6 - Blue Watercolour SwatchesThere are literally hundreds of artist quality watercolours available from many brands. I have tested many of them and created swatches as seen on the right. The square box is painted into a damp wash at the top to show the colour mixed in water, with more pigment added towards the bottom. The rectangle is painted in a juicy wash to show the mass-tone. The small squares at the bottom of the swatch have the pigment number and characteristics - staining, lightfast rating, granulation and transparency.
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The size of my swatches
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Single Pigment Blue Watercolours
Blue pigments are denoted as 'PB' for Pigment Blue, followed by a number. PB29 is Ultramarine Blue. This will be a transparent, liftable and granulating blue, as a general rule. Note that the common palette colour Phthalo Blue comes in RS (Red Shade) and GS (Green Shade) versions and is called
Winsor Blue by W&N and Helio Blue by Schminke. The green shade is the more common choice as a transparent, staining cool blue option. Cerulean also comes in two different pigments - PB35 and PB36. I prefer the greener PB 36 which may be called Cerulean Chromium by Daniel Smith, Cobalt Cerulean in Schmincke and Cerulean Genuine in Da Vinci. Names can be confusing :-)
Winsor Blue by W&N and Helio Blue by Schminke. The green shade is the more common choice as a transparent, staining cool blue option. Cerulean also comes in two different pigments - PB35 and PB36. I prefer the greener PB 36 which may be called Cerulean Chromium by Daniel Smith, Cobalt Cerulean in Schmincke and Cerulean Genuine in Da Vinci. Names can be confusing :-)
Ultramarine Blues, and others made with PB29. Warm, liftable and granulating.
Indanthrone/Indanthrene Blues PB60. Deep, warm and non-granulating.
Cobalt Blues, Cobalt Deep Blues - PB28 and PB74. Mostly mid to warm blues, granulating and liftable. Some Turquoise colours!
Phthalo Blues, and others made with PB15 including Manganese blue hues. Cool, transparent and generally staining.
Prussian Blue - PB27. Deep, cool and less staining than phthalo blues.
Cerulean Blues, and others made with PB35 and PB36. Cool, granulating and liftable.
Other single pigment blues, including DS Primateks, PB16, PB33 and PV15.
Mixed Pigment 'Indigo' Blue watercolours.
Mixed Pigment Blue watercolours
If a pigment is no longer available or expensive, some manufactures make a mix or hue of the colour. Common examples are Manganese blue PB33, which is only available now from Old Holland, and Cobalt Blue PB28, which is an expensive pigment, though worth it for the real thing. Indigo is another common mix since genuine indigo is not suitable for watercolour.
These swatches are painted and added as a guide. The intention is show the characteristics of each colour when painted. The colour reproduction is not perfect but hopefully will still be helpful used in conjunction with the manufacturer's website. Thank you to those of you, from Canada, Sweden, Hong Kong, the UK, Australia and the USA, who have helped me with this section by sharing your favourite colours. If you notice errors please let me know so I can correct them. If you have artist quality watercolour that are not shown here and want to help me build up this resource, also please let me know :-)