Does anyone else go to the art supply store, buy a tube (or three) of paint, bring it home and start right in on a painting? How many times have you been a little (or a lot) disappointed in the results? The answer for me was, often enough to stop using new colors until I’d tested them!
When I bring home any new pigment, I like to introduce it to the rest of the palette. I’m looking to see how well it blends with other colors, how the properties of pigments combine or clash, how well it holds its color & value, and how much it changes from the initial wet wash to when it’s completely dry.
Meet Hematite Burnt Scarlet (HBS), one of the PrimaTek colors from Daniel Smith. Made from ground up rocks, these colors almost always provide interesting texture and color. As you can see with the blues and greens pictured, it brings out some unique properties of other pigments. It’s always fascinating to me to see which colors maintain their strength and clarity, such as Spring Green or Cobalt Blue, and which ones almost completely blend together, like Lunar Blue or Cobalt Turquoise. (All colors shown are Daniel Smith watercolors.)
With the reds and browns, it was harder to get HBS to interact. You can see that Transparent Red Oxide (TRO) and Permanent Alizarin Crimson were particularly “standoffish” and created harder edges where the two colors met. This isn’t a bad thing, but when texture is your goal, it’s good to know that those two colors will create a very different passage than Burnt Sienna or Pyrrol Red.
To create these swatches, I wet a rectangle of paper with clear water, then paint my primary color in the upper left corner. The secondary color is painted into the lower right corner. Then, I pick up the paper and encourage the two pigments to mingle. (I change water frequently to make sure there are no tints coming over from other colors.) In the first photo of yellows, the Hansa blend is nearly dry; Mars is still slightly shiny, and Raw Sienna has just been added.
Now that all three yellows are dry, you can see how the pigments settle into the paper as the water evaporates. Look at how different the texture is with the Hansa mix – there is almost an orange peel effect, while Mars Yellow has a milky effect. With Raw Sienna, the subtle pink tones of Hematite Burnt Scarlet create a soft orange with hints of purple.
Knowing this color a little better now, I’m excited to try it out on a new series of “rusty things” paintings I’m planning. Look at how it blends with Green Apatite Genuine – doesn’t that look like pitted metal?! The way HBS reacts with French Ultramarine looks like peeling paint, and the Cobalt Blue mix is pure rust. Not sure what to think of the Perylene Green blend…that one has me thinking of forest shadows…