Description
Schmincke Horadam Aquarelle Cochineal Red
Travel back in time with Schmincke with HORADAM Retro Cochineal Red, a historical original color of finest artists’ watercolours. This historical special colour is exclusively produced for Schmincke’s Retro Line. The original Cochineal Red is a transparent, deep red obtained from cochineal scale insects and was once an important colour for watercolour paintings. Schmincke Horadam Retro Cochineal Red is available in 15ml tubes for a limited time.
Details:
- Size: 15 ml
- Opacity: Transparent
- Lightfastness: **
- Art.-No. 14 337 006
When Schmincke decided to launch and talk about their rich history with a retro line, they gathered inspiration from their archives containing historical painting sets, tubes, brochures and pricelists.
In doing so they discovered a beautiful pricelist from 1912 with one of their old owl logos and art nouveau ornaments. This worn out, but beautiful document was the starting point of their retro product line.
1912 was a time when Schmincke was not only successful with its founding product Mussini, finest artists’ resin oil colours, as well as HORADAM watercolours developed by Josef Horadam. At this time Josef Horadam was also honoured with several awards from the German Emperor, including for his achievement of exporting chemical products abroad (and thus competing with local artists’ colours).
This 2024 limited annual promotion brings back to life a selection of former HORADAM watercolour sets. As a special highlight, a historic colour with all its original characteristics is also being revived – cochineal red.
Beautifully designed retro-style packaging, the historic owl print on the boxes, and retro labels complete the concept.
About Schmincke Horadam Watercolours:
Read more
110 colours comprise the Schmincke HORADAM AQUARELL watercolour paint range. 69 colours feature one pigment only, an ideal quality for professional painting, as well as for color mixing. The newer artists’ pigments have been researched and tested to comply with the highest quality standard regarding stability, fineness, re-solubility and lightfastness. To achieve these outstanding characteristics, Schmincke uses only the best raw materials. The entire color line is harmonious, balanced and complete.
Features:
- Each color has its own individually optimized formula
- Highest lightfastness due to a strict validation process
- Fully reusable paint when dried on a palette means less waste
- Perfect balance of gum arabic and ox gall make colours highly controllable even on soft watercolour paper
- German made quality
No compromise in quality
Highest standards of artists pigments allow for the highest light fastness. The lightfastness rating notes whether a color is fugitive (fading) or lightfast (non-fading). It is a characteristic which depends, not only on the pigment itself, but also on the complete formula. Therefore, Schmincke does not only report the lightfastness of the pigment itself but tests the complete formula of each color in the Xenontest and/or on the roof of the Schmincke factory for a prolonged period. Colours are rated strictly according to a 5 star system, such intensive testing is vital. It is understood that no watercolour painting should be exposed to direct sunlight for a long time due to the usually fine and thin and thereby light-sensitive color application.
Specially selected Gum Arabic
The main ingredient of the watercolour binding medium is Kordofan Gum Arabic from the southern Sahara region. Like most natural products, this traditional watercolour binding medium differs from year to year. Therefore, Schmincke tests the Gum Arabic every time and selects only the best crop each year. This adds significant quality advantages. Other formula ingredients are selected equally carefully and are integrated in each formula to obtain a harmonious assortment, that can be easily picked up by the brush.
Ox gall – more than a wetting agent
An important criterion for the highest quality is the control of application without undissolved pigment or undesired cloud formations. The perfect flow of HORADAM AQUARELL watercolour is guaranteed by an optimal amount of ox gall. It is the decision of the artist, not of the color, where the application should flow moist in moist, or if the color should stay dry on the paper.
