5 - Purple 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.
See the Purple pigment database information here. See the very comprehensive Handprint Magenta pigment page here, and Violet pigment page here. (But note that these tests were completed in 2004) |
The size of my swatches
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Single pigment Purple Watercolours
Violet and purple pigments are denoted as 'PV' (Pigment Violet) followed by a number. See also the PR red watercolours for magenta and fuchsia colours. See also the Primatek watercolours tab.
Purples made with PV14 and PV49
Purple watercolours with PV15
Purples made with PV16
Purple watercolours made with PV19
PV19 is a multi personality pigment that is used for a range of colours from a rose pink through crimsons to violets. You can see more PV19 paints in the Reds section.
Purple watercolours with PV23
Purple Watercolours made with PV29
PV32
There is a Daniel Smith watercolour using this pigment in the single pigment section too - Bordeaux.
Quinacridone Purple Watercolours made with PV55
Single pigment purple, magenta and violet watercolours
There are a number of lovely magenta watercolours made with PR122 - some are here, if they are named something violet/purple etc, all are in the reds section.
Mixed Pigment Violet and Purple Watercolours
The following will be mixed purples and violets. These can be convenient. For example if you use ultramarine (PB29) and quinacridone rose (PV19) in your palette, the convenience mix Imperial Purple by Daniel Smith could be a good choice if you want a convenience colour. If you want a single pigment purple in a similar hue you would probably look at PV23 above.
Mixed pigment mid purple watercolours
Blueish (cool) mixed pigment purple watercolours including Lavender.
Mixed Pigment Dark watercolours
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 :-)