Introducing…Schmincke’s YInMn Blue!

Schmincke just released a limited-edition YInMn Blue watercolor. The only drawback? A very hefty price tag. A 5ml tube will set you back $33 (or $23, if you are able to order from Jackson’s). In the US, there are seemingly only two retailers from which you can purchase: St. Louis Art Supply and Jackson’s. However, at the time I wrote this, Jackson’s was out of stock and only UK customers were permitted to reserve a tube.

This is a quick post to share my first impressions and compare it to the QoR version that was available in 2020 to early 2021. QoR has since run out of their limited supply but, according to their website, they will offer it again when they get more pigment from the manufacturer.

YInMn blue has been described as being in the middle of cobalt and ultramarine. Schmincke’s leans more toward cobalt. It’s granulating, but the pigment particles are smaller than QoR’s. In a pan, it dries a bit gummy and it’s not as easy to reactivate as other Schmincke watercolors.

Schmincke’s YInMn Blue swatched on Arches cold press.

QoR’s YInMn Blue leans more toward ultramarine than cobalt. It is heavily granulating and has a higher pigment load than the Schmincke version.

QoR’s YInMn Blue swatched on Arches cold press.

A side-by-side comparison highlights the differences between the two versions.

Wet-on-wet swatched on Arches cold press.

The difference in color is also apparent when dried in pans.

As a side note, YInMn Blue has been assigned a pigment number: PB86.

Stay tuned for a more detailed post. I’m planning to swatch this next to cobalts and ultramarines to see how it compares.

Schmincke 140-Color Dot Card

I completed the Schmincke 140-Color Dot Card with the exception of Payne’s Grey Bluish. They forgot to give me a dot of that. This was my first time trying this brand, so I had fun testing the colors. Here are a few quick observations:

The paint dots were less generous than other dot cards I’ve used. I tried to save a bit of each color for mixing experiments and small paintings.
Even with the small dots, I was able to get a good idea of the quality of the paint. It’s deserving of its good reputation.
Determining the performance of the paint, however, was a bit more difficult. I would have liked to have a larger sample to try different techniques on separate paper.
Based on my experience with the samples, I bought several tubes of the colors I liked best. There are some interesting ones like Cobalt Violet Hue (PV62), Cobalt Green Dark (PG23), Mahogany Brown (PBr33), and Quinacridone Red Light (PR207).
Unfortunately the pigment numbers aren’t listed on the card, so I had to look them up myself. I used Jane Blundell’s blog as a reference.

Schmincke 140-Color Dot Card

I’ve been putting my feelers out, trying to get an idea of what I want for my birthday this year. I like getting gifts that I normally wouldn’t buy on my own but I like to do research to make sure that it will have a perfect home in my collection of supplies.

I’ve been hearing outstanding reviews of Schmincke Horadam watercolors, but I’ve never tried them out. As it so often does, Amazon pulled through for me by offering a 140-color Schmincke dot card.

The packaging is absolutely lovely.

One thing that was slightly disappointing was the small amount of paint they give you in each dot. I am used to the generous blobs of paint Daniel Smith offers on their dot cards. Even though the dots are smaller, I think that I will have enough to test the colors and have some left for accents in paintings.