Take Care of Your Watercolor Tubes
In my opinion, watercolor tubes are far superior to pans. That’s why I’m always pleased when a new student arrives at one of my workshops using tube colors. Sometimes, however, that pleasure quickly turns…
Category: Colors and pigments
About watercolors and pigments, I describe different watercolors: history, pigments and their painting properties.
White Watercolor Paint
Modern watercolor artists primarily rely on the white of the paper, making white watercolor paint largely unnecessary. Artists of earlier generations thought much the same, although white paint was used more frequently a century…
Dioxazine violet (PV23)
This text is a rework from a previous post August 2020. Carbazole Dioxazine Violet PV23 (often referred to simply as Dioxazine Violet or Carbazole Violet) is a pigment with many different names. It’s easy…
Burnt Sienna
The text has been revised from an earlier version. Sienna is in its original form a yellow-brown earth color. If you heat up the natural sienna pigment, it becomes redder and In its original…
Why are earth colors so different?
The image above, the header image for this text, shows various swatches of raw umber. Earth colors often differ radically between manufacturers. Colors with the same name can look completely different depending on who…
Benzimidazolone Carmine (PR176)
Benzimidazolone Carmine (PR176) was introduced in 1960. Daniel Smith was the first to use PR176 in a paint they named Carmine. Other manufacturers followed over time. Today there are a handful of brands that…
Diopside Genuine
Diopside 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…
Terre Verte (Green Earth) PG23
This text was revised with new illustrations on January 5, 2026. Green earth is a natural mineral pigment traditionally obtained from the minerals celadonite and glauconite. It was already in use in ancient Rome,…
