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How long does it take Schmincke to make one of their famous pan watercolours?

Date: 06-10-2024
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How long does it take Schmincke to make one of their famous pan watercolours..? 

Schmincke celebrated their long history in 2024 with a limited Retro-Line release of Horadam Watercolour Sets in an authentic 1912 design and colour selection, including the historically important genuine Cochineal Red.


Hermann Schmincke and Josef Horadam were colour chemists and brothers-in-law, who started Schmincke Artist Colours in 1881 with the unique Renaissance recipes for Mussini Resin Oilcolours. In 1892, they released Horadam Watercolours, also unique for their formulation, and fast gained a reputation as Finest Watercolours.


In 1986, I first met the Schmincke family and was instantly fascinated with their focus on producing the best quality artists materials over many generations. “This paint has my family name on it”, Peter Hesse, great-nephew of Josef Horadam, told me. “If we make it poorly, I denigrate my family name – so our colours must be the best!”


When Schmincke first became available here in the mid-1980s, artists quickly took to the innovative products and brilliant colours. In particular, they were seduced by how easily vibrant colour could be lifted from the Horadam Watercolour pans. One of the reasons the pans gave so much so quickly was Time.


I first visited Schmincke in 2011, in a small town situated between Düsseldorf and Cologne. Straight off the plane and train journey, I was set up in front of a TV crew to demonstrate Mussini colours, dazed but not confused! The next day, after a solid sleep, I had a tour of the factory to see how Schmincke make their Finest Artist Colours.

 

 NZ artist Evan Woodruffe has a long and warm relationship with Schmincke, leading to them appointing him as one of their six Global Ambassadors in 2021. He is a self-confessed “paint nerd”, absorbing everything he can on his visits to their factory in Germany, so he can share the knowledge with artists back home.


In meeting the people and seeing the processes, many of them still done by hand, it was immediately clear: Schmincke combine the knowledge and traditions from over a century of paint making, with fastidious and precise German technology. I watched as one of Europe’s best colour chemists, Wolfgang Müller, made a test batch of varnish in a ten litre glass beaker. Additions to the contents got less and less, until he finished the mixture with just three drops of fluid. I asked if surely such an amount makes no difference. “For the best results”, he told me, “Everything must be carefully balanced, even in the smallest proportion”.

 

 Liquid filling of the pans at ensures the watercolour is easily lifted, and usable to the very last spot of paint.


One of the most critical ingredients, and one that is often missed in manufacturing, is Time. I stood in front of a machine that poured liquid colour into small watercolour pans. It filled each to the top before moving on to the next. “How long do you think it takes to make a Horadam Watercolour pan?” asked Markus Baumgart, now Schmincke’s CEO. Although the nozzle on the machine was moving at speed, I saw a person take a just-finished tray of the pans and place it in a small walk-in oven. This was a trick question…


Both the tube and pan Horadam Watercolours are made with the same recipes. The properties of each pigment require a unique combination of ingredients to perform at its best – that’s nearly 180 individual recipes! The binder is always Gum Arabic taken from selected vintages from Kordofan in Sudan. This ensures the best solubility, so that dried colour on your palette can be easily reconstituted with a wet brush. Precise amounts of ox gall provide excellent wet-in-wet colour control.

 

The time taken to create Horadam Watercolour pans ensures every last spot of paint can be used. The colour can be easily replaced (you can even refill using tube colour, though it will not be as concentrated as the pan) from the huge range of colours, and all are lifted effortlessly from the surface with a wet brush.


So the colour I watched being dispensed from the nozzle was the same watercolour that I used with my tube colours. The difference was the process: after filling the pan, it was placed in the oven at a Mediterranean summer temperature for three to four weeks. The moisture in the paint evaporated, shrinking the colour in the pan, so back it went for another fill, followed by another few weeks of evaporation, and again… and again. After four liquid pours – nearly four months – the Horadam Watercolour pan is full to the brim with highly concentrated colour, rich and ready to be lifted with the swipe of a wet brush.

Needless to say, when I got back to New Zealand, I swapped out all my tube colours for pan watercolours. Best value ever! My engagement with Horadam pan watercolours had only just begun…

 

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