The handprint website

I love the Handprint website! It’s worth its weight in gold for the serious artist who wants to understand colour! I first came across this site years ago—and have been back hundreds of times. It’s an in-depth study of pigments and color with an emphasis on watercolour paint. It is, as Bruce MacEvoy himself proclaims, the “most comprehensive resource for watercolor painters on the internet”. As an artist I enjoy the challenge of learning the craft of painting and Bruce MacEvoy has been an extremely important part of this journey.

I’ve used it as a go-to reference guide, handbook and well, almost my “Bible” as I’m on the journey to learn about paints. (Can you tell I’m a big fan?) There is way too much information to take in at one time…it’s the kind of reference site that you will want to go back to again and again as questions arise.

MacEvoy says, “You’ll find here information on all aspects of watercolor painting: papers, brushes, paints, “color theory,” painting techniques, art instructional books and more”. He continues, “I’ve created these materials for painters who are weary of art marketing hype, inaccurate art theory and the numbing workshop mentality that invites you to learn somebody else’s “winning” painting style in ten easy minutes”. His mantra is: find out for yourself, test the paint and don’t accept the blurb from the marketers.

The Handprint website provides lots of practical information on how to making paint swatches and charts.

He doesn’t talk about “paints”; he describes pigment and paint attributes (color appearance, pigment concentration, particle size, lightfastness, tinting strength, refractive index and specific gravity!) He explains how to carry out basic paint tests yourself—but if you won’t, he provides a massive amount of information that every artist can use.

He doesn’t suffer fools gladly and directs his ire towards “expert” artists who repeat unfounded beliefs and who are too lazy to test and evaluate the paints they are promoting.

He has no time for meaningless proprietary/marketing names like, “Royal Purple Lake” and is adament that pigments are much better and more accurately identified by their pigment numbers. He describes how PV42 (Pigment Violet 42) is called by a variety of names by different companies (for example, “Quinacridone Pink” by Daniel Smith) but the code PV42 will be the same across all brands.

I find Australian paint company Matisse to be one of the worst culprits at creating paint names like "Australia Salmon Gum" which tell you nothing about what’s actually in the tube. It's confusing because people might think, "Wow, that sounds fantastic, what a unique colour!", when in fact it’s three pigments, Quinacridone, Arylide yellow and Titanium Dioxide, mixed together for the sole purpose of selling a greater number of paints.

Bruce is big on using permanent pigments and strongly advises artists to avoid fugitive colors that fade quickly. He focuses his ire on Alizarin Crimson (PR83; Pigment Red 83). He is frustrated that many paint companies “with an entrenched and backward looking customer base”, still offer it. Some published artists continue to advocate it, “simply because a dwindling number of "old master" (age 50 and above) workshop and bistro gallery artists continue to use it”.

I myself got into a dispute with two artists who were teaching online and who claimed that Alizarin Crimson is “lightfast enough” for professional quality work, or that lightfastness concerns about it are mere "nit picking and hairsplitting".

For each fugitive colour (and there are several really bad ones a professional artist should never use) he suggests permanent alternatives.

Handprint provides a guide to help you develop your own limited palette. (This will mean you don’t have to buy hundreds of inessential pigments that are easily reproduced with a mixture of about 12 single pigment paints).

Go to his Guide to Watercolour Pigments section to see all that you will ever want or need to know about the full range of pigments: magentas, reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, violets and earth colours. Finally, there are many incredibly useful color charts.