|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
take 40% off retail on all 
|
M. Graham & Company is a relatively young (about 12 years) American company, based in Oregon and dedicated to producing the highest quality professional artists' paints. Diana Graham, co-founder, is a great source of information and a great sport about responding to questions from artists. The price of their paints is very reasonable, and my experience with them, as well as the latest ratings by Hillary Page and by Bruce MacEvoy (www.handprint.com), suggests that the quality is generally equivalent to the best, such as Daniel Smith, Winsor Newton, or parts of the Holbein line, and much superior to DaVinci, for example... ...The company manufactures watercolor, gouache, acrylic and oils, but my tests to date have been with watercolor and gouache. I have done fairly systematic tests and comparisons, and have used some of the paints extensively over the past 18 months. Bottom line: I am quite pleased with the paints, especially the cobalt, ultramarine and phthalo blues, and would consider most of the paints as tested as very adequate substitutions (in terms of pigment load, texture and handling) for my W&N, probably better in general than other lines I have tried, including Holbein, Maimeri, Schmincke, Sennelier, DaVinci. I am currently giving a number of slots on my regular working palette to M. Graham paints. I have checked hue subtleties, transparency, and the lifting both with a gentle water-filled brush and with heavy scrubbing. I have not made any light-fastness tests, relying on the pigment designations to cover that, but all the paints have top light-fastness. I filled pans to test for drying and re-wetting with a few of the paints (that is one test that DaVinci fails badly). M. Graham are not necessarily out to duplicate W-N paints, but rather to produce paints of equivalent top quality, perhaps with their own special characteristics. Thus, hues may be slightly different. After some time working with the paints, I have found the handling quality of M. Graham paints excellent-they spread very smoothly, stay workable for a long time on the palette, and flow evenly. Three full pans that I filled and left only lightly covered on my work table for about a year have remained quite fresh, no cracking or drying or shrinkage, as workable as when new out of the tube. These handling qualities are superior to those of W&N or DS paints in general. Of special note is the consistency of handling among the different paints. W&N, for example, handle quite differently from one paint to another. It is possible some painters might prefer more individuality and variance in how their paints handle....and my general impression is that many of the M. Graham paints are relatively less granular than their counterparts in W&N and slightly more staining. I did notice with Azo Yellow that it is so smooth that it can be spread thickly enough that it does not dry very readliy on the paper-the counterpart to the 'bronzing' or thick shiny patches with over-heavy applications of the W&N or DS paints. M. Graham uses honey in their base, as do some of the classical European manufacturers, such as Sennelier. This does not invite more depredations by critters; all watercolors have some tasty ingredients. I have noted some mold if I left my palette very wet and closed for a week or two, especially on the Napthol Red. This happens also with some paints from other brands. Diana Graham tells me: "Our color is designed not to need to be kept in closed damp containers-thus greatly reducing the chance of mold but the spores are everywhere (usually airborne-rarely in the paint itself)".... |