Barbara J Carter

I use two blues on my palette: ultramarine blue and phthalo blue.

Ultramarine Blue

Once one of the most expensive and highly-prized colors used by painters, ultramarine has recently, thanks to modern science, become quite inexpensive and commonplace. It was originally derived from lapis lazuli, a rare blue stone. Medieval painters often used it to depict Mary’s robes, emphasizing her importance by using the most expensive pigments for her garments.

Now ultramarine blue pigment is artificially created and is one of the most affordable colors. Despite its low cost, it is a very valuable color for the artist’s palette. It is a red-tinted blue. Mixed with white, as shown in the picture above, it shows its lovely rich blue color with the slightest hint of violet, almost but not quite indigo. Mixed with red it makes some very rich violets and purples.

Phthalocyanine Blue

Often shortened to “phthalo blue” or “thalo blue”, phthalocyanine blue is a strong synthetic blue pigment with a slight green tint. It was developed in the early 20th century, and is used both in paints and for printing inks. It has extremely strong tinting strength, that is, it can easily overwhelm any other color it is mixed with. I tend to use it sparingly. “A little dab will do you.” Mixed with white, as shown above, it makes turquoise.

“Red Hills”, 2007, 14×11″. See more California landscapes.

(See my previous post for a discussion of the two red colors I use in my paintings: alizarin crimson and cadmium red.)

When I was in New England, I used alizarin crimson as my background color for my landscape paintings. It seemed appropriate for the New England landscape, with its cool mauve-blue skies and earthy red undertones.

When I moved back to California and began painting the California hills, cool alizarin no longer seemed like such a good choice. The light here is warm, even brassy, and the land has a hot, almost scorched feel. At first I tried using a bright orange color as my background, but I found I was fighting against it rather than with it. Maybe it was just a little TOO brassy. So I turned to cadmium red, and immediately it felt right. It has the warmer tone appropriate for my California landscape paintings, but still retains the general “redness” that give my paintings their distinctive quality.

I’m still using alizarin crimson for the background of the November Sun series. These paintings are based on the New England landscape, so they require the cooler red.

“November Sun 12″, 2007, 16×20″. See more November Sun paintings.

Of course, I use red for more than just the background of my paintings. I don’t use red for my pointillist dots - they would just disappear against the background! Instead I mix it with white, yellow, and blue to make some truly luscious colors which stand out nicely against the background.

Cadmium red mixes with yellow to make an orange that isn’t too saturated. Mixed with white it creates some fantastic warm pinks. Adding just a little yellow to the pink yields some beautiful salmon and apricot hues. Mixing cadmium red with blue makes a dull brownish violet useful for offsetting brighter colors in the painting.

Alizarin crimson mixed with blue makes a wide range of useful shades, from the most delicate pale violet to a deep almost-black purple. Alizarin mixed with yellow creates some very interesting terra-cotta colors.

“Warm Field” detail, 2005.

For examples of all of these colors, see my paintings.

I use two reds on my palette: cadmium red and alizarin crimson.

Cadmium Red

I use Golden Paints‘ Cadmium Red (Golden is the brand name, not the paint color). Cadmium colors tend to be very bright, opaque, and warm in tone. “Warm” is artspeak for colors that tend toward the red-orange-yellow hues. A warm red like cadmium, for example, has a slight orange cast to it, almost like a tomato (but not quite that orange).

Cadmium is a heavy metal like mercury, and it is similarly poisonous. So, don’t eat the paint! Actually, I try not to get it on my skin, and if a little gets on me I wash it off quickly. It would be safest to wear latex gloves to avoid all contact, but I hate wearing gloves.

Alizarin Crimson

Alizarin (stress the second syllable) is a very ancient dye color, originally made from madder root. Interestingly madder creates an orange-red color, but alizarin paints are typically a cooler red, that is, red with a slight blue tint. True alizarin is very fugitive (fades quickly). I haven’t seen it used in acrylic paint. Instead, synthetic pigments are used to approximate the color, but without the fading problem.

The alizarin crimson I use is Winsor & Newton’s Permanent Alizarin Crimson. The word “permanent” indicates that the paint is a synthetic version. I don’t know how good an approximation the Winsor & Newton color is, but I do know that of all the alizarins I’ve tried it’s by far my favorite. It’s a very clean, rich color with no muddiness. I also sometimes use Golden Paints’ Quinacridone Crimson as a pretty close substitute, though it is slightly more blue than I like. Other brands I’ve tried were more muddy. Both the alizarins I use are pretty transparent, which I believe derives from the quinacridone pigments (synthetic pigments like quinacridone tend to be transparent, while natural earth-pigments like cadmium tend to be opaque).

Next time I’ll talk about how I use both reds in my paintings. You can see my paintings on my web site.