Diopside Genuine
January 7, 2026
På SvenskaDiopside is a semi-precious stone used, among other things, in jewellery. The green variety, chrome diopside, is sometimes referred to as Russian emerald. It often originates from Russia, and its deep green colour can resemble that of emerald.
Daniel Smith uses the mineral, ground into a fine powder, as the pigment in a watercolour paint they call Diopside Genuine. To my knowledge, Daniel Smith is the only manufacturer offering a diopside-based green watercolour. Kremer Pigmente sells the pigment in dry form, and NTC Lazurit, a Ukrainian pigment manufacturer, produces violet varieties of the pigment.
The colour from Daniel Smith is a deep, slightly yellow-leaning secondary green. It is similar in hue to Phthalo Green (Yellow Shade), but is more black-biased and unclear. The paint granulates and produces a brownish-black sediment that appears as dark brown speckles in fluently painted green washes.
The paint is not staining at all and leaves no hard edge; it is also reluctant in wet-in-wet applications. It is transparent and lightfast. Just a little diluted it produces a rich, very dark green tone that can easily be mistaken for black. With further dilution and more water, the rich warm green shifts into a less yellow, cooler green.
Diopside Genuine is very well suited for green landscapes and botanical paintings. Its full, slightly yellow-leaning and subtly black-biased hue is particularly well matched to this type of subject matter. The fine granulation is, in my opinion, a significant advantage, although I am aware that not everyone appreciates granulating colours.
As a component in mixtures with other colours, Diopside Genuine performs very well. It produces pleasant greens when mixed with yellows, and becomes almost neutral when combined with a primary red. The slightly warm tone that results when mixed with Quinacridone Rose is due to Diopside Genuine’s gently yellow-leaning secondary green character.
It is relatively similar to Phthalo Green (Yellow Shade); however, diopside is slightly yellower and more unclear. This unclearness makes it suitable for use unmixed, something that is hardly the case with phthalo greens. It also bears a superficial resemblance to the most common varieties of Hooker’s Green, which are mixed colours and therefore unsuitable for further colour mixing.
In terms of price, Diopside Genuine sits in the middle of Daniel Smith’s range. Since Daniel Smith offers many very expensive mineral colours, the midpoint of their price scale is still higher than that of many other manufacturers. This makes the paint relatively costly, but in my opinion it is well worth the money.
The colour has an intense, rich green hue and is highly expressive. Diopside has excellent mixing properties but can also be used unmixed without becoming dull. Diopside Genuine is an almost perfect secondary green and one of the few colours capable of replacing the somewhat uninspiring phthalo greens.
Properties
Pigment: Diopside
Lightfastness: Excellent
Transparency: Transparent
Staining: Not at all
Granulation: Distinct
Hue: Slightly blackish, weakly yellowish secondary green.
