Color Decoder
QUICKTIPS
These Blue Earth
violets on Wallis
Belgian mist paper
begin with either a
warm (red shade)
or a cool (blue
shade) violet. The
pigment is light-
ened with titanium
dioxide; to gray, a
yellow pigment is
added. From top
to bottom: blue
shade (grayed);
blue shade
(unmodified pig-
ment); red shade
(grayed); and red
shade (unmodified
pigment).Violet is effective for modifying yellows and oranges. In the illustration at left, I’ve taken two values of cadmium lemon yellow—
an intense, light version, plus a darker, almost-green version—and have used them to modify two different values of violet. The
top row depicts how a dark cadmium lemon yellow can be modified; the bottom, a light cadmium yellow. The dark violet is
on the left, and the tint, on the right.
In the illustration on the right, I’ve again used the same two values of violet but have used them to modify two different
values of orange. The top row shows how a dark orange might be modified; the bottom, a light orange. For both of these
illustrations, I used a soft plastic spatula as a blending tool.yes, even a very dull violet. Caput
mortuum (Latin for “dead head) is a
purplish-brown iron oxide found in
hematite and was once used in paint-
ings of religious figures and patrons.
During Roman times, a tiny mol-
lusk—the murex—was harvested and
processed to create Tyrian purple, an
intense but fugitive (not lightfast)
color. It was used primarily to dye the
robes of emperors: It took more than
250,000 of the little creatures to makea half-ounce of dye, which was only
enough to stain a single robe. It’s still
the most expensive dye in the world,
at about $120,000 per ounce.The Manmade Pigments
A purple that was both intense,
lightfast and inexpensive wasn’t
created until 1859 when cobalt violet
was made in the laboratory. This first
version of a truly violet pigment was
rich, permanent and pricey—butalso toxic, since it was derived from
arsenic-tainted ore. (The modern
versions are arsenic-free, but the
cobalt they contain is itself toxic.)
Manganese violet, which came
along in 1868, replaced cobalt violet
because it was cheaper and nontoxic.
Today, these historic pigments are
supplemented by modern ones to
provide a full range of beautiful
violets, including quinacridone
violet and dioxazine violet.10 Pastel Journal AUGUST 2019