3 - Orange Watercolour Swatches

There 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. 

For more on orange pigments see the Artiscreation orange database page here. See the Handprint orange pigment information here (but note that is it based on tests completed in 2004).

The size of my swatches

Oranges - whether yellow oranges, mid oranges or red-oranges - are difficult to capture accurately so these swatches are very much only a guide to how the paints behave and what pigments are in them. I'll work on more accurate colour as soon as possible.

PO20 Orange Watercolours

PO36 Orange Watercolours

PO 48 and PO49 Quinacridone Gold and Burnt Orange watercolours

PO62 Oranges

PO71 Oranges

PO73 Oranges

Single Pigment Orange Watercolours

Single pigment orange watercolours will generally be made from a 'Pigment Orange' denoted as PO followed by a number.  I have included Quinacridone Gold PO49 here, even though I love it as a warm yellow. Some oranges are also suitable as a warm red option, such as Transparent Pyrrol Orange (D.S.) Samples arrange by pigment number. Note some of the colours are not true to life - orange is a difficult colour to scan accurately :-(

Vermillion, Derivan watercolour. PO6. Mid orange. This was a sample. (Current website info list PY74 + PO73 + PY3)

Orange Lake, Maimeri Bleu. PO43. Note - actual colour is a bright orange!

Perinone Orange, Daniel Smith watercolour. PO43. Red orange

Golden Barok Red, Old Holland watercolour. PO65. Warm, granulating red orange

Mayan Orange, Daniel Smith watercolour. PON/A. red orange

Cadmium Red Orange, Holbien Watercolours. PR108 Note the actual colour is more orange than it appears on the screen.

Avignon Orange, Maimeri Blu watercolours. PR206 See also Brown Madder and Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet

Transparent Orange, Winsor & Newton watercolour. PO107. Mid orange.

Mixed Pigment Orange Watercolours

Golden, White Nights watercolour PY3 + PO13. (Note PO13 is not considered a lightfast pigment)

Permanent Yellow Orange, Holbein watercolour. PY53 + PY55

Australian Red Gold, Art Spectrum watercolour. PY48 + PR101 + PV19. Yellow-orange hue

Halloween Orange, American Journey watercolour. PO62 H5G

Cadmium Orange Hue, Daler Rowney watercolour. PO62 + PY65

Cadmium Orange Hue, Daniel Smith watercolour. PY53 + PO73

Quinacridone Sienna, Daniel Smith watercolour. PO49 + PR209. Mid orange hue. This is old stock. New formula is listed as PO48 + PR209 + PY150

Alizarin Gold, Da Vinci Watercolour. PR177+PY42. This looks brighter on the screen than the more dull colour in reality.

Permanent Red Orange, Schmincke Watercolour. PO62+PR242

Chinese Orange, Sennelier Watercolour. PY150+PR209+PBr23

Cadmium Orange, Winsor & Newton watercolour. PY35 + PR108. Yellow-orange hue

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, 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 :-)

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