Is there a resource that explains the color numbers? I am new to watercolors (well, painting in general in fact). Thank you for all your videos and craft tutorials.
Yes, I have a pigment database home page that talks about pigment code numbers at the top of the page here - www.kimcrick.com/pages/pigment-database-swatch-card-color-charts-for-watercolor-paint-ink-gouache-acrylic In a brief summary: to identify which pigment is the ingredient in a specific color of paint, the label on professional artist quality supplies will say something like "PV19" identifying it as "Pigment Violet #19". After "P" for "pigment" comes the color type, such as V=Violet (including purples through magenta), R=Red, O=Orange, Y=Yellow, G=Green, B=Blue, Bk=Black, Br=Brown, W=White. Each chemical type is assigned a number code, so you can tell that they are made of different minerals, dyes or man-made chemicals. PY150 for instance is Pigment Yellow #150 made from Nickel Azo Yellow chemically, a process involving the heavy metal that carries a health warning on the label due to people having Nickel allergies (like the plating on earrings). Because a brand can call it anything they want such as "burnt yellow" or "transparent yellow" it's much better for artists to know the ingredient code PY150 so we can see all of these colors, no matter the "name" on the label are indeed the same thing. Happy painting :)
Hey:) Just wanted to add that I only ventured over to watercolors about 6 months ago, and from watching Kim's videos/reading her blog (along with a couple others, like Lindsay- the frugal crafter) I've learned SOO MUCH!! So my advice is just keep watching, reading, and learning from her!😊 Ps. thankYOU Kim, you're more helpful than I can express!💖
@@Lacroix999 it signifies a slight chemical variation that is small enough to not change the main pigment code. For example pb15 is phthalo blue, but PB15:3 has a :3 to signify a different type of minor additive causing it to be phthablo blue "green shade", PB15:1 is "red shade". For Phthalo specifically it has to do with minor alterations such as chlorinating the copper particles, in other pigments it could be different salt bases, trace minerals, heating etc. Pr57 vs 57:1 is lithium on a sodium base vs lithium on a calcium base.
When I first rewatched this video after I decided to grow my collection of artist grade watercolours, I immediately went hunting for this colour, and honestly, I can never go back to the hansa yellow and gamboge in my DS mixing set that I started with. Nickel Azo Yellow and Green Gold PY129 have been the staple 'yellows' in my palette, and I feel like I can't paint anything without them. I love painting dramatic lighting with golden glow in them, and these two yellows are perfect for getting that lighting just right.
My palette has a bit of a story behind it. I’m an illustrator (mostly pen and ink), so my work doesn’t follow the “don’t use black” rule many watercolorists promote. I don’t disagree with this rule but black and white monochromatic work is my bread and butter, so I took a deep dive into finding the perfect black for my work. I ultimately decided on Daniel Smiths’ McCracken Black, which is a combination of 5 different DS paints and 7 different pigments. Wanting color/pigment harmony, I started researching the pigments used in McCracken Black to see if they’d be useful as part of my color palette. I discovered it was made with Prussian Blue (PB27), Carbazole Violet (PV23), Permanent Alizarin Crimson (a 3 pigment mix), some kind of PR101 pigment, and Nickel Azo Yellow. All of them seemed very useful so I decided to give them a try, with some modifications. I decided against DS’s Permanent Alizarin Crimson, prefering to use DaVinci’s single-pigment version, Alizarin Crimson Quinacridone (PV19) instead. After doing a bit more research on neutralizing complements I discovered some info on Handprint, with a little more on Jane Blundells’ website. I found that the best PR101 complement for Prussian Blue is Winsor & Newton’s Venetian Red, so that was added to my palette. I also included DaVinci’s Viridian (PG18) to complement their Alizarin Crimson Quinacridone, because it seemed to be the best version out there. Finally, I added Ultramarine Blue (PB29) and Benzimida Orange Deep (PO36) thanks to an interesting article on a four-color minimal palette on Jane Blundell’s website. They are another pair that neutralizes to a near-perfect black. So my palette at the moment is: 1. Viridian (DaVinci) 2. Prussian Blue (Daniel Smith) 3. Ultramarine Blue (Daniel Smith) 4. Carbazole Violet (Daniel Smith) 5. Alizarin Crimson Quin. (DaVinci) 6. Venetian Red (Winsor & Newton) 7. Benzimida Orange Deep (DaVinci) 8. Nickel Azo Yellow (DaVinci) 9. McCracken Black (Daniel Smith) 10. Permanent White Gouache (W&N) Each of the first eight paints has it’s perfect or near-perfect mixing complement, and five of them mix to form my favorite black. The other three, interestingly enough, combine to make something similar to Daniel Smith’s color separating mix Shadow Violet, using PO36 instead of PO73. I didn’t intend for this; it just worked out that way. 😅 I really like the versatility of my palette. The cool colors switch between granulating and non-granulating, so I can choose whether I want a granulating or a smooth textured mix for pretty much any cool hue between green and violet. Very useful!
I just bought the DS Nickel Azo yellow in the Jean Haines kit (on sale at Amazon). I was playing around with mixing and accidentally figured out that Nickel Azo Yellow sort of precipitates color out of Mars Blue. It was so fun watching the yellow chase the Mars blue across the page and create weird granulating curves and lines. I'm in love with the pigment.
I will repeat my comment from another video about yellows - I have PY150 on my pallet and feel like I don’t need any other yellow, because it mixes beautifully with everything. I also like mixing PY150 with medium purples. It makes nice rusty colour with yellow shining through the mix.
Thank you for all that great content and pigment information you provide! Transparent yellow from W & N was the first big paint tube I ever bought and I'm gIad I did. True, it is one of those few that re-wet a tiny little bit harder when dried from the tube (which I heard is not the case from the bought pans), but I love the color a lot and use it so much it doesn't get a chance to get too unresponsive ;) Anyway, along with Horadam (which I'm no fan of) it's the easiest available brand here. I use it to mix probably every time I open my tin and I wouldn't be surprised if I subconsciously snuggled some of it into every green I ever mixed. It makes almost any color flow better and look more vibrant.
I find your channel extremely informative, more so than I would have asked for and your voice is so soothing, you could put me to sleep at the same time if I didn’t want to learn so much about these colors!
Py150 is my absolute favorite yellow! I love the luminosity it creates, it almost glows. I find it the most versatie yellow. I have white nights and Daniel smith. I use and prefer my white nights most often.
Thank you for making your videos and sharing your swatches, pigment comparisons, mixing advice and demos, and all the rich content on your website. As I’ve been learning about watercolors over the last year I have found it all so informative and helpful. Thank you!!
I've been trying to find a way to do mixing charts for one of my larger palettes. Even at the 24 pan level mixing is pretty much mandatory to one extent or another.. but things get real in the size department in a hurry and the more you do the more crazy it gets to look at, at least for me. I was digging online and found a way to do this which is SO much better than the typical "rainbow" palette chart regardless of how many pans. You do two charts for the palette.. but each is set up differently and only requires half the number of squares. Between the two charts it covers all the mixes possible.. AND there are no duplicates! One mixes the warm tones on the top right half, and the cools on the bottom left. There is a division along the diagonal. So you line up your warm shades on the top and right sides (the same colors on both), and your cools on the bottom and left, and mix each square as usual, using half the chart at one time. It's ok if you don't have a matching number of cools and warms it just leaves a blank space. The second mixes neutrals... so it's the warm shades on the top and the cool shades on the left. Not only is this so much more compact.. it's WAY easier to find the shade you are looking for because it groups like colors together instead of having them scattered all over hundreds of squares. The top is all yellows, oranges, reds, warm browns... the bottom is all blues, greens, purples, and cool brown/greys. The neutrals are all the dusty soft shades. This is a game changer for me... I have never seen anyone do it before, and I've looked at a LOT of mixing charts/posts. I saved images of the charts but can't seem to post them here.
PY150 is my all rounder yellow. Great for bright greens, 'muddier greens, neutralising colours, skin tones. GLAZING! It is so luminous. I use Senneliers version. The only thing I don't use it for is creating strong oranges or warming reds. It still leans too cool to create the most vivid oranges. I use Hansa Y Deep (PY65) if I am looking for warmth. Or if I need a denser pigmentation with more opacity.
THANKS 🫶🫶👌 You are brilliant ! I m a semi noob and so interested in mixing my own colors & dupes! 😁 and I just discover your channel & website, and it is so interesting!! Please jeep on learning us how to mix all the pre mixes sold sometimes they are so expensive!😜😉 Have a nice day 🌸🦄🌸
Funny thing... I love how informative your videos are but my ADHD is off the rails. So much info on screen, then there's the info on audio which doesn't match with what's happening or with the blips of great info that flash by, topped with the sped up video... omg ... I've rewinded a billion times to catch it all.... I'm exhausted hahaha. Thanks for all the good info. PY150 is one of my favorite pigments!!
Excellent review and artwork as always! I love that I learn something new when watching your videos. Never really noticed that Holbein offers mixtures, but not a pure PY150. I absolutely agree on the usefulness of Nickel Azo Yellow, it's vibrancy and versatility make it such a valuable pigment. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the great comparison of the different Nickel Azo Yellow paints. 🎨💟 I have PY150 on my palette that I mix with PBr25 (both by Mission Gold) as a replacement for Quinacridone Gold. I think it can be a very good yellow in a limited color palette. I also have PY150 by White Nights. This is actually a PY150 if someone don't like the brown/ochre looking masstone of Nickel Azo Yellow.
This and a gamboge watercolor is my favorite yellows in watercolor. Super high tinted strength so with a little you get a super bright "lemon" yellow ish color...and with less water you get a super dark yellow to a brown or khaki color.
Watched this last week. Ordered some Da Vinci Nickel Azo Yellow. Came yesterday. Played with it for 2 hours last night. I had so much fun. Thank you so much for for this video!
I have DS azo nickel yellow on my palette but it has been underutilized. This video encourages me to use it more often for mixing instead of my other yellows. Excited to try some of the mixes you showed. Thanks!
Thank you so much for your amazing pigment and product reviews. You give all the information that I really want out of these kinds of informational sites and videos, that are so lacking in most of them. I've just discovered your site and channel and I am definitely going to become a patron because I want to support these helpful projects.
Thank you so much! I'm so glad to hear that you're finding the content helpful. I definitely strive to be thorough and informative after spending a long time struggling to figure things out myself. I really appreciate the kind words and support. Happy painting :)
I'm running a test palette without PY150 atm because I wanted to try some colder yellows, PY175 and PY184, and I knew if I had PY150 I'd just keep reaching for that, heh. I really, really like it. The others are cool and beautiful too, but PY150 just mixes like a beast, and I suspect that it will always have a place in my main palette.
OMG - Thank you! A realistic and reasonable approach to color mixing. Gotta admit - I adore QOR. Just dig your open mind - and agree there are options for all color, texture approaches for everyone's needs. Color mixing - even within brands - is exciting......which is what art and creation should be about, no?
Hi, Kimberly! Beautiful fairy as always. I only have one paint based on P.Y.150 and it's White Nights Indian Yellow by Nevskaya Palitra. I remember being surprised when I unwrapped the pan and saw how green the paint was %-) I expected it to be yellow. But it was green! I thought it was a mistake. But I still made a swatch. Then the magic began when from the earthy greenish masstone it went to a super bright yellow! And I loved it :) I used it often at first, and for quite a while. Now that its novelty faded a little, I'm back to using various other yellows, but mostly White Nights Auerolin (P.Y.151) which is my favourite yellow for now.
Oh yes, White Nights PY151 is lovely! I remember being so worried when I saw it was called Aureolin, because of the fugitive PY40 version, but was so happy that it was such a pretty hue. It mixes so well with reds for orange colors :)
I think one of the best aspects of PY150 is its depth in mass tone. I think that is soooo underrated. It is amazing at neutralizing dioxine violet/purple. It is one of the only deep yellows that can make deep mixture without lighten the value too much.
Azo yellow and Scarlet Pyrole are the only 2 M.Graham tubes i can deal with because the puddles or containers alllllways attract gnats, flies, anything that loves honey. But when washed out, that same honey gives the pigments a flow not possible in other mixtures. The pink/orange of the washed out Scarlet Pyrole has an evenness of tone that is antithetical to the heavy granulation you can achieve when used in stronger amounts. I love pigments that can wash out smoothly and granulate in heavier combos. My current fave natural neutral is m.g. scarlet pyrole and D.S. Indigo. I deeply appreciate your own fondness for unusual and granulating pigments!
M. Graham has the most beautiful, strong, easy to re-wet, deep green granulating Viridian PG18 I could find. If you love granulating mixtures, there may be one more M. Graham paint to be willing to deal with the little extra tediousness of being so heavy handed with honey. I will say though, in the case of Viridian, the extra honey was a really really good thing because this pigment is normally so hard to re-wet in other brands. Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick forgot to mention I stopped looking at viridian because of the messy re-wet issues, I never considered it a binder issue but if the m.g. brand re-wets and granulates well, you will have made great help with my current project. Thank you again.
I guess that companies call PY150 so different. Daniel Smith call it really Nickel Azo Yellow. But w&n Transparent Yellow, White Nights Indian Yellow, they have Indian Gold which is supposed to be Quinacridone Gold ... I love this color and the transition between dark to light, it's totally different, in my humble opinion. Thank you!
Yes, she did, definitely seemed worth mentioning since at least a couple artists have reported the same issue. Just that brand though, could be that a secondary ingredient/acid/binder additive is having a chemical reaction over time. I've never seen this happen in another PY150.
GREAT video! It would be really awesome to see you do this kind of video for all the main, most useful, most popular pigments...idk just an unsolicited thought.. lol...Thanks for sharing. Much love from Tucson AZ
Ooooh, those look gorgeous. I just got started on cautiously stepping into the realm of artist grade water colours and got some pans of Schmincke colours (since they're German brand, so local to me. No Nickel Azu Yellow included yet, but the Quin Gold Hue, so at least something close to this. It's on my wish list, though). I love the colours, but I'm still a bit biased because of the ox gall in them :/. I know, that's like a real traditional ingredient, it's probably there anyway because of the meat industry and I'm not vegan, just vegetarian - but still, I wish they wouldn't use that stuff anymore. Then those colours would be just perfect for me!
I literally just bought a tube of Nickel Azo Yellow with the intention of making it my only yellow (replacing Azo Yellow PY151, a little warmer and less dynamic). Thanks for the affirmation! Slightly unrelated question, but since you mentioned Sennelier's quality a few times in your video: I have the Sennelier 48 set but after swatching and reviewing the pigments I was concerned that in many places they use mixes in places of standard, relatively affordable, single pigments. It's put me off using the set, perhaps irrationally. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Sennelier's use of multi-pigment blends. I haven't really used them enough to notice a problem with mixing, just curious if you had experience with this particular issue.
I really appreciate Sennelier's way of making paint (binder and pigment mulling) since it results in super smooth blending. So many of their colors, both single pigment and mixtures, are transparent and layer very well. Whenever possible I collect single pigment paints instead of mixtures, but this is more to narrow down the necessary part of my collection (and spend less money over time). I simplify my palette because I understand color mixing, but in general big 48 pan set assortments are usually aimed at those seeking convenience or beginners who are uncertain about which pigments to collect. Try to look at the mixtures they offer not as a negative, but rather as a shortcut for those who just want to pick up and paint instead of doing much color mixing themselves. Are there any of those colors that you like the look of, and may have mixed yourself anyway? I can appreciate them sometimes, there's nothing terribly wrong with having convenience mixtures. Sennelier tends to offer lightfast ones that help expand their catalog to cover colors they don't have the single pigment ingredient for. Often they are done without too much complexity or chalky opacity that might cause them to instantly make mud in complex mixtures. (Some complain about mixtures when they accidentally create muddy browns, but this is usually avoidable by knowing not to mix complimentary colors together that make browns/grays). While I'll always recommend buying just the core single pigment ones, they do make a couple amazingly beautiful convenience mixtures like the 3 I used in this painting. Their forest green is often in pan sets, and as a beginner it was one of my favorite colors. Surprisingly, for having PW6 white in it, the cobalt violet light and deep hues they make are so unusual in wet washes (even color separating) that I enjoy them as something I would not have thought to mix myself. I loved how it looked as a gradient with PY150 at 7:45 ... Though I would probably only use that complex of a mixture in situations like that (where it's NOT further mixed with other colors, but rather just next to other colors). I would use the mixtures to see if any suit you, then as a recipe guide for how to make your favorite colors in the future. Happy painting :)
Thank you for this review. I have several PY150 colors in several professional brands. Love this color. I still consider myself a beginner/intermediate. I've been trying to figure out what pigments to place in my new palette. This pigment will certainly be one of them. Probably from my Sennelier set. I also love your painting demo at the end of each review.
Just as a general question, would you say that you could you py150 as a replacement for the winsor and newton new gamboge? Or is W&N's more orange compared to py150? Cause I believe its made with 2 pigments, I think, and I have been looking for a single pigment that has a similar color to theirs.
I absolutely love Winsor and Newton's new gamboge. It's a mixture of 2 of my top recommended pigments, PY150 Nickel Azo Yellow and PR209 Quin Red. Because I put both of those colors on my palette, I mix my own gamboge, but if you find you use this color a lot it's not a problem to use the convenience mixture. Heck, if I used it all the time I would just mix a little of my two tubes of paint into a tray anyway to avoid having to re-mix it each time I paint. Because both of those pigments are lightfast, transparent and uniquely useful, I would accept this simple mixture and not try to replace it. Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick Ok thanks for the info, I had recently looked into trying to find a more cheaper version and I couldn't really. I did try the gamboge from M. Graham and boy, I didn't expect it to be as orange as it was, really should stop going by names of paints, but I still enjoy it, just not a replace ment for the new gamboge though.
Thank you for a great video! I wanna love PY150 and have tried White Nights, Roman Szmal (mine had a weird texture but was the brightest of the three) and Daniel Smith (the warmest one), but found I always end up not liking that it looks "dirty" when applied with a heavier hand. After that I discovered Daniel Smith's Indian Yellow, which is a very happy medium for me. I give up some of the transparency to gain a brighter, more sunny, less dirty yellow that still has a lot of depth. If I want it deeper and more like a PY150 in masstone I add my W&N Quin. Gold (my fave Q. Gold hue, it mixes magically. ), it gives me the same depth but with more warmth to it, and I absolutely love it! ☺️
PY150 is certainly brownish when used heavy handed and I can totally understand being thrown off by that. I try to put a tiny amount on my mixing palette to gently add to other colors, because it can overpower things when not careful. As such though it also lasts me forever, barely needing any pigment for mixtures. Thank you for sharing your favorite alternatives! I can see appreciating Indian Yellow and Quin Gold! That D.Smith Indian Yellow totally helps you use less PY150, it dilutes it by adding just enough PY97 into it to prevent that brown masstone. Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick Thank you, that is great advice! I still have a bit of the Daniel Smith one and will now get to practicing with it eventually. And yes, that is exactly it! Plus, I LOVE the masstone of it, which means it's a yellow I would have wanted to mix myself anyways, so it turns out it's a convenience mix for me. I have learned to much from comments under awesome videos like yours, so now I try to share myself in hopes of returning the favour. ☺️
Oh thank you for this great video about my loved Nickel Azo Yellow. I have DS and Roman Szmal and I mostly grab the Szmal one. I don't see a huge difference though.
Depending on the climate you live in (dry or humid) they can seem more different because of the way they re-wet. Roman Szmal has some honey content and additives that promote always staying slightly moist, so they tend to give you a quicker wet-brush swipe to that dark masstone brown than other brands. Otherwise all of the versions look very similar and you can't go too wrong with any of them :)
That CAT! 7:02 (I know this is about py150 and I very much appreciate it 🙇♀️ ❤️ but your cat is amazing! (I'm new, sorry): do you have a video about that painting? Also came here looking for a burnt sienna video. Newbie wc attempt-artist in at 4 months, and I've even unloaded some paintings (with a love for the medium but a visual impairment requiring dark glasses: I didn't think anyone would like them)!
Glad you liked and found the Florida Panther painting! I'll keep burnt sienna in mind for a spotlight video, I'll be doing some very interesting granulating browns and red iron oxides next. Happy painting :)
Hi! What a great video! I'm wondering about Rosa Gallery's PY150. In your pigmentdatabase it seems to be as strong as qor's? Is there a reason that you did not include that? Is it ok? Love from Sweden!
Nearly all PY150 from any brand is quite strong, as this pigment is very intense. I did not find Qor to be more intense than Roman Szmal, Da Vinci or Rosa Gallery - all of them are great options. Though I generally do not like Qor's flow/disperse properties. Some brands lean slightly more warmer in tone, but the deep brownish color masstone is generally achieved by all. This video was made over a year ago, so it is likely I simply did not own Rosa's at the time it was recorded. In general I love Rosa, but they are nearly impossible to purchase individual colors here and I really hope they are able to continue to succeed after the problems in Ukraine. If you can easily purchase them where you live, then they are wonderful paints - certainly nothing wrong with them.
Thank you for the comparisons. I loved the way nickel azo yellow swatched, it looks like it flows. anyways I had a question about watercolor brands as it is near my birthday, and I am trying to pick a set to buy for myself. I already have the Rembrandt 48, Lukas 48, Rosa gallery 28 and white nights 36 sets but I’m not sure if I want to buy the individual pans for the rest of Rosa gallery and white nights line or go for a more traditional/rlly artist grade watercolor like smincke, Daniel Smith or sennelier. Would you be able to make any recommendations? As of right now, I am considering scmincke’s 36 set and sennelier’s 24 or 48 pan set and the individual half pans for Rosa gallery + white nights. I will probably order from Jackson’s or omniaproart’s website. Thanks for the review, honestly it made my day:)
I think the answer to your question will depend in part on what you like and where you live. May I suggest you buy yourself at least one tube of Sennelier and one tube of DS *ahead* of time and see which of the two you personally enjoy working with? (Don't get Lapis Lazuli from DS it's notorious for being super difficult to achieve color payout when you rewet, and therefore is nowhere near representative of their line.) Question one is do you like paints that granulate, or paints that glaze beautifully? As a VERY basic reductive rule of thumb, if you are in the market for paints that are super excellent for glazing? Choose Sennelier. In a similarly over-simplified way, if you want paints from a line that specialize in granulating pigments? Then Daniel Smith. If you like earth tones and chose Sennelier as your main brand, you might still want to remember that DS has an unusually wide range of earth tones for what most paint manufacturers do, and that's a good place to start looking if you've got a pigment you really wish you had. ONE EXTRA NOTE: If you live somewhere very humid (Florida, Virginia, England, Kyoto Japan, parts of Australia etc) Sennelier may not be right for you because they contain honey, which is a humectant, which means it draws water to it. Jane Blundel, who lives in a humid part of Australia, has complained about the honey in some of her paints molding cause it never dries out completely. If you live somewhere more arid (Arizona, Colorado, blah blah blah), Sennelier will be your best friend, cause it'll be much easier to rewet instantly. I live in an arid area right now and have DS and Sennelier paints. My Sennelier paints I squeezed out into a pan are ready to go much faster than my DS paints. I've not heard of anyone complaining about honey-based paints in a place with a more neutral humidity, so it'll likely be lovely there too
@@annedavis3340 Thank you for chiming in! I think after collecting several pan sets the right move is to collect a few single pigment tube paints from a few companies to test them out as well. I definitely recommend looking at the pigment codes for paints you already own and looking for something new to try - otherwise you could end up with a ton of paint that is very similar. I live in Florida, but I have a totally fine time using Sennelier, M Graham and Roman Szmal inside - but not for travel/where the box might get shaken because it's true they are always sticky. I don't get mold in any paints since I switched to bottled water/purified/distilled for painting because my tap water was prone to introducing mold spores to things.
There are many Rosa Gallery and White Nights single pigment colors that are just as good as any more expensive professional brand. Rosa Gallery's Magenta PR122 is actually my top choice for a primary mixing color even better than D.Smith, Schmincke or Qor. Each brand does something particularly well and particularly bad. Like Anne said, avoid certain hard to deal with pigments like Lapis Lazuli, azurite, malachite, viridian and potters pink in both Daniel Smith and Roman Szmal - they are hard to work with. Otherwise I would focus on finding unique interesting pigments you want to try and order a couple tubes. It sounds like you have enough pan assortments, you won't gain much variety by adding more of that type of set to your catalog. Happy painting :)
@@annedavis3340 thank you so much for your extensive comment! I really appreciate it. Based on what Kimberly crick also said, I might just stick with Rosa gallery and white nights and get some individual half pans since I already have a lot of pan sets. I do have some sennelier tubes and while they are nice, I am not quite in love with them. I definitely live for granulation but will not buy Daniel Smith for now as I feel that they are a major temptation for me with so many gorgeous colors available lol. I live in a very humid area so honey based paints are prolly not a good idea, but that might change in the future if I move elsewhere. Thanks for the well wishes for my birthday, I am looking forward to hopefully receiving my paints by then.
Depending on brand, white nights version of py150 is called Indian yellow and their version of quin gold is called indian gold py150 and pr 101 I believe.
Brands can label the ingredient PY150 Nickel Azo yellow any color name they want. I've seen Indian Yellow, Burnt Yellow, Transparent Yellow and Yellow Lake as names for PY150 based paints. However, in the case of Paul Rubens you mentioned in your other comment, their Indian Yellow was labeled as PY83 for mine - so it seems different from their one actually labeled as Nickel Azo. They sometimes mislabel and typo on their products though, so the pigment could have been incorrect on a color chart. Happy painting :)
Where are these gorgeous stamps from you've used for the swatches? Thank you for this amazing vid. Must have taken hours of work get everything together for us!
I wonder if something is up with your swatch, after over a year my Mission Gold green gold, py150 is perfectly fine exactly as it is straight out of the tube.
It's very stable in the tube and I don't even see this issue immediately after using it from dry. Oddly, many months after painted I have two separate samples that look slightly greenish. I can only guess they possibly chemically changed only after interacting with something* else (I wish I knew exactly what, possibly by the presence of humidity, non-purified mixing water, other coatings on paper or even by using them with other paints like cobalts that can have chemical interactions). Either way, since I've also verified that I'm not the only one to have had this issue, I made the note just in case. You can see Denise Soden of Liquid Color had the same thing occur at - ua-cam.com/video/b_19Vpr3tMA/v-deo.html
@@KimberlyCrick Thanks for responding. So far so good with mine, so I'm going to stick with it. Maybe it's the paper? I wonder if you and Denise use the same paper.
No, gamboge is a made up color name for any deep yellow combination of pigments a brand decides to mix together. It's often 2 to 3 different pigments mixed to achieve a deep yellow, sometimes using pigments like py110, py97, py108, py153 and sometimes does include a touch of PY150. Pure PY150 is typically labeled as Nickel Azo Yellow, but sometimes aureoline (hue), so it's best to check your tube label for the pigment number code to be sure what the actual ingredient is.
I'm so sorry, it's a very strange issue I think has to do with a chemical reaction from how they process it. I've never seen any other brand start to turn greenish over time, but a couple people I know have had the same problem with Mission Gold (Denise Soden of In Liquid Color mentioned having it happen to hers in her PY150 video too). I like it too! On the bright side there are a lot of brands that make it, so hopefully you can find one that you can really enjoy. Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick I'm glad I know now though, thankfully I usually use Sennelier in pieces and the Mijello one is in my travel palette, but I'm a bit heartbroken 😭 I have Qor, Mijello, Schmincke, Old Holland, White Nights, Holbein and Daniel Smith and although all are pretty, I really liked Mijello's version! Which would you pick?
@@KimberlyCrick Thank you! I love this type of videos by the way, actually, all your videos are a pleasure. I find myself enjoying them most since you've started narrating :) Keep up the good work 👍
Is there a resource that explains the color numbers? I am new to watercolors (well, painting in general in fact). Thank you for all your videos and craft tutorials.
Yes, I have a pigment database home page that talks about pigment code numbers at the top of the page here - www.kimcrick.com/pages/pigment-database-swatch-card-color-charts-for-watercolor-paint-ink-gouache-acrylic
In a brief summary: to identify which pigment is the ingredient in a specific color of paint, the label on professional artist quality supplies will say something like "PV19" identifying it as "Pigment Violet #19". After "P" for "pigment" comes the color type, such as V=Violet (including purples through magenta), R=Red, O=Orange, Y=Yellow, G=Green, B=Blue, Bk=Black, Br=Brown, W=White. Each chemical type is assigned a number code, so you can tell that they are made of different minerals, dyes or man-made chemicals. PY150 for instance is Pigment Yellow #150 made from Nickel Azo Yellow chemically, a process involving the heavy metal that carries a health warning on the label due to people having Nickel allergies (like the plating on earrings). Because a brand can call it anything they want such as "burnt yellow" or "transparent yellow" it's much better for artists to know the ingredient code PY150 so we can see all of these colors, no matter the "name" on the label are indeed the same thing. Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick Thank you so much!
Hey:) Just wanted to add that I only ventured over to watercolors about 6 months ago, and from watching Kim's videos/reading her blog (along with a couple others, like Lindsay- the frugal crafter) I've learned SOO MUCH!! So my advice is just keep watching, reading, and learning from her!😊
Ps. thankYOU Kim, you're more helpful than I can express!💖
@@KimberlyCrick I have a question: what does the (:) mean in the colors like on color PR57:1 for example?
@@Lacroix999 it signifies a slight chemical variation that is small enough to not change the main pigment code. For example pb15 is phthalo blue, but PB15:3 has a :3 to signify a different type of minor additive causing it to be phthablo blue "green shade", PB15:1 is "red shade". For Phthalo specifically it has to do with minor alterations such as chlorinating the copper particles, in other pigments it could be different salt bases, trace minerals, heating etc. Pr57 vs 57:1 is lithium on a sodium base vs lithium on a calcium base.
When I first rewatched this video after I decided to grow my collection of artist grade watercolours, I immediately went hunting for this colour, and honestly, I can never go back to the hansa yellow and gamboge in my DS mixing set that I started with. Nickel Azo Yellow and Green Gold PY129 have been the staple 'yellows' in my palette, and I feel like I can't paint anything without them. I love painting dramatic lighting with golden glow in them, and these two yellows are perfect for getting that lighting just right.
My palette has a bit of a story behind it. I’m an illustrator (mostly pen and ink), so my work doesn’t follow the “don’t use black” rule many watercolorists promote. I don’t disagree with this rule but black and white monochromatic work is my bread and butter, so I took a deep dive into finding the perfect black for my work. I ultimately decided on Daniel Smiths’ McCracken Black, which is a combination of 5 different DS paints and 7 different pigments.
Wanting color/pigment harmony, I started researching the pigments used in McCracken Black to see if they’d be useful as part of my color palette. I discovered it was made with Prussian Blue (PB27), Carbazole Violet (PV23), Permanent Alizarin Crimson (a 3 pigment mix), some kind of PR101 pigment, and Nickel Azo Yellow. All of them seemed very useful so I decided to give them a try, with some modifications. I decided against DS’s Permanent Alizarin Crimson, prefering to use DaVinci’s single-pigment version, Alizarin Crimson Quinacridone (PV19) instead.
After doing a bit more research on neutralizing complements I discovered some info on Handprint, with a little more on Jane Blundells’ website. I found that the best PR101 complement for Prussian Blue is Winsor & Newton’s Venetian Red, so that was added to my palette. I also included DaVinci’s Viridian (PG18) to complement their Alizarin Crimson Quinacridone, because it seemed to be the best version out there.
Finally, I added Ultramarine Blue (PB29) and Benzimida Orange Deep (PO36) thanks to an interesting article on a four-color minimal palette on Jane Blundell’s website. They are another pair that neutralizes to a near-perfect black.
So my palette at the moment is:
1. Viridian (DaVinci)
2. Prussian Blue (Daniel Smith)
3. Ultramarine Blue (Daniel Smith)
4. Carbazole Violet (Daniel Smith)
5. Alizarin Crimson Quin. (DaVinci)
6. Venetian Red (Winsor & Newton)
7. Benzimida Orange Deep (DaVinci)
8. Nickel Azo Yellow (DaVinci)
9. McCracken Black (Daniel Smith)
10. Permanent White Gouache (W&N)
Each of the first eight paints has it’s perfect or near-perfect mixing complement, and five of them mix to form my favorite black. The other three, interestingly enough, combine to make something similar to Daniel Smith’s color separating mix Shadow Violet, using PO36 instead of PO73. I didn’t intend for this; it just worked out that way. 😅
I really like the versatility of my palette. The cool colors switch between granulating and non-granulating, so I can choose whether I want a granulating or a smooth textured mix for pretty much any cool hue between green and violet. Very useful!
Your permanent color pallet is most excellent 👌
Thanks for sharing your perspective
I like that you discuss pigments, rather than the fantasy/marketing names the manufacturers give to their paints.
I just bought the DS Nickel Azo yellow in the Jean Haines kit (on sale at Amazon). I was playing around with mixing and accidentally figured out that Nickel Azo Yellow sort of precipitates color out of Mars Blue. It was so fun watching the yellow chase the Mars blue across the page and create weird granulating curves and lines. I'm in love with the pigment.
I just bought a tube of sennelier Yellow Lake on Amazon. $3.99! It took me a while to suss out that it has a different name in other brands.
oh wow what a deal!!
I will repeat my comment from another video about yellows - I have PY150 on my pallet and feel like I don’t need any other yellow, because it mixes beautifully with everything.
I also like mixing PY150 with medium purples. It makes nice rusty colour with yellow shining through the mix.
Can you specify what you mean by "medium purples"? Love to try what you are suggesting! Thanks.
Thank you for all that great content and pigment information you provide! Transparent yellow from W & N was the first big paint tube I ever bought and I'm gIad I did. True, it is one of those few that re-wet a tiny little bit harder when dried from the tube (which I heard is not the case from the bought pans), but I love the color a lot and use it so much it doesn't get a chance to get too unresponsive ;) Anyway, along with Horadam (which I'm no fan of) it's the easiest available brand here. I use it to mix probably every time I open my tin and I wouldn't be surprised if I subconsciously snuggled some of it into every green I ever mixed. It makes almost any color flow better and look more vibrant.
I find your channel extremely informative, more so than I would have asked for and your voice is so soothing, you could put me to sleep at the same time if I didn’t want to learn so much about these colors!
I totally agree! PY150 is my favorite yellow too.It’s so versatile and can mix any natural green with PB15, PG7, PG36, or PBk31. Excellent review!
What a great idea, I'm going to have to spend some quality time with PBk31 mixtures - sounds lovely!
Yes, great idea about pbk31!
You sound like an english teacher teaching art, and I love it!!
Py150 is my absolute favorite yellow! I love the luminosity it creates, it almost glows. I find it the most versatie yellow. I have white nights and Daniel smith. I use and prefer my white nights most often.
Thank you for making your videos and sharing your swatches, pigment comparisons, mixing advice and demos, and all the rich content on your website. As I’ve been learning about watercolors over the last year I have found it all so informative and helpful. Thank you!!
I've been trying to find a way to do mixing charts for one of my larger palettes. Even at the 24 pan level mixing is pretty much mandatory to one extent or another.. but things get real in the size department in a hurry and the more you do the more crazy it gets to look at, at least for me. I was digging online and found a way to do this which is SO much better than the typical "rainbow" palette chart regardless of how many pans. You do two charts for the palette.. but each is set up differently and only requires half the number of squares. Between the two charts it covers all the mixes possible.. AND there are no duplicates! One mixes the warm tones on the top right half, and the cools on the bottom left. There is a division along the diagonal. So you line up your warm shades on the top and right sides (the same colors on both), and your cools on the bottom and left, and mix each square as usual, using half the chart at one time. It's ok if you don't have a matching number of cools and warms it just leaves a blank space. The second mixes neutrals... so it's the warm shades on the top and the cool shades on the left. Not only is this so much more compact.. it's WAY easier to find the shade you are looking for because it groups like colors together instead of having them scattered all over hundreds of squares. The top is all yellows, oranges, reds, warm browns... the bottom is all blues, greens, purples, and cool brown/greys. The neutrals are all the dusty soft shades. This is a game changer for me... I have never seen anyone do it before, and I've looked at a LOT of mixing charts/posts. I saved images of the charts but can't seem to post them here.
You’re so educated in watercolor! I love it. I don’t understand why you’re not more popular! I look forward to seeing you grow.
PY150 is my all rounder yellow. Great for bright greens, 'muddier greens, neutralising colours, skin tones. GLAZING! It is so luminous. I use Senneliers version. The only thing I don't use it for is creating strong oranges or warming reds. It still leans too cool to create the most vivid oranges. I use Hansa Y Deep (PY65) if I am looking for warmth. Or if I need a denser pigmentation with more opacity.
THANKS 🫶🫶👌 You are brilliant ! I m a semi noob and so interested in mixing my own colors & dupes! 😁 and I just discover your channel & website, and it is so interesting!! Please jeep on learning us how to mix all the pre mixes sold sometimes they are so expensive!😜😉
Have a nice day 🌸🦄🌸
I have Schmincke and Sennelier PY150. My favorite yellow!
Funny thing... I love how informative your videos are but my ADHD is off the rails. So much info on screen, then there's the info on audio which doesn't match with what's happening or with the blips of great info that flash by, topped with the sped up video... omg ... I've rewinded a billion times to catch it all.... I'm exhausted hahaha. Thanks for all the good info. PY150 is one of my favorite pigments!!
Excellent review and artwork as always! I love that I learn something new when watching your videos. Never really noticed that Holbein offers mixtures, but not a pure PY150. I absolutely agree on the usefulness of Nickel Azo Yellow, it's vibrancy and versatility make it such a valuable pigment. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the great comparison of the different Nickel Azo Yellow paints. 🎨💟
I have PY150 on my palette that I mix with PBr25 (both by Mission Gold) as a replacement for Quinacridone Gold. I think it can be a very good yellow in a limited color palette. I also have PY150 by White Nights. This is actually a PY150 if someone don't like the brown/ochre looking masstone of Nickel Azo Yellow.
This and a gamboge watercolor is my favorite yellows in watercolor. Super high tinted strength so with a little you get a super bright "lemon" yellow ish color...and with less water you get a super dark yellow to a brown or khaki color.
One of the best color spotlights I've ever seen. Thanks so much! ❤️
Watched this last week. Ordered some Da Vinci Nickel Azo Yellow. Came yesterday. Played with it for 2 hours last night. I had so much fun. Thank you so much for for this video!
I'm so glad to hear that, I love the mixtures it can make! Happy painting :)
I have DS azo nickel yellow on my palette but it has been underutilized. This video encourages me to use it more often for mixing instead of my other yellows. Excited to try some of the mixes you showed. Thanks!
Thank you so much for your amazing pigment and product reviews. You give all the information that I really want out of these kinds of informational sites and videos, that are so lacking in most of them. I've just discovered your site and channel and I am definitely going to become a patron because I want to support these helpful projects.
Thank you so much! I'm so glad to hear that you're finding the content helpful. I definitely strive to be thorough and informative after spending a long time struggling to figure things out myself. I really appreciate the kind words and support. Happy painting :)
I'm running a test palette without PY150 atm because I wanted to try some colder yellows, PY175 and PY184, and I knew if I had PY150 I'd just keep reaching for that, heh.
I really, really like it.
The others are cool and beautiful too, but PY150 just mixes like a beast, and I suspect that it will always have a place in my main palette.
Really interesting! Nickel azo yellow has been one of my favorites since i first started painting. Love the coral tones you got with it!
OMG - Thank you! A realistic and reasonable approach to color mixing. Gotta admit - I adore QOR. Just dig your open mind - and agree there are options for all color, texture approaches for everyone's needs. Color mixing - even within brands - is exciting......which is what art and creation should be about, no?
Thank you for the PY 150 overview. Glad to know yiu plan to do this with your other go to colors.
I love your formating for the color swatch. It's so organized and easy to see. Thank you for sharing. It's very helpful.
Hi, Kimberly! Beautiful fairy as always. I only have one paint based on P.Y.150 and it's White Nights Indian Yellow by Nevskaya Palitra. I remember being surprised when I unwrapped the pan and saw how green the paint was %-) I expected it to be yellow. But it was green! I thought it was a mistake. But I still made a swatch. Then the magic began when from the earthy greenish masstone it went to a super bright yellow! And I loved it :) I used it often at first, and for quite a while. Now that its novelty faded a little, I'm back to using various other yellows, but mostly White Nights Auerolin (P.Y.151) which is my favourite yellow for now.
Oh yes, White Nights PY151 is lovely! I remember being so worried when I saw it was called Aureolin, because of the fugitive PY40 version, but was so happy that it was such a pretty hue. It mixes so well with reds for orange colors :)
I think one of the best aspects of PY150 is its depth in mass tone. I think that is soooo underrated. It is amazing at neutralizing dioxine violet/purple. It is one of the only deep yellows that can make deep mixture without lighten the value too much.
I love your videos sooo much!!- why you didnt upload any for such a long time? 😢
I have 4 PY150s. Love them!
Excited for this video! PY150 is also my go to yellow if I can only choose one, for when I try a new brand or for a travel palette!
Lucky to find your channel, Kim... thanks for sharing 💕😍🌌🔔✨
PY150 is a great Yellow indeed and the mixtures are beautiful and look natural to me. It certainly belongs into every palette. :)
Azo yellow and Scarlet Pyrole are the only 2 M.Graham tubes i can deal with because the puddles or containers alllllways attract gnats, flies, anything that loves honey. But when washed out, that same honey gives the pigments a flow not possible in other mixtures. The pink/orange of the washed out Scarlet Pyrole has an evenness of tone that is antithetical to the heavy granulation you can achieve when used in stronger amounts. I love pigments that can wash out smoothly and granulate in heavier combos. My current fave natural neutral is m.g. scarlet pyrole and D.S. Indigo. I deeply appreciate your own fondness for unusual and granulating pigments!
M. Graham has the most beautiful, strong, easy to re-wet, deep green granulating Viridian PG18 I could find. If you love granulating mixtures, there may be one more M. Graham paint to be willing to deal with the little extra tediousness of being so heavy handed with honey. I will say though, in the case of Viridian, the extra honey was a really really good thing because this pigment is normally so hard to re-wet in other brands. Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick forgot to mention I stopped looking at viridian because of the messy re-wet issues, I never considered it a binder issue but if the m.g. brand re-wets and granulates well, you will have made great help with my current project. Thank you again.
I guess that companies call PY150 so different. Daniel Smith call it really Nickel Azo Yellow. But w&n Transparent Yellow, White Nights Indian Yellow, they have Indian Gold which is supposed to be Quinacridone Gold ... I love this color and the transition between dark to light, it's totally different, in my humble opinion. Thank you!
if i'm not mistaken, Denise of In Liquid Color also observed that her Mission Gold PY150 swatch turned green over time.
Yes, she did, definitely seemed worth mentioning since at least a couple artists have reported the same issue. Just that brand though, could be that a secondary ingredient/acid/binder additive is having a chemical reaction over time. I've never seen this happen in another PY150.
That's good to know. I just got a set of Mission Gold recently.
GREAT video! It would be really awesome to see you do this kind of video for all the main, most useful, most popular pigments...idk just an unsolicited thought.. lol...Thanks for sharing. Much love from Tucson AZ
Ooooh, those look gorgeous. I just got started on cautiously stepping into the realm of artist grade water colours and got some pans of Schmincke colours (since they're German brand, so local to me. No Nickel Azu Yellow included yet, but the Quin Gold Hue, so at least something close to this. It's on my wish list, though). I love the colours, but I'm still a bit biased because of the ox gall in them :/. I know, that's like a real traditional ingredient, it's probably there anyway because of the meat industry and I'm not vegan, just vegetarian - but still, I wish they wouldn't use that stuff anymore. Then those colours would be just perfect for me!
I literally just bought a tube of Nickel Azo Yellow with the intention of making it my only yellow (replacing Azo Yellow PY151, a little warmer and less dynamic). Thanks for the affirmation! Slightly unrelated question, but since you mentioned Sennelier's quality a few times in your video: I have the Sennelier 48 set but after swatching and reviewing the pigments I was concerned that in many places they use mixes in places of standard, relatively affordable, single pigments. It's put me off using the set, perhaps irrationally. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Sennelier's use of multi-pigment blends. I haven't really used them enough to notice a problem with mixing, just curious if you had experience with this particular issue.
I really appreciate Sennelier's way of making paint (binder and pigment mulling) since it results in super smooth blending. So many of their colors, both single pigment and mixtures, are transparent and layer very well. Whenever possible I collect single pigment paints instead of mixtures, but this is more to narrow down the necessary part of my collection (and spend less money over time). I simplify my palette because I understand color mixing, but in general big 48 pan set assortments are usually aimed at those seeking convenience or beginners who are uncertain about which pigments to collect. Try to look at the mixtures they offer not as a negative, but rather as a shortcut for those who just want to pick up and paint instead of doing much color mixing themselves. Are there any of those colors that you like the look of, and may have mixed yourself anyway?
I can appreciate them sometimes, there's nothing terribly wrong with having convenience mixtures. Sennelier tends to offer lightfast ones that help expand their catalog to cover colors they don't have the single pigment ingredient for. Often they are done without too much complexity or chalky opacity that might cause them to instantly make mud in complex mixtures. (Some complain about mixtures when they accidentally create muddy browns, but this is usually avoidable by knowing not to mix complimentary colors together that make browns/grays). While I'll always recommend buying just the core single pigment ones, they do make a couple amazingly beautiful convenience mixtures like the 3 I used in this painting. Their forest green is often in pan sets, and as a beginner it was one of my favorite colors. Surprisingly, for having PW6 white in it, the cobalt violet light and deep hues they make are so unusual in wet washes (even color separating) that I enjoy them as something I would not have thought to mix myself. I loved how it looked as a gradient with PY150 at 7:45 ... Though I would probably only use that complex of a mixture in situations like that (where it's NOT further mixed with other colors, but rather just next to other colors). I would use the mixtures to see if any suit you, then as a recipe guide for how to make your favorite colors in the future. Happy painting :)
Thank you for this review. I have several PY150 colors in several professional brands. Love this color. I still consider myself a beginner/intermediate. I've been trying to figure out what pigments to place in my new palette. This pigment will certainly be one of them. Probably from my Sennelier set. I also love your painting demo at the end of each review.
I prefer PY154 as my primary yellow, it’s a bit less aggressive, but PY150 is irreplaceable in certain cases.
Such a thorough deep dive into PY150! You may have changed my mind about this one. :)
Couldn't agree more - thank you!
Just as a general question, would you say that you could you py150 as a replacement for the winsor and newton new gamboge? Or is W&N's more orange compared to py150? Cause I believe its made with 2 pigments, I think, and I have been looking for a single pigment that has a similar color to theirs.
I absolutely love Winsor and Newton's new gamboge. It's a mixture of 2 of my top recommended pigments, PY150 Nickel Azo Yellow and PR209 Quin Red. Because I put both of those colors on my palette, I mix my own gamboge, but if you find you use this color a lot it's not a problem to use the convenience mixture. Heck, if I used it all the time I would just mix a little of my two tubes of paint into a tray anyway to avoid having to re-mix it each time I paint. Because both of those pigments are lightfast, transparent and uniquely useful, I would accept this simple mixture and not try to replace it. Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick Ok thanks for the info, I had recently looked into trying to find a more cheaper version and I couldn't really. I did try the gamboge from M. Graham and boy, I didn't expect it to be as orange as it was, really should stop going by names of paints, but I still enjoy it, just not a replace ment for the new gamboge though.
Great review of my favorite yellow! Thanks. I’m off to play with that suggested mix with PBk31 though. Should be nice.
Thank you for a great video!
I wanna love PY150 and have tried White Nights, Roman Szmal (mine had a weird texture but was the brightest of the three) and Daniel Smith (the warmest one), but found I always end up not liking that it looks "dirty" when applied with a heavier hand. After that I discovered Daniel Smith's Indian Yellow, which is a very happy medium for me. I give up some of the transparency to gain a brighter, more sunny, less dirty yellow that still has a lot of depth. If I want it deeper and more like a PY150 in masstone I add my W&N Quin. Gold (my fave Q. Gold hue, it mixes magically. ), it gives me the same depth but with more warmth to it, and I absolutely love it! ☺️
PY150 is certainly brownish when used heavy handed and I can totally understand being thrown off by that. I try to put a tiny amount on my mixing palette to gently add to other colors, because it can overpower things when not careful. As such though it also lasts me forever, barely needing any pigment for mixtures. Thank you for sharing your favorite alternatives! I can see appreciating Indian Yellow and Quin Gold! That D.Smith Indian Yellow totally helps you use less PY150, it dilutes it by adding just enough PY97 into it to prevent that brown masstone. Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick Thank you, that is great advice! I still have a bit of the Daniel Smith one and will now get to practicing with it eventually. And yes, that is exactly it! Plus, I LOVE the masstone of it, which means it's a yellow I would have wanted to mix myself anyways, so it turns out it's a convenience mix for me.
I have learned to much from comments under awesome videos like yours, so now I try to share myself in hopes of returning the favour. ☺️
Oh thank you for this great video about my loved Nickel Azo Yellow. I have DS and Roman Szmal and I mostly grab the Szmal one. I don't see a huge difference though.
Depending on the climate you live in (dry or humid) they can seem more different because of the way they re-wet. Roman Szmal has some honey content and additives that promote always staying slightly moist, so they tend to give you a quicker wet-brush swipe to that dark masstone brown than other brands. Otherwise all of the versions look very similar and you can't go too wrong with any of them :)
Thanks so much for this in-depth analysis :-)
lovely art, perfect colouring technique
Love the mixes as well as the art!
I have this pigment but mission gold calls it Green Gold. Is it different?
I have a py150 from Paul Rubens. It is called Indian Yellow.
It might be mislabled? My Paul Rubens Indian Yellow is made from PY83.
That CAT! 7:02 (I know this is about py150 and I very much appreciate it 🙇♀️ ❤️ but your cat is amazing! (I'm new, sorry): do you have a video about that painting?
Also came here looking for a burnt sienna video. Newbie wc attempt-artist in at 4 months, and I've even unloaded some paintings (with a love for the medium but a visual impairment requiring dark glasses: I didn't think anyone would like them)!
Glad you liked and found the Florida Panther painting! I'll keep burnt sienna in mind for a spotlight video, I'll be doing some very interesting granulating browns and red iron oxides next. Happy painting :)
i like videos like these.
Hi! What a great video! I'm wondering about Rosa Gallery's PY150. In your pigmentdatabase it seems to be as strong as qor's? Is there a reason that you did not include that? Is it ok?
Love from Sweden!
Nearly all PY150 from any brand is quite strong, as this pigment is very intense. I did not find Qor to be more intense than Roman Szmal, Da Vinci or Rosa Gallery - all of them are great options. Though I generally do not like Qor's flow/disperse properties. Some brands lean slightly more warmer in tone, but the deep brownish color masstone is generally achieved by all. This video was made over a year ago, so it is likely I simply did not own Rosa's at the time it was recorded. In general I love Rosa, but they are nearly impossible to purchase individual colors here and I really hope they are able to continue to succeed after the problems in Ukraine. If you can easily purchase them where you live, then they are wonderful paints - certainly nothing wrong with them.
@@KimberlyCrick Thank you for your response! Your recommendations for a palette of lightfast colors is really helpful! 🧡
I always love the illustrations that you paint. Do you do them yourself?
Thank you for the comparisons. I loved the way nickel azo yellow swatched, it looks like it flows. anyways I had a question about watercolor brands as it is near my birthday, and I am trying to pick a set to buy for myself. I already have the Rembrandt 48, Lukas 48, Rosa gallery 28 and white nights 36 sets but I’m not sure if I want to buy the individual pans for the rest of Rosa gallery and white nights line or go for a more traditional/rlly artist grade watercolor like smincke, Daniel Smith or sennelier. Would you be able to make any recommendations? As of right now, I am considering scmincke’s 36 set and sennelier’s 24 or 48 pan set and the individual half pans for Rosa gallery + white nights. I will probably order from Jackson’s or omniaproart’s website. Thanks for the review, honestly it made my day:)
I think the answer to your question will depend in part on what you like and where you live.
May I suggest you buy yourself at least one tube of Sennelier and one tube of DS *ahead* of time and see which of the two you personally enjoy working with? (Don't get Lapis Lazuli from DS it's notorious for being super difficult to achieve color payout when you rewet, and therefore is nowhere near representative of their line.)
Question one is do you like paints that granulate, or paints that glaze beautifully?
As a VERY basic reductive rule of thumb, if you are in the market for paints that are super excellent for glazing? Choose Sennelier.
In a similarly over-simplified way, if you want paints from a line that specialize in granulating pigments? Then Daniel Smith.
If you like earth tones and chose Sennelier as your main brand, you might still want to remember that DS has an unusually wide range of earth tones for what most paint manufacturers do, and that's a good place to start looking if you've got a pigment you really wish you had.
ONE EXTRA NOTE:
If you live somewhere very humid (Florida, Virginia, England, Kyoto Japan, parts of Australia etc) Sennelier may not be right for you because they contain honey, which is a humectant, which means it draws water to it. Jane Blundel, who lives in a humid part of Australia, has complained about the honey in some of her paints molding cause it never dries out completely.
If you live somewhere more arid (Arizona, Colorado, blah blah blah), Sennelier will be your best friend, cause it'll be much easier to rewet instantly.
I live in an arid area right now and have DS and Sennelier paints. My Sennelier paints I squeezed out into a pan are ready to go much faster than my DS paints.
I've not heard of anyone complaining about honey-based paints in a place with a more neutral humidity, so it'll likely be lovely there too
Also, happy birthday in advance!
@@annedavis3340 Thank you for chiming in! I think after collecting several pan sets the right move is to collect a few single pigment tube paints from a few companies to test them out as well. I definitely recommend looking at the pigment codes for paints you already own and looking for something new to try - otherwise you could end up with a ton of paint that is very similar. I live in Florida, but I have a totally fine time using Sennelier, M Graham and Roman Szmal inside - but not for travel/where the box might get shaken because it's true they are always sticky. I don't get mold in any paints since I switched to bottled water/purified/distilled for painting because my tap water was prone to introducing mold spores to things.
There are many Rosa Gallery and White Nights single pigment colors that are just as good as any more expensive professional brand. Rosa Gallery's Magenta PR122 is actually my top choice for a primary mixing color even better than D.Smith, Schmincke or Qor. Each brand does something particularly well and particularly bad. Like Anne said, avoid certain hard to deal with pigments like Lapis Lazuli, azurite, malachite, viridian and potters pink in both Daniel Smith and Roman Szmal - they are hard to work with. Otherwise I would focus on finding unique interesting pigments you want to try and order a couple tubes. It sounds like you have enough pan assortments, you won't gain much variety by adding more of that type of set to your catalog. Happy painting :)
@@annedavis3340 thank you so much for your extensive comment! I really appreciate it. Based on what Kimberly crick also said, I might just stick with Rosa gallery and white nights and get some individual half pans since I already have a lot of pan sets. I do have some sennelier tubes and while they are nice, I am not quite in love with them. I definitely live for granulation but will not buy Daniel Smith for now as I feel that they are a major temptation for me with so many gorgeous colors available lol. I live in a very humid area so honey based paints are prolly not a good idea, but that might change in the future if I move elsewhere. Thanks for the well wishes for my birthday, I am looking forward to hopefully receiving my paints by then.
I also have a nickel azo yellow from the same brand. Does this mean Indian yellow is also nickel azo yellow?
Depending on brand, white nights version of py150 is called Indian yellow and their version of quin gold is called indian gold py150 and pr 101 I believe.
Brands can label the ingredient PY150 Nickel Azo yellow any color name they want. I've seen Indian Yellow, Burnt Yellow, Transparent Yellow and Yellow Lake as names for PY150 based paints. However, in the case of Paul Rubens you mentioned in your other comment, their Indian Yellow was labeled as PY83 for mine - so it seems different from their one actually labeled as Nickel Azo. They sometimes mislabel and typo on their products though, so the pigment could have been incorrect on a color chart. Happy painting :)
Where are these gorgeous stamps from you've used for the swatches? Thank you for this amazing vid. Must have taken hours of work get everything together for us!
Thank you, I make these stamps and currently offer them within the USA at www.kimcrick.com/collections/art-supplies-watercolor-pens-paper
@@KimberlyCrick Oh...saddly I live in Germany, so I won't be able to order them 😢
@@kreativeReise I'll be sure to make an announcement if shipping options change in the future and I appreciate your interest :)
@@KimberlyCrick Thank you. Looking forward to being able to order 😍...
I wonder if something is up with your swatch, after over a year my Mission Gold green gold, py150 is perfectly fine exactly as it is straight out of the tube.
It's very stable in the tube and I don't even see this issue immediately after using it from dry. Oddly, many months after painted I have two separate samples that look slightly greenish. I can only guess they possibly chemically changed only after interacting with something* else (I wish I knew exactly what, possibly by the presence of humidity, non-purified mixing water, other coatings on paper or even by using them with other paints like cobalts that can have chemical interactions). Either way, since I've also verified that I'm not the only one to have had this issue, I made the note just in case. You can see Denise Soden of Liquid Color had the same thing occur at - ua-cam.com/video/b_19Vpr3tMA/v-deo.html
@@KimberlyCrick Thanks for responding. So far so good with mine, so I'm going to stick with it. Maybe it's the paper? I wonder if you and Denise use the same paper.
Is gamboge or new gamboge the same color?
No, gamboge is a made up color name for any deep yellow combination of pigments a brand decides to mix together. It's often 2 to 3 different pigments mixed to achieve a deep yellow, sometimes using pigments like py110, py97, py108, py153 and sometimes does include a touch of PY150. Pure PY150 is typically labeled as Nickel Azo Yellow, but sometimes aureoline (hue), so it's best to check your tube label for the pigment number code to be sure what the actual ingredient is.
Oh no.. I like my Mijello one more than the Sennelier and now I know it fades 🥲
I'm so sorry, it's a very strange issue I think has to do with a chemical reaction from how they process it. I've never seen any other brand start to turn greenish over time, but a couple people I know have had the same problem with Mission Gold (Denise Soden of In Liquid Color mentioned having it happen to hers in her PY150 video too). I like it too! On the bright side there are a lot of brands that make it, so hopefully you can find one that you can really enjoy. Happy painting :)
@@KimberlyCrick I'm glad I know now though, thankfully I usually use Sennelier in pieces and the Mijello one is in my travel palette, but I'm a bit heartbroken 😭
I have Qor, Mijello, Schmincke, Old Holland, White Nights, Holbein and Daniel Smith and although all are pretty, I really liked Mijello's version!
Which would you pick?
@@jiangli3520 White Nights is surprisingly decent for how affordable it is, I would try that and see if you like it :)
@@KimberlyCrick Thank you! I love this type of videos by the way, actually, all your videos are a pleasure. I find myself enjoying them most since you've started narrating :) Keep up the good work 👍