You’re so welcome and so glad you enjoyed it! 💕

It’s definitely not just you. Granulating watercolors like this tend to be quite tricky to work with. I think it’s an acquired taste, I’m just starting to get a handle of this one now and it can create some great effects (as long as they’re desired)

Schmincke’s ultramarine finest and Roman Szmal’s ultramarine intense are supposed to be smoother and less granulating. Might be worth giving it a try

I have not! But I love your description of it! Something tells me I’m going to enjoy it! Thanks for the recommendation! ❤️

An alternative to Schmincke’s Ultramarine finest can be M Graham ‘s ultramarine ( I haven’t tried it but it seems really smooth in online swatches) and Roman Szmal’s ultramarine intense. I always have mixed feeling about the Schmincke ‘ Ultramarine finest , I love its smoothness but it seems a bit too cold and not as intense as others.

That's the beauty of some of these interesting DS paints. It's just fun experimenting and seeing what you come up with!

@@Pointebrush I know! I love experimenting and playing with pigments. But, actually - sharpen your spears everyone - I am not interested at all in DS. I was thinking maybe Roman Szmal or Schmincke. I’d love to mix their Mars blacks with the phthalos to see what I would get. I’m inspired by Daniel Smith’s Lunar Blue paint.

Take a look at DS lamp black, that's my favorite black to use (:

@@Flampivia Thanks for the advice :)

I’m recording a beautiful one with ranunculus right now which I think you’ll love ❤️ Stay tuned!

Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment! ❤️ I have French ultramarine from Sennelier which is the one in this video. I will say that, having used the DS ultramarine for a year, there are some great uses for it if granulation is something you’re looking for. It can have some pretty amazing effects but you have to be prepared for them and it should be a desired effect, not an unexpected surprise mid-painting 😜 The great thing about dishes is that paint grips it beautifully and you get no beading whatsoever (but remember never to use them again for food once you’ve painted on them because dinnerware is porous)

@@Pointebrush I am just now preparing a palette or two fir myself, so I don’t really know what I will like yet. I do enjoy hearing/seeing what others like and how they use the watercolors. I am fairly certain I have French Ultramarine by Daniel Smith already. I just thought it couldn’t hurt to try the Sennelier version too. I cannot believe I forgot the French part. You said it several times and it just went out of my brain. Thank you for your response. Thank you for the tip about not using the dish for food again. I don’t think I would have done that, but now I know I will not do that.

Hi Penny! Welcome to the world of watercolors! So I have a complex relationship with opera pink and other fugitive colors. Here’s my 2 cents, I think it depends on what you decide to do with a final piece. If it’s going to be going into a sketchbook or if it’s going to be archived or displayed in a dimmer area of a house, opera pink is fair game and in fact, it’s impossible to recreate the vibrancy of that color. I draw the line if customers are paying for an original painting. The paint maker Michael Harding actually made some great points in an interview recently that unless you’re displaying a piece in direct sunlight (which is asking for trouble no matter what the pigment you’re using is), many people mischaracterize how much fade there will be, especially if used sensibly. Hope this helps and eliminates the cooties stigma of fugitive colors because in my opinion at least, it’s not all that bad. Jean Haines does a lot of botanical work and from my encounters, botanical painters love using this color for obvious reasons 😉 but as for me, I have paintings made with opera pink in my archives from ten years ago that are still as punchy as the day I painted them. Ps. If you’re looking for a really nice punchy and more lightfast pink, I would suggest Roman Szmal’s Quinacridone Magenta. It’s been a recent favorite of mine

Thanks for your input, and for the most part I agree with you. I do like the information to be easily accessible though, so that artists can make informed choices. I’m also glad to hear your stored paintings using Opera Pink are still just as vibrant!

Also I have an order almost ready to go at Jackson’s, I’ll try to remember to add quin magenta in. :)

@pennycandyys If you're invested in lightfastness, I just wanted to let you know that it isn't just Opera Pink - Moonglow is also fugitive, which was found by a KZfaqr who did lightfastness tests independently!

@@thescribblequeen Yes, thank you! :) Kim Crick has done many many tests of lightfastness, on several watercolor brands, including Schminke, DS, Winsor & Newton, and more. She is extremely thorough. If you search her website she gives you a few recipes to make your own version since one of the colors in the DS version is not lightfast. Your only decision is trying to decide which version you like! 😂 Oh--she's all over, she has a website, youtube, IG and more.

What blues did you mix your A Crimson with out of curiosity? Sometimes it really depends on the pigments going on in the blue in question. Purples are generally tougher though for sure! I could see these hyper granulating colors working really well on accent areas of a painting (like a costume or darker value areas). Sometimes the less is more approach can really make everything come together elegantly without going overkill and I suspect the same is true in the case of these granulating colors as well 🤔

@@Pointebrush I mixed DS permanent alizarin crimson with: (1) DS manganese blue hue; (2) Sennelier French ultramarine; (3) Sennelier cinerous blue; and (4) Sennelier phthalo blue. All four mixes were muddy. Then after watching a KZfaq video on how to make purple I mixed Sennelier opera pink with the exact same four blues, and all four mixes produced a successful purple. Then I realized a bit of basic knowledge makes a world of difference 😆! You’re probably right that I could use granulating watercolors as accents, until I get to the stage (if ever) of painting moody landscapes where I can be more liberal with granulating watercolors. Thank you. ☺️

​@Shadow Guard , opera pink is a fugitive color. It's beautiful, but I only use it for fun, temporary art. In time, your painting will change color because you used it. The fluorescence fades.

@@AFAskygoddess 👍

I paid for this set with my own money. I take integrity and transparency very seriously so anytime anything is gifted or promotional, I will disclose it.