were available with a brush in that simple Sketch Kit. I bought it for the water bottle and included brush and water cup. I bought it for the case, plain and simple.

That felt like a dumb decision at the time. $40 more to get one that includes a water bottle and flips open to hold on your hand with a thumb ring? It was a gadget, not a serious artist supply, let alone a necessary one. I felt like an idiot overpaying for a gimmick as I walked out of the store.

Then I went camping with friends and the Cotman Field Box went in my pocket. I did my best to do a watercolor of the lake at the campsite, and got a good watercolor painting of one tree branch and a line vaguely resembling the horizon. I kept at it, but somehow when I would decide what to bring on trips or going to the park or going to medieval events or Renaissance faires... it was my "Renaissance Polaroid" that would wind up in my pocket.

Usually with its water bottle pre-filled and its water cup nicely washed out because I got in the habit of cleaning and refilling it immediately after every use. Sometimes it wound up with me in places I didn't expect to get an opportunity to paint, like trying to do flowers in a friend's garden. It was already in my pocket. It lived in my coat in more climates than I can count.

Eventually a windfall in the summer of 2003 convinced me that I was ready for artist grade watercolors, so I gave my trusty thirty year old Cotman Field Box to a friend and bought this one, the Artist Field Box. I would actually recommend getting the Artist version from the start, but either one is a joy to use.

It's an expensive little gimmick that will trick you into doing more plein air watercolors than you ever expected to. It fits in any pocket or bag, women artists probably keep them in their purse at all times. It's about the size of a pack of tall cigarettes, the 100's length. A little thicker. It fits in a shirt pocket.

And it has the water included, plus the brush. The little metal W&N pocket box doesn't include a brush. The whole thing folds out neatly and has three mixing areas. They do wash perfectly clean, especially if you go over them with a dampened facial tissue after they stain. The included brush is a very small one, a size 0 or 1 round, so you may get used to painting rather small.

I discovered a fondness for doing miniature portraits with it. This set shines for doing miniature portraits or ATCs. You could cut a stack of ATC blanks, put them into a fat top loader or each into a soft sleeve, rubber band the lot to your Field Box and paint on break at work. I did that more times than I can count, because this sometimes wound up in my pants pocket back when I had my typesetting job.

The gimmick actually makes sense.

Because it does include everything you need except the paper, it takes no trouble to prepare for any outing. Just shove it in your pocket or leave it in your pocket and you're good to go. The result is that over time, I got very used to my Cotman Field Box. I owned a lot of other watercolor sets, but that was the one I'd use up and need to refill more often than any other. That was because of its sheer convenience.

The little flat white plastic bottle that forms the third mixing area holds a lot more water than you'd expect. I can fill the water cup from it two or three times or more, depending on how deep I fill it. I like to leave some space to the top so that I can dump it when it's dirty and pour in clean water. The half pans are excellent quality.

Winsor & Newton's Cotman paint was so much better than anything else I used at the time that I didn't realize it was student grade. The set had an unusual palette -- lemon yellow and a warm buttery yellow, orangy red and Alizarin Crimson, Sap Green and Winsor Green, Ultramarine and Winsor (Pthalo) blue, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber and Chinese White. I got used to having white for painting on dark paper, though didn't use up the white as fast as the other colors. I got used to mixing black. That is a good lesson for a student to learn!

Much to my surprise, when I upgraded it to Artist Field Box in 2003, I found out I had to do without my favorite Sap Green but they'd added Ivory Black to the lineup! I guess professional artists do monochrome value sketches with Black and know better than to use it in mixes, but they also replaced the Burnt Umber with Raw Umber, which I didn't like as much. It took me a while to get used to the new palette.

Recently on WetCanvas.com, I met some other artists who use my favorite field box. I saw it in one of my watercolor books as the author's example of "a handy pocket box." I wasn't the only one who loved the convenience of having water, at least a small brush and a place to put the water along with the mixing areas in a 12 color half pans watercolor set.

My Artist Field Box is still in its original state. A small natural sponge gets included. This is important for doing any washes or big areas. I think most artists who use this kit get used to using the sponge where you'd want a larger mop or bigger brush, or they lose the sponge and rubber band a larger pocket brush to it.

The trick is though, that you can add two more half pans if you move the sponge from its little compartment to keeping it in the empty water cup instead. So as of this Friday, I'm actually modifying my palette. I ordered a half pan of Permanent Rose and another of Quinacridone Gold, noticing Hookers Green is just a mix of Winsor (Pthalo) Green and Quinacridone Gold -- that gets me my warm green again with a simple mix but also gives me the very useful Quinacridone Gold for all the other mixes I love it for. Everyone's favorite palette is different.

If you invest in a Winsor & Newton Field Box, it will last a lifetime. My old gray Cotman one was still in perfect shape after all those years. I replaced the little brush once and replaced the half pans many times. Later on I learned that I can just refill the half pans with tubes, which saves my getting half pans of Artist watercolor except for the first time, when they'll fit in the box.

The palettes in both sets are well chosen, but you can easily purchase half pans to swap them out if a favorite color is missing. I plan on swapping out the Ivory Black for Payne's Grey, Raw Umber for Burnt Umber and maybe drop Yellow Ochre in favor of another color, possibly swiping the spare Chromium Green out of my Lukas 1862 half pans set since it had two of that color. An extra green might be handy. I can do that, because the Winsor & Newton half pans are standard sized.

So if you have favorite half pans of another good artist grade brand like Lukas 1862 or Schminke or Sennelier, nothing's stopping you from customizing your Field Box. Every artist develops a personal palette based on favorite subjects and favorite mixes. But don't lose the little bitty sponge. If you do, cut a new one from a larger sponge and keep it handy, because that small Sceptre or Kolinsky brush will not be large enough to fill in skies or do broad masses of color.

Below is the first page of my watercolor journal, including a color chart and a self portrait I did entirely with the Winsor & Newton Artist's Field Box. It's very good for any subject I've ever run into and it's got that incredible advantage of being so self contained. In a jacket pocket or purse you can put a small Moleskine watercolor journal rubberbanded to it and have that available no matter where you go.

This watercolor set has withstood all tests of space, carelessness, laziness and hard usage. I recommend it 100% -- it's worth the initial investment to start out with the most convenient pocket set there is. That alone may trick you into painting more, just the way it did me. This is something to last for a lifetime. Just refill as needed.


Color Chart and Self Portrait
5" x 8 1/2"
Winsor & Newton Artist's Field Box watercolors
Moleskine watercolor journal