Brilliant Colour
Colour is seductive, appealing to us on both cultural and instinctual levels. Everyone responds to colour, but
for artists, it’s our primary tool.
The term “artists’ quality” generally stands for the strongest, lightfast colours in the clearest, most durable
binders, and while student quality paint suits basic application, colour in its most concentrated form is what
really makes a painting zing!
If colour is important to you, there’s no going past professional-quality paints. Not only are Artists’ Quality
colours much more concentrated, many colours are unique to artists’ quality ranges, even in a colour like
white!
Single Pigments Colours
Pigment is the raw colour component of paint, and comes from many sources: some are dug from the earth,
like iron oxides that make cheap and useful “earth colours”; others are complicated arrangements of
elements that produce intense colours, such as Quinacridone. Obviously, it’s difficult to put much, if any, of
the expensive pigments into a paint that’s primary purpose is to be inexpensive, limiting the range of
colours available in “Student Quality”. Notably absent are important Cadmium & Cobalt colours; instead,
mixtures of cheaper pigments are used to imitate the expensive colours (these are called “hues” or “tones”),
but without the original’s clarity and strength.
Cadmium is an earth metal that became an important opaque artists’ colour in the late 19th Century. It’s
expensive, so only available in Artists’ Quality ranges. It’s imitated in student ranges with a mixture of
cheaper pigments, but doesn’t have the opacity or tinting strength – compare the Cadmium Red Deep
Imitation (top left) with the genuine Cadmium Red Medium below it.
Cobalt colours are also very important yet expensive earth metals, which are imitated in cheaper paint
ranges. Cobalt Blue as an imitation (top middle) uses white with Ultramarine & Phthalo Blue, giving a chalky
look compared with the genuine Cobalt below it.
Even when using the same inexpensive pigments such as the yellow on the right, the true Artists’ Quality
(lower right) uses a far greater concentration than student colour (top right).
You get far more pure colours, made from a single pigment, in the Artists’ Colours; and while important for
overall luminosity, this is especially beneficial in mixing. As a rule of thumb, combining more than 4
Copyright All Rights Reserved 2012 Gordon Harris Ltd www.gordonharris.co.nz
Page 1
pigments together tends to make the colour dirty, so having predominantly “single pigment” colours in a
range results in cleaner, brighter mixtures.
Let’s take a quick look at how pigments are listed on a tube of paint, as generic names don’t provide an
accurate colour reference, especially across brands. For instance, Helio Blue, Monestial Blue, Winsor Blue,
Translucent Cyan, and Intense Blue are all names given by different manufacturers for the same colour Phthalo Blue. For proper colour identification, we need to know the actual pigment used.
The international index for pigments has each listed as two letters followed by one to three numbers, and is
easy to understand:
The first letter is always “P” which stands for Pigment. The next letter stands for the colour group: R is Red; O
is Orange; Y is Yellow; G is Green; B is Blue; V is Violet; W is White; Bk is Black; Br is Brown. The number is the
Colour Index name, an internationally recognized reference to all pigments.
On all the above multi-named blues, one should see the same pigment description “PB15:3 Phthalocyanine”.
If only one is listed, it’s a single pigment colour. If more than one, it’s a pre-mixed colour.
Colour Mixing
Okay, let’s see what some of these single pigment colours are, and what they can do:
Many of the standard colours we use in Artists’ Quality paints are single pigment colours – Ultramarine Blue,
Lemon Yellow (Hansa Yellow Light), Cadmiums & Cobalts, but here are some equally important colours that
are often overlooked:
PO 71 is called Poppy Red in Norma Oilcolour but is actually an orange (Pigment O for Orange), though is the
colour of Californian Poppies. It’s available in acrylic as Golden Transparent Pyrrole Orange, Horadam
Watercolours as Translucent Orange, and is a fiery, translucent orange that’s extremely useful to darken
blues, add warmth to earth tones, and create a range of deep yellows through to reds by combining with
yellows and magenta tones. Most orange hues are opaque, so this is an important colour if you want to keep
clarity in your palette.
PB60 is a translucent, warm blue similar to that used in Delft pottery, hence it’s called Delft Blue in Horadam
Watercolours, though is Anthraquinone Blue in Golden Acrylics and Indanthrene Blue in Norma Oilcolours,
referring to its chemical composition. It provides a very different palette from the standard warm blue,
Copyright All Rights Reserved 2012 Gordon Harris Ltd www.gordonharris.co.nz
Page 2
Ultramarine. It’s a subtle, muted blue, so very suited to mixing more subdued tones, especially greens, when
combined with various yellows, and turquoise when mixed with Phthalo Green.
PG36 is Phthalo Green (Yellowish), sometimes called Helio Green, and provides a much warmer range of
mixing possibilities than its cousin Phthalo Green (Bluish). Mix it with bright yellows to make bright greens,
or earth yellows, such as Raw Sienna, to create landscape greens. It deepens red hues, and combines with all
manner of blues to make turquoises.
Iridescent Gold (above top left) offers many metallic effects. Care should be taken when introducing gold
into a painting, as the eye is instantly drawn there, often to the detriment of the other colours. This is why
the representation of gold by master painters is made using yellows, greens and blacks. One way to
incorporate gold into a painting so that it harmonises with other non-metallic colours, is to mix it with those
colours. Here gold has been mixed with Quinacridone Magenta and Manganese Blue (above lower left) to
achieve unique metallic hues. The proportion used was approximately 5:1 metallic:standard colour.
Iridescent Silver (above top right) mixes with other colours to achieve cooler metallic hues than the gold,
and is especially useful for pearlescent effects, here combined with Quinacridone Magenta and Manganese
Blue (above lower right).
Interference colours interfere with white light, causing a “flip-flop” effect on a white surface. Interference
Violet (above left) changes between violet and green, depending on the angle it’s seen on. These strange
colours don’t follow the same rules of mixing as usual colours. If you mix a violet and a green together, you’d
normally get brown, but here even a very small amount of green turns the Interference Violet… green! This
Copyright All Rights Reserved 2012 Gordon Harris Ltd www.gordonharris.co.nz
Page 3
is because there is no violet pigment involved, rather: an interference with the wavelength of violet light.
The unique effect can be accentuated by mixing these special Golden Acrylic colours with gloss gel, and
they perform especially well in daylight. Using Interference Colours on a black background cancels out the
white light and they no longer flip-flop, instead becoming intensely iridescent. This also happens when
black paint is added to our mixture (above far right).
We can’t help but seek out new colours that will inspire and excite our artistic sensibilities. Golden have put
together a couple of teaser packs this year – Provocative Yellows and now Divergent Reds – with another to
follow in the New Year. They contain three useful but little known colours that hopefully will expand and
become permanent fixtures on your palette! The Divergent Reds are shown below.
PR264 is one of the newest pigments, first used by Schmincke for Norma Oilcolour Ruby Madder, and shortly
followed by Golden Pyrrole Red Deep (above left). It provides a strong, lightfast alternative to Cadmium Red
Medium, creating fiery oranges when mixed with Nickel Azo Yellow (below left).
The Quinacridone pigments supply important red & violet colours, such as PR209 Golden Quinacridone Red,
also available as Norma Oilcolour Madder Light (above middle), which mixes with blues to produce a
gorgeous range of purples (below middle).
PR83:1 Alizarin Crimson was the second colour to be synthesized from coal-tar in the 19th Century, on the
same day by the British and Germans, who call it Madder (the first was Mauve). Not being very lightfast, it
has been substituted by a mixture of precisely the original hue by Golden, working with the Smithsonian &
Tate (above right), and a new pigment of very similar tone PR179 by Schmincke, called Madder Deep. A
deep, transparent black can be made by mixing with Phthalo Green (below right).
Titanium White is opaque, lightfast, stable, and inexpensive, so available in both student and Artists’ Quality
paint ranges. Zinc White is much less opaque, providing a valuable mixing white that has less tendency to
make pastel tints and preserves some of the depth of transparent colours. These are the main two whites of
Artists’ Quality ranges, but Schmincke offer FIVE different whites in their Norma Professional Oilcolours!
Copyright All Rights Reserved 2012 Gordon Harris Ltd www.gordonharris.co.nz
Page 4
These are the 5 whites available in Norma Professional Oilcolours. Most people reach for Titanium White, but
although it’s a good, solid white, notice how pastel it makes the colours, and how the transparent colours
become opaque? Translucent colours can be lightened and still kept translucent with Translucent White,
made from PW6 titanium white which is ultra-finely ground. Zinc is very useful & subtle, especially in acrylic
paints, but in oilcolour needs to be applied carefully or it can embrittle, leading to cracking. The ZincTitanium mix combines the subtlety of zinc with the stability of titanium, and is extremely versatile – our
favourite all-rounder white! Opaque White is a new white made with PW7 zinc sulphide, and provides the
opacity of titanium with a more delicate, richer toning.
When mixing, it pays to keep it simple. As stated above, single pigment colours mix the cleanest hues, and
are the most versatile. Mixing with a palette knife allows best control of the colour and most thorough
combination.
Here are a couple of mixing suggestions about subjects we often get asked about in-store: flesh tones and
skies.
Bearing in mind that not only does everyone have different coloured skin, but the skin colour on different
parts of the body are also diverse, here is a base flesh-tone that can easily be adapted. Mix Translucent Red
Brown with Zinc & Titanium Whites, plus a bit of Chromium Oxide Green Brilliant (or Viridian in Golden) to
stop it going too pink – this is perfect for pakeha tones. For Pacific tones, try adding Ultramarine Blue and
Copyright All Rights Reserved 2012 Gordon Harris Ltd www.gordonharris.co.nz
Page 5
hardly any white. Asian tones are more diverse than any, so you can try combinations of these, and the
addition of earth tones, such as Yellow Ochre or Naples Yellow.
In the 19th Century, when the mysteries of creating colour were finally exposed, a popular recipe for painting
skies was to add Cobalt Blue to white, and then adjust with Ivory Black. This is very effective for softer sky
tones, but many artists want a brighter tone for New Zealand skies, and Phthalo Blue plus Ultramarine added
to white provides a much stronger blue.
Golden’s Virtual Colour Mixer
Taking the guess-work out of colour mixing, Golden have created their Virtual Colour Mixer so you can
combine up to three colours from any of their colour ranges, in any proportion, and see the result on screen.
You can even build up a file of your favourite mixtures for future reference. This is a great way to try before
you buy! http://www.goldenpaints.com/products/mixer/
Lightfastness
Everyone has seen the negative effects of sunlight on low-lightfast colours, especially in bright fabric or
printed matter. Light also degrades materials - wood and plastics become brittle, newspaper turns yellow.
Works of art, however, are supposed to be long lived, with colours whose brilliance and luminosity remain
unimpaired for many years.
Artists’ Quality colours are made to last. Even in a weak 1:10 dilution, the Aerocolor Liquid Acrylic (above
top) has remained relatively unchanged after exposure to strong, direct sunlight for six months. The student
quality ink below it (at full strength) has become a shadow of its former self in the area that was left exposed.
The New Zealand sun is particularly damaging, and although this is not an issue when working on studies or
learning exercises, it’s a disaster for a finished piece of art.
Copyright All Rights Reserved 2012 Gordon Harris Ltd www.gordonharris.co.nz
Page 6
Change of Colour
Colour speaks to us directly, and is one of our primary tools for making art. The dialogue we have with it is
never-ending, as a colour’s character is ever changing. All paint has its colour affected by at least the
following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The pigment vehicle, whether oil, acrylic or water, wet or dry;
The surface sheen – gloss increases the depth, matte flattens it;
Film thickness – especially noticeable with translucent colours;
Concentration of colour;
The surface – whether it’s rough, smooth, absorbent or not;
The light – artificial or natural, weak or strong.
Observe, record, experiment and ENJOY your experiences with colour!
Staff Picks
Peter Smith, Store Manager at our Christchurch store, gives you his secret (no longer!) mixture for the
missing Indigo you always wanted from Golden Acrylics: Golden Cobalt Violet Hue, Phthalo Green BS and
Carbon Black. Try it out on the Golden Virtual Colour Mixer to get the proportions just right.
“You know what they say about artists who use indigo, don’t you,” Peter grins. He’s full of helpful advice, so
to find out “what they say” (I have no idea), pop into the store in Southwark Street!
Indigo is the talk of Albany store too – James has always loved working in deep blues. “It must be my English
sensibilities,” he says, “The way light is absorbed, like velvet. I love that indigo was a natural product; it has a
mellow mystery about it.” He chooses indigo in Horadam Watercolours and Norma Professional Oilcolour.
Albany Manager Kate England calls Violet Dark Norma Professional Oilcolour “stunning and sexy – its
transparency gives it so much depth. I like mixing it with black to get really concentrated darks, and with
white for intense mauves. As a single pigment colour, it mixes well with everything!”
Dark tones are favoured in Symonds Street, too. Manager Johl Dwyer loves Schmincke Aerocolor’s Phthalo
Green “transparent for depth and a single pigment for great mixing possibilities.” His favourite mix? “You can
get a great Cobalt Teal colour by combining the Phthalo Green with Turquoise Blue and white. It’s also great
for shading,“ says Johl, “but is difficult to get out of the carpet!”
So that’s what’s meant by “a splash of colour”!
www.gordonharris.co.nz
Copyright All Rights Reserved 2012 Gordon Harris Ltd www.gordonharris.co.nz
Page 7