Organic and Synthetic Colors

Fine Art By Becky Joy

Maximize Your Plein Air Painting Time 

I wasn’t sure what to title this blog post, but I guess “little oil sketches” fits. These are some quick plein air paintings to make the best use of small increments of time.

I have returned from a painting trip to Idaho, Alaska and Oregon. The Idaho trip was a workshop, so more about that in another post. This one is about the trip to Alaska. I was teaching on a cruise through the inside passage. It wasn’t with the cruise ship itself. It was a group of artists organized by the Painted Ladies. Larry Seiler and I were both teaching on the cruise. Anyway, we painted for our entertainment instead of going to the art auction, dancing, movies, etc.

When you paint on a cruise in the inside passage and the ship is turning and moving, there isn’t a lot of time to paint. So, as I took photos I painted small vignettes. My main focus was to try and get the essential information that I could use in a painting using photos. This was all painted in the Inside Passage. The information I have here is much more valuable that one completed painting.More About Gamblin’s Radiant Colors

In my last post, I showed some examples of Gamblin’s Radiant Colors that I have used in my paintings. I got an email asking why I used them and could the colors be mixed. So, I thought I would answer that here for you. The colors are more convenience than anything. Most of the colors are made from synthetic pure pigments, which when white is added to the colors, gives you brighter, richer colors than organic pigments. This is a general rule – when white is added, synthetics are brighter than organics. The mixtures of the Radiant colors that I use.

• Radiant Blue is Ultramarine Blue and TitaniumWhite
• My two favs are Radiant Turquoise which is Pthalocyanine Blue and Radiant Violet which is Dioxazene Purple, which I use a lot. But I find this is mixed to just the right value for me. But I do mix darker values with the Dioxazene Purple when mixing darker mixtures.
• Radiant Red is Perylene Red which is again a synthetic and stays vibrant when mixed with white.
• Radiant Yellow is Indian Yellow another synthetic which mixes well with Titanium White.So now you know, the colors can be mixed. For several months, I’ve been gravitating to more synthetic colors which gives me brighter colors. I can always gray the colors, but I can only make them as bright as they are out of the tube. The organics tend to gray more when mixed with white.

         

I labeled the paint colors above. The Cadmium Red Light and the Cadmium Yellow Medium are both organic pigments. The Perylene Red and the Indian Yellow are both synthetic pigments.

It may be hard to see online the differences, but you can see more paint with the synthetic pigments. That is because to lighten the color as much as the Cadmiums I had to add more Titanium White to the mixture.

Both Perylene Red and Indian Yellow have a very strong tinting power. A lot of white can be added to them and they still keep their color without losing vibrancy or turning gray.

The Radiant Colors are mixed to a number 7 on the value scale. Although, I find the Radiant Red appears to be slightly darker than the others, but maybe that’s just me. When I’m painting skies,

I use the Radiants right out of the tube, except the lower part of the sky which is lighter. In those places I add more white to the mixture.I hope this better clarifies how and why I use the Radiant Colors.

For more information about Gamblin’s Radiant Colors, click here.

Happy Painting! Becky

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