Transparent or opaque orange

[LindseyB33]

well I can definitely see that now with how I use my hansa yellow deep and burnt orange. Huh. I did make my own orange to quickly have on hand for when I’m painting so I could reliably use it quickly in my paintings. But using it as a mixer, and a neutralizer makes a ton of sense as well too. I don’t use pthalo green much since I don’t really like it even as a mixer so maybe that’s why it’s just now clicking to use orange that says.

[Clifton K Prince]

you arent suppose to

Certified Closet Management Engineer, Slung Watercolor Society of America

[jyaan]

For a proper orange I prefer cadmium orange PO20 from M. Graham. It’s a better mixer than pyrrol orange PO73 (whose brilliancy is often lost in mixtures) and has a proper orange hue, whereas pyrrol orange leans towards scarlet. I’m also fond of the powdery softness of cadmiums. I use it both alone and in many mixtures, from transparent tints to bold accents.

However, I change my palette around a fair bit from time to time, and sometimes don’t have an orange present. That’s particularly true for my small palette, but mixing (e.g., cadmium yellow deep with cadmium scarlet) is generally good enough. There are also some other interesting options like Da Vinci benzimida orange deep PO36 (which is a dark transparent ruddy orange) which are not particularly brilliant but nonetheless uniquely lovely.

“You aren’t supposed to” means little to me. While I have a soft spot for tradition, if it looks good it’s okay in my book! But yes PG7 often looks quite ghastly used alone… Try adding some cadmium orange!

[Kaalia]

I really struggle with warmth in general to my palette, orange, warm yellows, and warm reds are my least favourite, whenever I try to add them to my palette I wind up just not using them. Most of the time at least, there are some exceptions to this

-Venetian Red/English Red. Usually PR101, sometimes PR102. Yes they’re technically earth tones, but to me they are orange and I love them. I feel like I am one of the few who isn’t a fan of burnt sienna (or raw sienna, or the umbers, all of those are too brown for my liking) but I absolutely love PR101. It’s very opaque and creates some really stunning effects when paired with a transparent colour, the orange shines through quite nicely! In spite of not really liking orange, this pigment is essential to me.

-French Vermillion (PR242) from Sennelier as well as Sennelier Orange (PO73). French Vermillion is an extremely opaque warm red, I consider it orange though because of how fiery it is. Sennelier Orange is also quite opaque. Both of these colours came in a 14 half pan set, and I thought I would remove them early on and replace them with something else, but no, I actually really like these ones, especially French Vermillion. Where I live right now, we get some wildly vivid pinks, purples, and oranges in the clouds, and Sen Orange is wonderful for getting those kinds of effects.

So to answer your question, apparently I like my oranges to be more on the opaque side! I’m not a transparency purist though, my main mixing colours I prefer to be transparent, but half of my palette is typically opaque or semi-opaque.

[LindseyB33]

Humm you all gave me something to think about. I broke out my palette and really began playing with my colors and I found my favorites are more semi-opaque to opaque. Very interesting. Possibly because I’ve worked slot with acrylics. I had flirted with cad orange too but thought I should stick with more transparent colors as I begin to really dive into watercolor.

I may have to revise that thinking since I could easily make a transparent orange with my reds and yellows. I while I love red and warm colors, I tend to gravitate to earth colors and greens.

Oddly enough I don’t typically like burnt sienna but I love the umbers. I was surprised how much I have ended up liking quin burnt orange. It’ll be interesting seeing how my palette changes as I grow more used to what I currently have and see if I stick with what I’ve got or if I’ll change it. I’ve definitely started finding some favorites though.

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