Incidentally, a rich, transparent, extremely lightfast and flexible alternative to all carbon black and convenience dark neutral paints (indigo, sepia, neutral tint, payne's gray, etc.) Perhaps I should repaint the sections affected, but it makes me wonder what’s to keep it from happening again. Thanks Will – that’s a good idea. Great to hear it Erik, pleased you’ve been finding the site helpful in your paintings. Manganese blue is somewhat variable across manufacturers, primarily in saturation and pigment texture. TOP 40 PIGMENT  The many shades of cobalt tin oxide (PB35) or cobalt chromium oxide (PB36), named cerulean blue, cerulean blue GS, cobalt turquoise or cobalt green deep, are very lightfast, semiopaque, moderately staining, granulating, dark valued, moderately dull to moderately intense blue to green blue pigments. In the next sitting this was scumbled with negro hueso (bone brown) and a yellow that Velázquez used.”, Harold Speed – Author & Painter, The Science and Practice of Oil Painting, 1924. If you don’t have a burnt umber you could use a burnt sienna or raw umber, however, the raw umber won’t give you the flexibility of warming up and cooling down a colour due to its bias towards more of a green brown. lightfastness test samplesunexposed (left); exposed 800+ hours (right), Rowney coeruleum blue, cobalt blue, ultramarine violet. See also the section on cobalt pigments. I can prepare a test section and hopefully isolate the problem. Winsor & Newton cobalt blue is quite a bit more textured wet in wet and lighter valued, but it is the only completely transparent and also the least staining cobalt I've tried; the hue is the greenest and least saturated of any brand, which makes an effective contrast with ultramarine blue (PB29). So pleased you have found the recipe for your denim blue. I sure appreciate your great website. I was painting rather thinly as well. Cool blues are those with a green bias. Cobalt or ultramarine blues tend to be picked more often in palettes because they stain less harshly, and offer more interesting texture. ***This color granulates for textured washes. The Impressionists steered clear of black but for many contemporary painters black is an integral part of the work. See also the section on phthalocyanine pigments. Worth investigating, if you want a consistent cobalt texture and lightfastness across all the violets, blues and greens in your palette. TOP 40 PIGMENT  Iron blue PB27 is a fugitive to very lightfast, semitransparent, staining, very dark valued, moderately dull blue pigment, now available from only a handful of pigment manufacturers worldwide, mostly for printing inks and cosmetics. Both are redder than other brands. I think it would be interesting. By the way, art was my favourite subject in school. I find that it is a chore, it dries out on my palette too fast and gets thrown out, and it can be too inconsistent across a larger area, even if I am careful when mixing batches. To make the lime green stand out even more, I wanted to contrast it against a darker muted green. This crystalline synthetic inorganic pigment, a near perfect cyan hue, imparts a lyrically coarse texture even after extensive milling. See also the section on sulfur pigments. In masstone applications these mixtures are actually darker valued than most lamp or ivory blacks (PBk9). Sometimes the beauty of colour is a juxtaposition of bright shades with muted tones. and losing saturation. I’ll try that when I’m able to get those colors. Just be aware not to go too orange/pink with the cad red and cad yellow. Europeans called the expensive powdered pigment ultramarine, which literally means over the sea. See also the section on phthalocyanine pigments. Moyra. The pigment is fairly consistent across manufacturers. This will be my first time painting anything of that caliber; my paintings have been of simple things until now. I have been painting for a few months and love it so – the hours just fly by – even when I hit a wall. Here's a short guide to how this color evolved. Cheers, Will, Hi Will. The Winsor & Newton and Rowney Artists paints are slightly less saturated with a greener hue; though the latter is darker and smoother. Thanks Randy, pleased you’ve been enjoying the website and thanks for the link. I sometimes prefer PB73/74 to ultramarine: it is just as lightfast but is less transparent, shows very little color shift as it dries, and creates a wonderful downy granulation in mixtures. It is closely matched by many mixtures of dark blue and red, for example phthalo blue (PB15) with quinacridone violet (PV19) or quinacridone maroon (PR206). (Exact recipes depend on paint brands; alternative mixtures are listed in the page on watercolor mixing complements.) Substitions. Is there a specific combination you’d recommend for an all black painting such as you see in one color canvases? Thanx for the reply will. Cheers, Will. Cobalt blue is today often displaced from the palette by ultramarine blue (PB29) or phthalo blue (PB15), which have very different textural and handling characteristics but are less expensive. — It's particularly important with intense or very dark paints that you explore their handling and appearance in highly diluted mixtures. But is does have a very high tinting strength, so only a small amount will make a big difference. i will take your advice and put lemon yellow on the back burner for now. This can throw off your colour mixing if you are unaware of it. Yellow + black Yellow might cause you slight disarm as the blue undertone will make the yellow go green. Thanks for these tips – I do tend to avoid black but I will experiment a bit now. For example, Gamblin’s chromatic black is made from Phthalo green and quinacridone red. Since the scene is at night, I can’t tell very much about it, except that there does appear to be some brown, as well as the black. Cheers, Will. This mixture of a blue and a brown can be enhanced further if you use a darker blue, say Prussian Blue (which is often a mix of phthalo blue and black) with burnt umber. The darkest and most efficient mixture along the red/green contrast consists of perylene maroon (PR179) and phthalocyanine green BS (PG7), roughly in the proportions 5:1; along the orange/blue contrast the darkest mixture is quinacridone orange (PO48) and iron blue (PB27) in roughly 4:1 proportions. The best mixing complements for iron blue are venetian red (PR101) or perinone orange (PO43). Great to hear it Glen, black can be so handy when mixing olive greens. As a result, a large number of proprietary or geographic names (prussian blue, berlin blue, erlangen blue, hamburg blue, haarlem blue, oriental blue, persian blue, paris blue, milori blue, gas blue, saxon blue, cyanine blue, leitch's blue, potash blue, turnbull's blue, etc.) You address every basic topic that a beginner needs to know, yet do it with easy to understand methods and all the information presented is in a concise and straightforward manner. Daniel Smith cobalt blue is apparently a less concentrated preparation of a similar middle blue pigment, making it more transparent but less intense. But phthalo blue's tinting strength and dark masstone color make it a good choice as the foundation tint over which other nonstaining paints can be glazed and then selectively lifted or blotted away. In nature all colours are made by mixing.” Sargent refused to understand how anyone could paint without black. Blue remains a muse precisely because it is a mirage. Thanks. But I prefer ultramarine as a basic blue due to its liftability. Although lapis lazuli can be acquired as a powdered pigment from some pigment retailers, Daniel Smith genuine lapis lazuli is the sole source of the pigment in watercolors. The cobalt cerulean and turquoise pigments are a definite preference among some artists, who rely on them to temper warm mixtures and create subtly textured pale blue washes (cerulean skies really are unique). I would really like to find an umber and ultramarine premix as well. PB60 is a useful alternative to dioxazine violet (PV23) for a dark blue violet color; by itself it is also an effective indigo or payne's gray hue in tints (see the recipe for synthetic black described under indigo paints). It mixes well with a wide range of paints, including the yellow cadmiums, though it can be blotchy on highly sized paper and unforgiving when used on absorbent paper. (There is even a prussian brown created by calcining or roasting the finished pigment.) Purple mixed with Alizarin Crimson, will also be a little cooler in color temperature, than if you create a purple with blue and Cadmium Red. However, many portrait painters can’t survive without it. It is a pity that I don’t know you personally. I have tried a number of things. The greenish blue and turquoise part of the color range (which includes phthalocyanine cyan, PB16, and cobalt teal blue PG50) has a peculiar status within the family of cool colors, much like red orange pigments on the warm side of the color wheel.