Schmincke Aqua Drop Liquid Watercolor Pigment Review Liner Brush Marker Tutorial

Schmincke makes high quality watercolors and mediums, and the new pigment-based liquid watercolors called "Aqua Drop" do not disappoint. They also came out with empty "liner" markers that you can fill yourself. This allows you to have a marker that is any custom color you want and can be refilled as soon as it starts to go dry. The company has said they will offer tip replacements if it wears out.

For many years the only real choice for lightfast, pigment-based, liquid watercolors was PH Martin's Hydrus. I have had some issues with PH Martin's over the years though, as their colors often have odd clumping textures and sediment separation in the jars. These Schmincke ones do not appear to have that issue and are very smooth for being so densely pigmented.

In this video I'll show the 5 color primary mixing set used as watercolor, used in technical pens, aqua drop liners, dip pens and water brushes. I was quite happy with this product aside from the "Opaque White #50 750" which seems too thick/gloopy and not fully opaque enough to be useful to me. You also can't use the white in any of the pens/liners/water brushes without clogging them. That means no mixing pastels, and no tossing that handy white gel pen just yet.

In the video I filled 3 liners, their empty brush markers, with primary mixing colors. The magenta, yellow and cyan allows you to easily layer for secondary colors.

Because these are pigments, and not dyes, they do not blend as well as most marker products. This is a very staining product, becoming almost waterproof on dry paper. You can increase blending ability by working on damp paper. Overall, these are a different type of supply that should be expected to have a learning curve, but offer some convenience and unique applications.

 

Swatch cards:

   

Available to purchase at Jackson's here for worldwide shipping.