One of our members met Marc Jackman at his stand at the NEC in November 2022 and invited him to talk at one of our meetings. Marc is the founder owner of Jackman’s Art Materials and following the AGM gave us a talk and demonstrated how he makes the watercolour paints. Marc set up his business in 2019 and makes all the paints himself calling on help from family and friends at busy times. The paints are all professional artist quality because Marc sources only the best ingredients.
The binder for the pigments is Gum Arabic which is from farmed Acacia trees, Marc uses dried sap lumps of the gum which give a more transparent liquid. The gum is dissolved in distilled water (made on site) heated at 50C. Vegetable Glycerin is used with a small amount of pharmaceutical grade preservative. Best quality pigments are used and have been tested to find the most vibrant, light fast and tested to see how they dry when left in pans and palettes. High speed mixers combine the pigment to the binder and then the paints are passed over a ceramic roller to refine the mix. The paints can be made in 1-6 kilo batches all are quality controlled to test the particle size and the density and are checked against a previous batch. The paints are filled into standard tubes which Marc now has to source from China as the only remaining manufacturer in the UK closed last year, finally the tubes are sealed and labels added.
Marc has a big range of colours which we were able to try before deciding to purchase. A very informative and interesting afternoon with Marc demonstrating his vast knowledge on pigments and techniques, we learnt a lot from him.