Quinacridone colors

 My first experience with quinacridone color was gold. I've since acquired a couple of others.

What gives the quinacridones such vibrancy? They come from a family of synthetic pigment used to make high performance paints and they have outstanding transparency and color intensity. They come in range of pink to purple and gold to sienna, they are lightfast with a clarity traditional pigments cannot match.

Would you believe that these synthetic colors were created in the 1960s for use in automotive paints, where brilliance and lightfastness are essential.

This family of colour is ideal for watercolours since they combine the power of staining pigments with the luminosity of transparent pigments. In addition to producing glowing washes, they have incredible depth of color and can be lifted easily while still wet. 

Quinacridone gold is so useful I have included it in the warm yellow section as a primary yellow option. I've heard that some artists use this in place of yellow ochre. Although I don't have quinacridone sienna, it seems to make a lovely convenience orange.  Quinacridone rose and quinacridone violet are fabulous for making purples that glow. In the near future, I hope to acquire quinacridone burnt orange which could be used to replace burnt sienna in a palette as it is also a neutralised orange.

Which is your favorite quinacridone?

This John Lovett painting makes great use of quin gold.

Danielle

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