Peerless Watercolour
This new range of watercolour retouching and colouring aids are primarily a light-weight art supply that you can take anywhere with no mess. Never before have you been able to have a full range of colours available in such a small amount of space!
The strange thing is that while Peerless Watercolor is new to us, it is one of the oldest manufactured ranges we sell, first made in 1885 as a solution for hand-tinting black and white photos with a little colour – still, the major reason why we got involved.
The simple explanation of the Peerless system is that it is a range of colour applied to paper, making for an entirely “dry book” system of colouring and retouching. The Peerless website elaborates by saying, “The colour is coated on one side of a special paper fabric that readily discharges when it comes into contact with water or any soluble mixture. The colour sheet is a heavy film of the highly concentrated pure colour of intense strength and absolute solubility.”
To activate the colours, you touch the sheet with a damp brush or cotton swab, and the colour magically changes state to a liquid for immediate use. You could alternatively cut off a small piece, dissolve it with water and the mix together in your palette. Either way, you will marvel at the colour as it comes to life.
If you look on Google, you will find many examples of artists and photographers who have cleverly made their personal colouring pallets simply by cutting up small squares from the books. They then take up minimal space, last a long time and never dry up like liquid alternatives. The colour can look a little deceiving on the surface at first, so the idea of cutting little squares off the sheet to dissolve (as explained above) is an excellent way to understand the range of colour options that you have.
For pure portability of have a travel set of colours in your bag, that’s safe to transport, Peerless Watercolours are unrivalled and loved by both teachers on school trips and parents alike for the same reason. If you’re one of them, our tip would be to make sure you name the different colours or make a sample page with swatches of everything together for easy reference when creating your travelling pallette.
Peerless Watercolour Options
To introduce you to the world of Peerless we recommend the Complete Edition Book. For only £19, you get 15 of the most popular colours but if you want to have the greatest choice then simply add the Bonus Pak and you’ll have 55 indvidual colours that’ll cover every situation needed to colouring or retouching. For maximum impact, try the new Pretty in Pink Set – perfect to give you 6 shades of a range of high-intensity pink colours.
Peerless also offer a speciality dry sheet in the form of Gypsum White. This transparent white watercolor paint embellishes dry painting or you can mix it with wet watercolor paint to create a chalky pastel effect. Now you can paint or handcolour pastels from dry sheets too.
Our final interst in Peerless Watercolour takes us back to where it all started with their Dry Spotting B&W Set. For only £10 you get five sheets designed to cope with every eventuality when retouching black and white prints.
Main image: Copyright Paige Poppe
3rd October 2017