Exploring the beauty of granulating watercolors

I’m guilty of obsessing over different types of art supplies, and it probably changes almost every month. My current obsession – granulating watercolors. If it’s your first time hearing the term granulating watercolors or you’ve been seeing it on social media but you’re not quite sure what they really are, read on.

Granulation is a quality of some watercolors. It looks like pigment that did not spread evenly on the paper. Sometimes, it may look like two or even three different colors separating. This effect happens as a result of some pigments having bigger particles than usual that clump together, creating a grainy texture.

Watercolors with natural earth pigments like ultramarines and cadmium usually granulate. There are also watercolors that were specifically made with a granulating feature like the following:

Kuretake Gansai Tambi Granulating Watercolors

Kuretake - Gansai Tambi - Granulating Watercolours - 5 Colour Set

Holbein Artist’s Granulating Watercolors

https://gwartzmans.com/collections/watercolour/products/holbein-artists-granulating-watercolour-flower-set-of-6-colours-5ml-tubes

Schmincke Horadam Aquarell Super Granulation

Schmincke - Horadam Aquarell - Super Granulation Watercolours - 15mL Tubes

Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolor – Granulating Colors Tube Set

Winsor & Newton - Professional Watercolour - Granulating Colours Tube Set - 6 x 5mL Tubes

Some artists also recommend adding a granulating medium to existing watercolor pigments that you have to achieve this effect. Windsor & Newton has this kind of medium.

Using more water as well as painting on rough watercolor paper can also increase the granulating effect of watercolors.

Here are some of the rough watercolor papers you can try with your granulating watercolor:

Saunders Waterford Watercolor Block

Saunders Waterford – Watercolour Block – Rough – 140lb – 10×7″

Arches Watercolor Block – Rough

Arches – Watercolour Block – Rough – 140lb – 10×14″

If you’re new to granulating watercolor like me, using it for the first time can feel overwhelming. Swatching the pigments and seeing the colors granulate and separate was definitely a fun experience. But once I tried actually painting using these colors, I found it very challenging to control. Using rough watercolor paper made it even more so. The colors would just bleed through places that I didn’t mean for them to go.

After practicing it a few times though, I was able to understand it better and just learned to let the colors flow. I still used layering techniques to create values but I made sure to let the colors breathe by using pigment sparingly and letting them spread with the water instead.

I still have a lot of things to learn as it always is when starting something new. But the new skills and experiences we gain from the process is always worth the initial struggles.

If you’re interested in buying your first set of granulating watercolors, these are all available in Gwartzman’s Art Supplies. Their store is located at 448 Spadina Ave, Toronto. As one of our partner merchants, Happy Hands Club members can get a 10% discount every time they shop in-store or online at Gwartzman’s Art Supplies. To become a member, you just need to sign up for either an Artist ($129/year) or Supporter ($50/year) membership and enjoy this benefit and more.

Just visit The Happy Hands Club on our website to learn more about Happy Hands Pottery & Art Studio’s limited studio membership.