Indanthrone Blue - Pigment Blue 60 (PB60)

Indanthrone Blue PB60, one of the least known or popular blues is the darkest valued pigment available next to Black Pbk6. There have been suggestions it is gaining more supporters and certainly all the main manufacturers include it in their ranges. The main criticism is that it is dull. It can also dry much lighter, up to 50% according to Handprint.

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With these swatches for comparison purposes I have mixed in two versions of Indigo and for further contrast French Ultramarine and Ivory Black. Originally I planned to do a piece purely on Indigo brought on by my recent purchase of the Daniel Smith version, which I like very much. Indigo isn't a staple of many artists's palettes - the late John Lidzey apart www.johnlidzey.co.uk  - and can be mixed quite easily by adding black to one of several blues. I decided to major on Indanthrone Blue instead but include Indigo as the colours can be very similar.

The first swatch is DS Indigo followed by the Maimeri Faience Blue which is PB60. Once again we have manufacturers identifying their paints by a different selection of names. All the more important to have a basic understanding of pigments and select paints by this means rather than colours. Some mixed convenience colours are very popular but that's another story. Next is the Maimeri Indigo, a mixture of PB27 Prussian Blue and Pbk7 Black. This is a very nice paint that leans towards green in undertone. The Schminke PB60 Delft Blue is very dark and I don't like it  at all with last of this group the Rowney PB60 Indanthrene Blue. The Rowney version is quite bluish in tone, noticeably more so than Maimeri. For comparison purposes at lower right are swatches of Rowney French Ultramarine PB29 and Maimeri Ivory Black Pbk9. I'll get to those at the extreme right later. Pbk9 Ivory Black is considered by Handprint a `Top Forty' pigment but there are several other blacks ranging from Pbk6 up to Pbk31 Perylene Black. Look at the Handprint Guide to Pigments if you are interested in digging deeper. http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/waterfs.html
What mixtures do we have in the various versions of Indigo? Phalo Blue PB15 (which version?) seems to feature quite often, in the case of Rowney a PB15/Pbk7/PV19 mix, blue, black and red. Winsor & Newton is a similar mix while Schminke is PB15:1/PB66, Sennelier PB15/Pbk7 and Rembrandt PB15/Pbk6. I would say, just a suggestion, that if you like Indigo either mix it yourself by adding black to a dark blue OR stick to either Daniel Smith or Maimeri. Others may disagree having tried some of the other manufacturers paints. This assumes you have black in your palette which most artists don't, having been told (incorrectly) that black much like Paynes Grey, is a colour to avoid. Did you know that black was once regarded as `The Prince of Colours' by the old masters?  It may be better to stick to Indanthrone Blue or in a limited palette leave it out altogether in favour of Ultramarine.

The best compliments to Indanthrone Blue are deep yellows like Raw Umber, Raw Sienna (both PBr7), Gold Ochre (W & N PY42), Quinacridone Orange (PO48) and Gold (PO49). There are several others. For more suggestions see http://handprint.com/HP/WCL/mixtable.html .

I mentioned the three swatches on the far right. They are nothing to do with this topic but for the interested I'll explain what they are. Daniel Smith do a very nice paint called Rose of Ultramarine. Yvonne Harry has bought it and likes the colour very much. It has been mentioned by contributors on Wetcanvas. Curious I looked it up and found it was a mixture of PB29 Ultramarine and PV19 Quinacridone Rose. The first two swatches from the left are  attempts at matching it and the middle colour is very similar, a sort of mulberry shade. Forget the one on the extreme right I think I mixed in Perylene Maroon (PR179) by mistake OR it may have been the violet shade of PV19 from Rowney.  Comments (or corrections) welcome.

More on Greens

The recent post on mixing greens made me think about the subject in more depth and I decided to make further swatches of greens using Phthalocyanine Greens PG7 Blue Shade and PG36 Yellow Shade. This is one approach recommended in that small amounts are added to other colours like Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber, really by trial and error. All the Phthalocyanines are very strong staining pigments and have to be used with caution as they are very powerful. Most makers call either shade Phthalo Green, in the case of Maimeri Cupric Green, Winsor & Newton Winsor Green Blue Shade (PG7) and Yellow Shade (PG36). You really need to check either the manufacturers pigment chart or the tube itself to see what you are buying.  They also appear in a wide range of mixed convenience greens.

In these swatches the greens on the left hand side are based on the addition of PG7 Blue Shade which produces darker values than the Yellow shade. The right hand swatches are of the yellow shade. Some of the swatches seem to go against this but is probably down to my hit and miss procedure when adding variable amounts of the green colour. The colours are plainly marked if you click on the photograph and enlarge. 

For these swatches I mixed on the palette, rather than the paper, putting down the selected colour first than adding small amounts of Phalo Green. This is due to the power of these pigments which have to be handled with care.  

Once again there are some interesting shades and  many other colours could be brought into the equation as this is a limited selection. As a general comment I would say that the mixtures with Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber and Raw Umber make the more natural looking shades, certainly in UK terms where our greens tend to be more subdued for much of the year. 

One of the comments made by Rembrandt van Rijn recommended using Cobalt Turquoise Light, specifically that by Winsor & Newton, which he said makes a wide range of interesting and evocative greens carefully added to some other colours. This is Cobalt Titanate Green Pigment PG50 and there seems to be a wide variation in the shades available,which vary from middle green to turquoise. According to Handprint the same colour index name refers to a range of widely differing hues depending on the admixture with metals aluminium, nickel or zinc. Bruce McEvoy also says that the various shades are amongst his favourite colours. I previously bought  Cobalt Green Light made by Maimeri and wasn't much impressed  and recently Cobalt Teal Blue from Daniel Smith, very different shades. On order is a small tube of the W & N Cobalt Turquoise Light so I shall give them all a try and publish the results in due course.