Dioxazine Purple !

[purplepansey]

I bought a tube of Liquitex Dioxazine Purple paint years ago when I first started painting as it was recommended for one of the paintings I was doing from a book. Since then, I've tried to use it without good results - it is such a noxious, vile looking color even when mixed with other colors and slow drying too.

My question is other than throwing it away, what color can I mix with it to make it look like a nice purple or soft lavender color? I've tried a few things but nothing seems to take the vile look from it. Or can it be used to darken other colors without showing it's true colors, lol? It seems a shame to waste and I hate to throw it away.

[Einion]

Originally Posted by purplepansey

My question is other than throwing it away, what color can I mix with it to make it look like a nice purple or soft lavender color?

It is a nice purple, it's just very dark. Lavender? Add white. That sounds misleading; since Dioxazine Purple is so strong you actually start with white and add the Diox to it, not the other way around. If the hue isn't quite right, add a smidge of French Ultramarine to push it toward blue, Quinacridone Rose or something similar to make it redder.

Originally Posted by purplepansey

I've tried a few things but nothing seems to take the vile look from it.

A lot of the stronger synthetic-organic pigments share a common problem, being very strong tinters as well as having a very artificial, un-natural colour when you brush them out. Similar story with some phthalo blues, the phthalo greens (blue shade in particular) and one or two of the quinacridones. Used sparingly however they can all be quite useful.

Originally Posted by purplepansey

Or can it be used to darken other colors without showing it's true colors, lol?

Mix it with orange and 'deep' yellows (orange-yellows), see what you think of the browns you get. Mix it with greens and you generally get dark, fairly dull blues - so it can be a useful paint for foliage shadows, which many people like to be bluer as well as darker.

Added in small quantities to middle reds you get some interesting dark crimsons and maroons; see what happens when you add to scarlet (like Cad Red Light).

Try it with Cobalt Blue and Burnt Umber, then add some white.

Since PV23 is quite transparent it's a useful glazing colour, with and without additions of other paints to vary the colour in various directions.

Einion

[lotusguy]

As above, it is great for pulling greenery around.

Just the opinion of one old fool,
TTFN,
Dennis

[perryjohnson]

I like Diox. Violet and Raw Umber together. Cerulean Blue with a bit of Diox. Violet looks nice to my eye. There's something about the way the opaque mineral pigment of Cerulean behaves with the fluffy synthetic organic Dioxazine - very nice!

I keep a few violets on hand. Manganese Violet, Cobalt Violet Light, Ultramarine Red. Confessions of a color whore.

[Ribera]

Dioxazine Purple/Violet is a magnificently strong hue. Too strong for many. D.V.'s one of those rare hues that actually becomes more chromatic, not less, with the addition of white. It's effective usage undoubtedly requires some restraint. This said, in tints it makes much stronger chroma violets than can be mixed from any other two colors. There's it's principal benefit. Moreover, it's quite transparent, so beautiful in glazes as well. If one wants their paintings to acheive the maximum chroma, Dioxazine Violet's essential. If it's on your palette, and it's poisoning your mixtures, refrain from it. (-in those mixtures anyway) It needn't, hence, be disposed of altogether.

[purplepansey]

Thank you all so much for your replies and suggestions about DP. I'm going to try them all and see what I like about the various suggestions for mixing this color with others to make it a more agreeable color to use.
I did pay special attention to Einion's suggestion for adding a little of it to white to make a lavender color. I was probably adding white to the purple.

[roughroadstudio]

I love my dioxazine purple, I am actually looking for it in another brand as well. I'd be lost without it, for all the reasons mentioned above, but especially for the superb lavender, which can be ajdusted warmer or cooler as Einion described, and it can make an earth color sing with just a touch added, and it does make lovely bright browns when added to those yellows.
But, I'm using oils... acrylics are a different animal. Still, sound advice all around.

[MChesleyJohnson]

Whenever you've got a pigment with strong tinting power -- or incredibly super-duper-amazing tinting power like the dioxazine -- always start with a pile of white and add a little speck of the color.

This is actually a good approach to use when mixing ANY very light color that needs white. I find for skies, which can be very, very light, all it takes is a speck of Ultramarine Blue or Cobalt Blue to get a good deal of color.