Welcome Phthalo Blues to your palette!
Without question, Phthalo Blue is bright, strong and often overpowering in a mixture. Newer variations, such as our Phthalo Blue, green shade and our Phthalo Blue, red shade offer a greater range of mixing possibilities for today’s painter.
Here’s a few reasons why any or all of these Phthalo Blues would be a welcome addition to your palette:
Amazing Sapphire Tints
Because Phthalo Blue is a 20th century man-made pigment, it’s clean tinting. Bright and strong pale blues are easily made with Titanium White, as in the examples shown below.
Since our Titanium White is so richly pigmented, strong and opaque, it can also soften the intense Phthalo Blues and make them more natural.
Tame that Phthalo
Another approach to creating more natural mixtures, or passages in a painting, with Phthalo Blue is to pair it with white and then bring in its complement. Any orange will complement Phthalo Blue but for the cleanest mixtures use modern Synthetic Iron Oxides.
In the examples below, both the Mars Red and the Transparent Red Oxide are strong and warm in mixing.
Notice how the more opaque Mars Red maintains the opacity created by the Titanium White but brings additional nuance as a red-orange complement.
When adding the Transparent Red Oxide (above), which has a pronounced orange undertone, the resulting gray leans toward green. Using different amounts of the Transparent Red Oxide will vary the opacity of the mixture created with Titanium White and the transparency of this modern Synthetic Iron Oxide is yet another way to bring interest to the combination using Phthalo Blue.
Modern Phthalo Blues
Our Phthalo Blue, green shade has a distinctive turquoise undertone and mixes cooler for very clean greens. Because it is lighter and more gentle, it is already very manageable in a mixture yet still very bright.
The newest Phthalo we offer is our Phthalo Blue, red shade that’s an ideal choice for a single primary blue in a limited palette, producing truer greens than would a Cobalt Blue or an Ultramarine Blue.
Phthalo Blue, red shade also makes luscious violets when mixed with cool reds, such as our Ruby Red in the example below. Now it’s able to substitute for the warmer mixing Ultramarine Blue while also offering a modern clean brightness to your mixtures.
Phthalo Blue, red shade is mixed into Ruby Red throughout the center, warming the cooler red into rich violets and dazzling purples.
Visit these links for more about our Phthalo Blues:
