The Modern Impressionist Set

The Modern Impressionist Set is our latest palette collection of 8 bright tints:

Ruby Violet Light

Orchid

Rosebud

Brilliant Yellow Light

Brilliant Lemon Light

Rousseau Green Extra Pale

Video Blue Extra Pale

King’s Blue

 

The Modern Impressionist Set

 

Color Creates the Space

Reminiscent of the high key color of the Impressionists and more Modern Masters, we have selected both warm and cool mixing, colorful favorites to represent light and achieve the push and pull of space in a modern picture plane.

 

Dining Room in the Country, by Pierre Bonnard, 1913, oil on canvas, 63½ x 80⅛ inches, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN

 

Two of our newest colors, Brilliant Lemon Light and Ruby Violet Light, pair perfectly to carve up space in a landscape or interior setting. Both are opaque but each has opposite advantages!

Brilliant Lemon Light has distinct edges because it is cold in tonality, opaque, and light in value. It comes forward used as is or in a mixture.

Ruby Violet Light is deeper in value and much warmer in tone. Even though it is also opaque, the Ruby Violet Light has less distinct edges enabling it to represent a more distant space in a painting. It will quiet cooler and brighter colors with nuanced shadow.

 

Brilliant Lemon Light, at left, has the most distinct edges. Ruby Violet Light in the center is softer and warmer in tone. At right is the Orchid, although brighter than Ruby Violet Light, it too is less distinct spatially than the colder Brilliant Lemon Light.

 

 

The Flowered Dress, by Edouard Vuillard, 1891, oil on canvas, 15 x 18⅛ inches, São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, Brazil

 

 

Viridian and our new Brilliant Lemon Light with two mixtures.

 

Viridian and our new Ruby Violet Light with mixture.

 

 

Interior, by Pierre Bonnard, 1913, oil on canvas, 22¼¼ x 24¾, private collection

 

 

Lighter in value and more delicate, our new Orchid is a great alternative to white! Use it to impart a subtle warmth and nuance of color. As the name implies, Orchid is a rare beauty, colorful yet entirely natural, and recedes spatially in the picture plane.

 

Our new Orchid used as a white to lighten Ultramarine Blue in top mixture compared to Titanium White in the mixture at bottom.

 

Very bright and distinct, our Rosebud is also warm in mixing. Instead of toning mixtures down, however, it enhances them with a colorful intensity. Rosebud is an ideal shortcut to mixing colorful grays from any cool blue, brown, or green. Mixed with its perfect complement, Video Blue Extra Pale, Rosebud produces a glowing silver gray. Or make Rosebud your go-to warm white!

Not just a pretty pink, although it is, Rosebud enhances mixtures and pairs well with warm colors too, especially strong transparent colors, such as our Indian Yellow, to rev up their brightness and a viewer’s attention.

 

Green River Lands, by Wayne Thiebaud, 1998, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 inches Collection of Matthew Bult

 

Capturing the Sun

Brilliant Yellow Light is warm and radiant in mixing, adding the subtle glow of sunlight to a mixture. It’s a great morning sky color, especially paired with our Rosebud and the blues in the Modern Impressionist Set: Video Blue Extra Pale and King’s Blue.

I love it as a warm white and since it is both warm and light in value it can read as sunlight that rests further back in space than the light implied with the cooler Brilliant Lemon Light.

Even warmer in mixing is our Rousseau Green Extra Pale, a soft chartreuse that lightens but ironically adds depth and a colorful atmosphere to a mixture. Rousseau Green Extra Pale captures late afternoon warmth.

 

Brilliant Yellow Light mixing into our Alizarin Crimson

 

Rousseau Green Extra Pale mixing into the Alizarin Crimson for comparison

 

Richly Pigmented for Maximum Results

The Modern Impressionist Set includes Video Blue Extra Pale for mixing grays with any warm earth color, in one step, to make colorful warm or cool pale tones. Make a light green gray with our Raw Sienna or a cooler more violet gray with our Scarlet Sienna. Video Blue Extra Pale is useful for cooling and modifying flesh tones with a subtle brightness.

 

Water Lilies (Nympheas), by Claude Monet, c. 1915, oil on canvas, 59⅗ x 79⅛ inches, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

 

Beginning with Phthalo Green at top, our King’s Blue (at upper right) was mixed in to make a bright turquoise, which was then pushed greener with the new Brilliant Lemon Light (at right). Finally, the now greener turquoise mixture was lightened with the Video Blue Extra Pale (at bottom left) into a still very colorful pale turquoise.

 

Here’s a mixture of Viridian (top right) with King’s Blue (top left) for a softer, bluer and less bright turquoise.

 

Our King’s Blue is warm in mixing but don’t let that stop you from using it with other warm colors, even our really strong Permanent Bight Red. King’s Blue just keeps going with terrific results in mixing greens, violets, and colorful neutrals with any warm or cool primary, secondary, … whatever you have!

 

Agapanthus, by Claude Monet, c. 1914-1926, oil on canvas, 6 feet, 6 inches x 70¼ inches, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

 

Our King’s Blue (at right) is strong enough not to get lost, as shown here, when mixed into our Prussian Blue (at top). The result is a new variation on blue!

 

This is the advantage of using a richly pigmented King’s Blue, like any of the other tints in The Modern Impressionist Set, you can use it for mixing as well as for a beautiful color right out of the tube!

 

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