Winsor & Newton - Granulation Medium

I have a working theory that opaque colors are more prone to flocculate when mixed with transparent colors.

I use it for my acrylic inks - they seem to love each other and the granulation is fantastic.

Oh that's intresting!

Gosh the combined colors was absolutely gorgeous

Perhaps the granulation medium is causing flocculation because it's reacting to the filters and optical brighteners in the Van Gogh watercolor. It's student grade paint so extenders have been used. I wonder if professional grade paint would have a slightly different result.

Glad to see this. I've thought about trying it. I probably won't now, especially since I don't mind the lower tinting strength of most granulating pigments. I'm wondering if mixing a cobalt with a phthalo might give better results. The tiny Phthalo pigments and the larger cobalt pigments should separate and you'd have the cobalt granulation going on. Seems like this granulation medium is very tricky/touchy. It's more like a clumping medium and looks like it needs exactly the right amount of paint, water, and medium to give decent results. And even the best result looks kind of weird, more like a granulation analog. I'm not sure why true granulation is, in fact, so very pretty, but I agree that this looks more just dirty.

I love experiment videos! I wish I was a YouTuber, I'd film all the playing I did with masking fluid...so much fun! On the examples where you dropped the medium onto the paint, did you manipulate or spread it out, or just dropped it on in places? I liked the results you got there. It reminded me of how Jean Lurssen paints. Thanks so much for sharing these experiments with us! 🎨

thanks for showing us this. i've been curious about it.

Hmmmm......I think it'll work better if you use the medium in place of water. I think I'll have to buy some and test it out! Edit: and it looks like it doesn't truly granulate the paint, but just kind of clumps the pigment together into little pieces.

I can’t believe that I missed this video too! Whats wrong with me? 😮😂

Probably goes without saying, but cobalt turquoise granulates better because it is made from a metal (cobalt), while phthalo and quin colors are synthetics that contain carbon rather than a metal or an earth. The metal and earth pigments contain larger, irregularly shaped particles that are more noticeable when they clump. The carbon pigments contain smaller, regularly shaped particles that don't clump as noticeably. If I understand it correctly, the granulation medium contains a solvent that causes a paint's pigment to separate from the binder so that the pigment particles can clump together more noticeably. But the effect can't match that of pigments made from metals or earths. As someone else here has pointed out, because student-grade watercolors contain less pigment, they granulate less than artist-grade paints. But the carbon pigments in artist-grade paints still aren't going to granulate as much compared as the metal/earth-based paints. If you look at Daniel Smith's list of granulating colors, for instance, no phthalos or quins appear - not one. But you do see eight cobalts on the list, which also includes paints named for their mineral or metal pigment like ochre, bronzite, apatite, chromium, and manganese. The ultramarine colors granulate because they contain aluminum. Prussian blue contains iron.

Very good information; thank you, Vee!

Love granulation in watercolors 😊 but I have gotten more into Gouache but I do go back and forth

At the very start you said that your favorite phthalo turquoise blue is PB16, but the Van Gogh tube you are using is a mix of PB15 and PG7. A two-pigment phthalo mix might behave different to a single pigment.

I love this medium but when I used it I paint on the paper and then drop in the medium on top of the paint. Lots of water and medium great result for cliff sides. Also try it with FW sepia acrylic ink magic result. 😊

Interesting video as I actually have this medium, but have not yet experimented. You have helped me skip the step shown here and probably go straight to dropping it directly onto a painting in the areas I wish to disturb. Overall though, I have to say it seems to me that Winsor and Newton may be more than a little cheeky in the naming of this product. It is extremely misleading. 👍🏻🖌🎨👩🏻‍🎨

is it safe to say that Windsor and Newton have found the streaky medium ?😅

Thank you for this. I'll save money 😉

I haven't tried this but I guess this is why. It's not really going to make non granulating paints granulate, more just like separate. I'm not sure if this is true with the medium -- but I always get the best granulation when I pre-wet my paper and then let watery pigment flow over the paper, tilting it. Granulation happens when wet pigment *flows*... some of your swatches were too pigmented to allow that flow to really happen. But it showed up well in the lighter tints. I know Schmincke's granulating spray is just alcohol in a spray bottle. I might try that.

You just made your own beautiful Roman Szmals shadow violet