This whole series is so exciting. I'm learning so much about paint ingredients and properties that would have taken me years on my own to learn and I wouldn't have gotten the chemistry facet. I am so grateful for your sharing.
yellows have become the bain of my existence as far as watercolor goes. the more I learn, the worse it seems to get. however, I really appreciate the pigment and scientific information you've given here. that is an angle I can grasp far easier than sorting out warm vs neutral vs cool when it comes to yellow. (some are obvious on sight, others I constantly change my mind upon based on light and sight/migraine factors, and you're the first individual to substantiate my observational theory that some are really neutral with both warm and cool tones depending on how much water is involved. I'm thinking water solubility plays a factor there.) knowing which pigments are mineral- and dye-based explains varying opacities as well.
If you’re stuck on warm and cool there is another approach that you will probably find a lot easier, just mix your yellow you are trying to figure out with Phthalo Blue GS (PB15:3) and Ultramarine Blue (PB29). If you get bright, fresh greens with the former and earthy, olive-y greens with the latter, it’s cool yellow. If you get green-browns with Ultramarine and warm olive-y greens with Phthalo Blue, it is a warm yellow. You can always prepare yourself a preference sheet with (cool yellows) Hansa Yellow, Cd Yellow Light and (warm yellows), Cd Yellow Medium and Cd Yellow Deep, each with those two blues and you’ll find it much easier.
excellent point. I do have both blues and can look through my mixing charts to decide. I do think one of my two yellows really does pull off neutral, though. at lighter strengths it's decidedly cool, and when stronger it's warm. (it's QoR's nickel azo yellow.) but I'm going to look closely through the charts I have to decide if I still agree. I watched your second yellow video and I fell in love with Winsor & Newton's lemon yellow deep, PY159. I'm going to order that and a few other new things to try. I only have the colors for the preference sheet in student grade paint at this time, but I may just do that as well with all the caveats about quality and brand differences in mind to see what I learn. all experience is helpful. thanks for such thoughtful recommendations, and for such a wonderful series to help me learn, grow, and make more beautiful art. I really appreciate it.
Loving your channel! And best of all your table looks like mine and would be lost if it was tidy. I'm going to have to marathon all these watercolor videos. Even though I have a pretty good knowledge of pigments and such or rather an obsession I still love to watch other artist go through swatches and watching the painting of them. Calming I think. Take care!
Oh and some wierd opera pink, opera rose trivia, did you know if you hold a uv black light on the paint it glows! Probably why it's fugitive but it still glows beautifully with or with out the black light.
+The Spin Doctor well I feel silly now....I found out about its fluorescents looking for scorpions and happen to pass by with the black light (scorpions glow green so my surprise when I saw hot pink).
I love nickel azo yellow and green gold as a duo they make some beautiful mixes. I like to mix green gold with quinacridone rose and dilute that mixture for a base Caucasian skin tone. But the greens for both of these yellows are beautiful and nature.
I am looking for a more transparent replacement for lemon yellow, bismuth was suggested but here you are showing it is not transparent if I’m not mistaken…
Bismuth Yellow is very opaque and almost acid-yellow - very green. Cadmium Yellow Light or Cadmium Lemon or Cadmium Primrose are less-green opaque cool yellows that I prefer.
Thanks for the shout Rich! Now that you've linked my channel I should probably put something on it eh? :P What I found interesting is that the ones I love pure make kind of muddy mixes. (The Azo & Nickel Azo Yellow were probably my favorite warm & cool respectively) so I'll look into W&N and Daniel Smith for those! I like to use Pyrrole Orange & different greens anyway rather than mixing primaries. I also need to remember to play with Naples Yellow as my Daniel Smith French Ochre leans slightly more brown like a Raw Sienna.
Naples Yellow is nice but DS Buff Titanium is a very useful colour too - especially if you paint beaches. I think Naples Yellow is like sand in the evening and Buff Titanium is daytime sand.
Nickel Azo Yellow I love pure but I also love it disguised as faux Quin Gold with the addition of Quin Burnt Scarlet and Quin Rose. Like-for-like mixing sometimes seems to work - probably because the undertones and subtleties tend to match - cadmiums with cadmiums; cobalts with cobalts; pyrolles with pyrolles, quins with quins etc.
As far as Daniel smith you can never go wrong with hands yellow light. But this watercolor set of 36 from mijello mission gold (comes with a palette) ( and now there is a pure pigment set of full size tubes no palette for $80ish) has hit RUclips pretty hard that in my opinion (have had the set for since January or late 2015) and I couldn't help but to get another one because the paints really decent and for 36 7ml tubes is $67 prime shipping on Amazon. Also Daniel smith has. 266 paint dot samples of their watercolors you can also get for about $21 on Amazon. Which I love, except I paid more directly from DS when it was released but it really helped me find the paints I love and helped me keep things somewhat limited....somewhat lol. There is a youtuber named Mandy Van Goeie you should check out her 4 video painting swatches of the DS dot sampler. She is great so be sure to subscribe...both of you! She's almost at 2k and she is two short at 1,998. You won't regret subscribing.
Erin S. The Mission Gold sets really concern me - they are made with very, very cheap dyes (some of which have fugivity in their pure state) but are sold at HUGE prices - $20 per tube for cheap, dye-based paints but sold as "Viridian" when they're not - at least say "hue" or better still "phthalo green" on the tube - using "pure pigments" implies to many customers that they actually are what they call themselves (so viridian should BE viridian, namely hydrated chromic oxide, not phthalo green which looks nothing like viridian). I've written a breakdown of the set and which paints are scarily over-priced - I honestly cannot see why people are paying $180 in some cases for paints worth no more than Cotman at best in terms of the pigment (which are the most expensive part of even the cheapest paints). www.the-spin-doctor.co.uk/2016/07/mijello-mission-gold-pure-pigments-set.html
+The Spin Doctor I totally hear you loud and clear and doing a lightfast test as we speak (living in Phoenix Az gives me an advantage and expedite the exposure. So I will give it a check in a few more days and see then. I'm not fond of the company much and their advertising tactics that belittle or undermine company's like W&N and others. But the sets are inexpensive and with its transparency and smoothness I can't help but to want to root for the lightfast test but I'm not going to get my hopes to far up. It is good paint minus the fugitive potential. May best be fit for illustration but the $20 tubes is a ridiculous request and agree with you completely on all your concerns.
this is a great video. I was looking for a transparent water-soluble dye (among the cheap ones) for my biochemistry lab, and this was very informative. There is money to be made in fast fluorescent water-soluble organic dyes. My lab currently pays 100-300 quid per 1 milligram ("a spec") of blue, green, and red-fluorescing reactive dyes, new better (photostable, cheaper etc) ones are much needed.
No such thing as photostable fluorescent dyes: all fluorescent dyes quench eventually. Quantum dot suspensions are pretty good but suspensions not solutions and still break down over time. Hellishly costly too for what they are. For a transparent substance that has strong fluorescence, I used quinine sulfate for many years as an internal standard in assays as easy to measure by excitation at 350nm (peak is about 340-345nm really) and emission at 450nm, which is nice and clean.
Debra Sullivan On exposure to _bright_ sunlight, some preparations of cobalt yellow (aureolin) can fade and turn a bit brown but this is very variable - it doesn't do it in oil or Acrylic and in watercolour it is worse by far in paints with a lot of extender in them. The pigment itself in pure form is not _that_ fugitive but some paints are - it's really a case of sucking it and seeing but don't do your lightfastness trial in vivid sunlight as only idiots hang paintings in direct sunlight - test it under more realistic conditions. And be realistic about what you're doing with it: unless selling the painting, does it honestly matter?
Jeanne Marie Booth I don’t sorry - I made 10 and gave them all away over a year ago when this video was new. Tbh if you mix equal parts W&N Cad Lemon and Cad Yellow, you get the same colour as it and it is made of those same pigments. Glad you are enjoying my videos :)
Hello Doctor! Just found your channel a few days ago and I really enjoy your videos, they are very informative. I would like to try the Aurora Yellow if you still got more. Thanks!
I might - I will be shipping the first ones 27/28 August all being well (very busy time of year so have had to put it off until a clear weekend). If I still have any left I will contact you.
I had a look but don't see a video on the permanence of pigments (pigments that don't shift or discolour). Can you make a video talking about this more in depth? I'm putting together my ideal 14 colour palette and am finding just the amount of pigments available and their properties very overwhelming.
OnMyTireSwing I would have to go through every one of the thousands of pigments on the market to even scratch the surface. The video would be days in length....! Every tube of paint has a lightfastness rating - your best source is the rating the manufacturer gives the paint. Remember, the Color Index etc list the rating of the _pigment_ and the paint itself can be more lightfast (if UV is absorbed by the binder as in acrylics) or less (if a lot of lithopone extender was used).
The Spin Doctor thank you for replying so quickly, I guess I'll just have to worry less and trust the lightfast ratings provided haha. I feel like a child in a sweet shop, absolutely spoilt for choice.
OnMyTireSwing I would suggest a set of a cool, warm and earth of each of the 3 primaries thus: Perm Rose, Cad Red and Burnt Sienna; Lemon Yellow, Transparent Yellow (or New Gamboge) and Yellow Ochre; Phthalo Blue (GS), French Ultramarine and Indigo, which gives you 9, then add the other Neutrals: Raw Sienna and Burnt Umber and I would consider the convenience mixes Perm Sap Green, Hooker's Green and if you do a lot of Landscape maybe Phthalo Green YS or seascapes Cobalt Blue.
The Spin Doctor thank you very much! I was looking for 9 primaries a couple of earth tones a couple of greens and a nice violet but was hemming and hawing over the violet or another colour. I will definitely be using your recommendations for neutrals, greens and primaries which helps me out a lot. Thank you again!
Nice video, but the colors you refer to as dyes are precipitated dyes, which, as you know, are called lakes. Lakes act and are vastly different from unprecipitated dyes.
Yes I know - this is oversimplified chemistry for painters - if you’ve seen the whole series you’ll know I say repeatedly that I’m simplifying things. That said, most of these are not actually lakes at all (metal chelates of soluble dyes) but solvent dyes and vat dyes that don’t dissolve in water and thus can be used as pigments in aqueous systems.
The Spin Doctor A true dye tends to migrate, especially in aqueous systems. A true dye, unfixed, is not a pigment and will not act like a pigment. Winsor and Newton used to make an oil Indian yellow hue out of tartrazine yellow. While it seemed fairly stable and did not bleed in oils, even a thoroughly dry specimen would bleed into an acrylic layer painted over it. While it was a pigment in oils, acrylics made it bleed wildly, even through a thick layer of dried solvent based polyurethane. The colors you used in your video are pigment paints, not true dyes. A true dye can be fixed into a particulate and become stable to light and be non-bleeding. Many fine organic pigments fall into those categories, but, once fixed, cease being truly dyes. Some watercolors contain true dyes, some colored pencils contain true dyes, many marker brands are true dyes, and then there are alcohol inks. A good, fast, and easy test for a molecular dye is to apply an acrylic medium to a dried color specimen and see if it bleeds. Shellac can help stop a dye from bleeding, but you are neither using a shellac medium here nor any non-fixed dyes. IF they are not fixed, they are dyes. If fixed, they are pigments. True, even a fixed dye can bleed, depending on the vehicle. In the past, I've used some toluidine based oil paints and found they would bleed into a lacquer thinner like blood breaking over a dam. Molecular dyes have vastly different coloring properties compared to any pigments, even pigments made from them. Florescent paints are dyes fixed onto a plastic, which is then ground into a powder. While they still are not lightfast or weatherproof, they are still pigments and act accordingly. Many of the colors you demonstrated here are dyes fixed onto a particulate base that is colloidal (non bleeding) in a watercolor paint, whether the vehicle is gum arabic, honey, sugar, or Aquazol. How hard is that to say?
Hello again, I have just subscribed and commented on your Aurora Yellow Give-Away video which I would love the opportunity to own - but if not successful, I would be very happy with a spot card. With many thanks.
This whole series is so exciting. I'm learning so much about paint ingredients and properties that would have taken me years on my own to learn and I wouldn't have gotten the chemistry facet. I am so grateful for your sharing.
Thanks so much :)
yellows have become the bain of my existence as far as watercolor goes. the more I learn, the worse it seems to get. however, I really appreciate the pigment and scientific information you've given here. that is an angle I can grasp far easier than sorting out warm vs neutral vs cool when it comes to yellow. (some are obvious on sight, others I constantly change my mind upon based on light and sight/migraine factors, and you're the first individual to substantiate my observational theory that some are really neutral with both warm and cool tones depending on how much water is involved. I'm thinking water solubility plays a factor there.) knowing which pigments are mineral- and dye-based explains varying opacities as well.
If you’re stuck on warm and cool there is another approach that you will probably find a lot easier, just mix your yellow you are trying to figure out with Phthalo Blue GS (PB15:3) and Ultramarine Blue (PB29). If you get bright, fresh greens with the former and earthy, olive-y greens with the latter, it’s cool yellow. If you get green-browns with Ultramarine and warm olive-y greens with Phthalo Blue, it is a warm yellow. You can always prepare yourself a preference sheet with (cool yellows) Hansa Yellow, Cd Yellow Light and (warm yellows), Cd Yellow Medium and Cd Yellow Deep, each with those two blues and you’ll find it much easier.
excellent point. I do have both blues and can look through my mixing charts to decide. I do think one of my two yellows really does pull off neutral, though. at lighter strengths it's decidedly cool, and when stronger it's warm. (it's QoR's nickel azo yellow.) but I'm going to look closely through the charts I have to decide if I still agree.
I watched your second yellow video and I fell in love with Winsor & Newton's lemon yellow deep, PY159. I'm going to order that and a few other new things to try. I only have the colors for the preference sheet in student grade paint at this time, but I may just do that as well with all the caveats about quality and brand differences in mind to see what I learn. all experience is helpful. thanks for such thoughtful recommendations, and for such a wonderful series to help me learn, grow, and make more beautiful art. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for a wonderful, informative tutorial. I love seeing the comparisons!
Loving your channel! And best of all your table looks like mine and would be lost if it was tidy. I'm going to have to marathon all these watercolor videos. Even though I have a pretty good knowledge of pigments and such or rather an obsession I still love to watch other artist go through swatches and watching the painting of them. Calming I think. Take care!
Oh and some wierd opera pink, opera rose trivia, did you know if you hold a uv black light on the paint it glows! Probably why it's fugitive but it still glows beautifully with or with out the black light.
+Erin S. Weird*
I have a whole video on Opera Rose - showing exactly that. ruclips.net/video/m_Mid8srg_M/видео.html
+The Spin Doctor well I feel silly now....I found out about its fluorescents looking for scorpions and happen to pass by with the black light (scorpions glow green so my surprise when I saw hot pink).
I love nickel azo yellow and green gold as a duo they make some beautiful mixes. I like to mix green gold with quinacridone rose and dilute that mixture for a base Caucasian skin tone. But the greens for both of these yellows are beautiful and nature.
I am looking for a more transparent replacement for lemon yellow, bismuth was suggested but here you are showing it is not transparent if I’m not mistaken…
Hansa Yellow Light (what is used in most lemon yellows) is already transparent.
The Spin Doctor Aha! That’s what I thought, but someone told me Bismuth was a good replacement And I have never tried it…. Thank you for your reply!
Bismuth Yellow is very opaque and almost acid-yellow - very green. Cadmium Yellow Light or Cadmium Lemon or Cadmium Primrose are less-green opaque cool yellows that I prefer.
Thanks for the shout Rich! Now that you've linked my channel I should probably put something on it eh? :P What I found interesting is that the ones I love pure make kind of muddy mixes. (The Azo & Nickel Azo Yellow were probably my favorite warm & cool respectively) so I'll look into W&N and Daniel Smith for those! I like to use Pyrrole Orange & different greens anyway rather than mixing primaries. I also need to remember to play with Naples Yellow as my Daniel Smith French Ochre leans slightly more brown like a Raw Sienna.
Naples Yellow is nice but DS Buff Titanium is a very useful colour too - especially if you paint beaches. I think Naples Yellow is like sand in the evening and Buff Titanium is daytime sand.
Nickel Azo Yellow I love pure but I also love it disguised as faux Quin Gold with the addition of Quin Burnt Scarlet and Quin Rose. Like-for-like mixing sometimes seems to work - probably because the undertones and subtleties tend to match - cadmiums with cadmiums; cobalts with cobalts; pyrolles with pyrolles, quins with quins etc.
As far as Daniel smith you can never go wrong with hands yellow light. But this watercolor set of 36 from mijello mission gold (comes with a palette) ( and now there is a pure pigment set of full size tubes no palette for $80ish) has hit RUclips pretty hard that in my opinion (have had the set for since January or late 2015) and I couldn't help but to get another one because the paints really decent and for 36 7ml tubes is $67 prime shipping on Amazon. Also Daniel smith has. 266 paint dot samples of their watercolors you can also get for about $21 on Amazon. Which I love, except I paid more directly from DS when it was released but it really helped me find the paints I love and helped me keep things somewhat limited....somewhat lol. There is a youtuber named Mandy Van Goeie you should check out her 4 video painting swatches of the DS dot sampler. She is great so be sure to subscribe...both of you! She's almost at 2k and she is two short at 1,998. You won't regret subscribing.
Erin S. The Mission Gold sets really concern me - they are made with very, very cheap dyes (some of which have fugivity in their pure state) but are sold at HUGE prices - $20 per tube for cheap, dye-based paints but sold as "Viridian" when they're not - at least say "hue" or better still "phthalo green" on the tube - using "pure pigments" implies to many customers that they actually are what they call themselves (so viridian should BE viridian, namely hydrated chromic oxide, not phthalo green which looks nothing like viridian). I've written a breakdown of the set and which paints are scarily over-priced - I honestly cannot see why people are paying $180 in some cases for paints worth no more than Cotman at best in terms of the pigment (which are the most expensive part of even the cheapest paints). www.the-spin-doctor.co.uk/2016/07/mijello-mission-gold-pure-pigments-set.html
+The Spin Doctor I totally hear you loud and clear and doing a lightfast test as we speak (living in Phoenix Az gives me an advantage and expedite the exposure. So I will give it a check in a few more days and see then. I'm not fond of the company much and their advertising tactics that belittle or undermine company's like W&N and others. But the sets are inexpensive and with its transparency and smoothness I can't help but to want to root for the lightfast test but I'm not going to get my hopes to far up. It is good paint minus the fugitive potential. May best be fit for illustration but the $20 tubes is a ridiculous request and agree with you completely on all your concerns.
this is a great video. I was looking for a transparent water-soluble dye (among the cheap ones) for my biochemistry lab, and this was very informative. There is money to be made in fast fluorescent water-soluble organic dyes. My lab currently pays 100-300 quid per 1 milligram ("a spec") of blue, green, and red-fluorescing reactive dyes, new better (photostable, cheaper etc) ones are much needed.
No such thing as photostable fluorescent dyes: all fluorescent dyes quench eventually. Quantum dot suspensions are pretty good but suspensions not solutions and still break down over time. Hellishly costly too for what they are. For a transparent substance that has strong fluorescence, I used quinine sulfate for many years as an internal standard in assays as easy to measure by excitation at 350nm (peak is about 340-345nm really) and emission at 450nm, which is nice and clean.
I'm a little confused. I have a tube of Aureolin but I've researched it and it apparently turns brown in not too much time. Is that not true then?
Debra Sullivan On exposure to _bright_ sunlight, some preparations of cobalt yellow (aureolin) can fade and turn a bit brown but this is very variable - it doesn't do it in oil or Acrylic and in watercolour it is worse by far in paints with a lot of extender in them. The pigment itself in pure form is not _that_ fugitive but some paints are - it's really a case of sucking it and seeing but don't do your lightfastness trial in vivid sunlight as only idiots hang paintings in direct sunlight - test it under more realistic conditions. And be realistic about what you're doing with it: unless selling the painting, does it honestly matter?
Learning so very much from you and grateful for your dedication and enthusiasm.
Have you any of the W&N 017 Aurora Yellow spot cards?
Jeanne Marie Booth I don’t sorry - I made 10 and gave them all away over a year ago when this video was new. Tbh if you mix equal parts W&N Cad Lemon and Cad Yellow, you get the same colour as it and it is made of those same pigments. Glad you are enjoying my videos :)
Hello Doctor! Just found your channel a few days ago and I really enjoy your videos, they are very informative. I would like to try the Aurora Yellow if you still got more. Thanks!
I might - I will be shipping the first ones 27/28 August all being well (very busy time of year so have had to put it off until a clear weekend). If I still have any left I will contact you.
Thanks!
Subscribe to my website and my channel and then you'll know if there will be more to mail out.
+The Spin Doctor Already did!
I had a look but don't see a video on the permanence of pigments (pigments that don't shift or discolour). Can you make a video talking about this more in depth? I'm putting together my ideal 14 colour palette and am finding just the amount of pigments available and their properties very overwhelming.
OnMyTireSwing I would have to go through every one of the thousands of pigments on the market to even scratch the surface. The video would be days in length....! Every tube of paint has a lightfastness rating - your best source is the rating the manufacturer gives the paint. Remember, the Color Index etc list the rating of the _pigment_ and the paint itself can be more lightfast (if UV is absorbed by the binder as in acrylics) or less (if a lot of lithopone extender was used).
The Spin Doctor thank you for replying so quickly, I guess I'll just have to worry less and trust the lightfast ratings provided haha. I feel like a child in a sweet shop, absolutely spoilt for choice.
OnMyTireSwing I would suggest a set of a cool, warm and earth of each of the 3 primaries thus: Perm Rose, Cad Red and Burnt Sienna; Lemon Yellow, Transparent Yellow (or New Gamboge) and Yellow Ochre; Phthalo Blue (GS), French Ultramarine and Indigo, which gives you 9, then add the other Neutrals: Raw Sienna and Burnt Umber and I would consider the convenience mixes Perm Sap Green, Hooker's Green and if you do a lot of Landscape maybe Phthalo Green YS or seascapes Cobalt Blue.
The Spin Doctor thank you very much! I was looking for 9 primaries a couple of earth tones a couple of greens and a nice violet but was hemming and hawing over the violet or another colour. I will definitely be using your recommendations for neutrals, greens and primaries which helps me out a lot. Thank you again!
OnMyTireSwing Ultramarine Violet and Cobalt Violet are good if you want granulation. Dioxazine Purple if not.
Nice video, but the colors you refer to as dyes are precipitated dyes, which, as you know, are called lakes. Lakes act and are vastly different from unprecipitated dyes.
Yes I know - this is oversimplified chemistry for painters - if you’ve seen the whole series you’ll know I say repeatedly that I’m simplifying things. That said, most of these are not actually lakes at all (metal chelates of soluble dyes) but solvent dyes and vat dyes that don’t dissolve in water and thus can be used as pigments in aqueous systems.
The Spin Doctor A true dye tends to migrate, especially in aqueous systems. A true dye, unfixed, is not a pigment and will not act like a pigment. Winsor and Newton used to make an oil Indian yellow hue out of tartrazine yellow. While it seemed fairly stable and did not bleed in oils, even a thoroughly dry specimen would bleed into an acrylic layer painted over it. While it was a pigment in oils, acrylics made it bleed wildly, even through a thick layer of dried solvent based polyurethane.
The colors you used in your video are pigment paints, not true dyes. A true dye can be fixed into a particulate and become stable to light and be non-bleeding. Many fine organic pigments fall into those categories, but, once fixed, cease being truly dyes.
Some watercolors contain true dyes, some colored pencils contain true dyes, many marker brands are true dyes, and then there are alcohol inks. A good, fast, and easy test for a molecular dye is to apply an acrylic medium to a dried color specimen and see if it bleeds. Shellac can help stop a dye from bleeding, but you are neither using a shellac medium here nor any non-fixed dyes. IF they are not fixed, they are dyes. If fixed, they are pigments. True, even a fixed dye can bleed, depending on the vehicle. In the past, I've used some toluidine based oil paints and found they would bleed into a lacquer thinner like blood breaking over a dam.
Molecular dyes have vastly different coloring properties compared to any pigments, even pigments made from them. Florescent paints are dyes fixed onto a plastic, which is then ground into a powder. While they still are not lightfast or weatherproof, they are still pigments and act accordingly.
Many of the colors you demonstrated here are dyes fixed onto a particulate base that is colloidal (non bleeding) in a watercolor paint, whether the vehicle is gum arabic, honey, sugar, or Aquazol. How hard is that to say?
Hi, I'd like to try this please, many thanks
Thanks Ian - don't forget the giveaway I'm running for a whole tube ;) I can confirm you get Spot-Card #1!
Great, thanks
Hello again, I have just subscribed and commented on your Aurora Yellow Give-Away video which I would love the opportunity to own - but if not successful, I would be very happy with a spot card. With many thanks.