2 - Yellow Watercolour SwatchesThere are literally hundreds of artist quality watercolours available from many brands and there are also sometimes different quality ranges within brands. I am concentrating on the Artist Quality ranges. I have tested many of them and created almost 700 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 information on yellow pigments see the Artiscreation yellow database here. See the Handprint yellow pigment information here (but note that is it based on tests completed in 2004). |
The size of my swatches
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Single Pigment Yellow Watercolours
Most yellow watercolours will be made with yellow pigment, denoted as PY for 'Pigment Yellow'. One commonly recommended colour to avoid is Aureolin PY40. This colour fades in a wash and goes dark in mass tone. See my lightfast test results here. There are better alternative mid yellows such as Azo and Hansa yellows. See also the Quinacridone colours made with PO48 & PO49 in the orange sections, and Green Gold colours made with PY129 in the single pigment greens section. I have put the Naples yellows in the yellows section though they may not be made with yellow pigments.
Hansa Yellows/Lemon Yellows made with PY3
Cadmium Yellows PY35 and PO20
Nickel titanate yellows - PY53
Yellows made with PY65
Yellows made with PY74 and PY97
Yellows made with PY110
Yellows made with PY150
Yellows made with PY151
Yellows made with PY153 and PY154
More single pigment yellows in order by pigment numbers
'Quinacridone Gold' Watercolours
Genuine Quinacridone Gold made with PO49 is now only available in Daniel Smith 15ml tubes. They bought all of the pigment that remained when manufacturing was discontinued. I also found some old stock of W&N genuine Quinacridone Gold. The first two are genuine PO49 samples, the rest are mixed hues.
Mixed Pigment and single pigment 'Indian Yellow' Watercolours.
'Naples Yellow' watercolours
These are mostly a mixture of three pigments including white, though PBr24 is a lovely option.
Mixed Pigment Yellow Watercolours
May be a mixture of two or more yellow pigments or a yellow and an orange or a couple of pigments and white. Where possible, I prefer the real pigment to a mixed hue. See also some unusual 'yellows' in the miscellaneous section.
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 :-)