Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Genuine - Turquoise Véritable Belle au Bois Dormant

The gemstone is a unique and vibrant blue. It comes from Sleeping Beauty Mountain in Arizona, where we found a deposit that lives up to our high expectations. It is lightfast and permanent, with none of the transient colour fades that plague most turquoise. Turquoise has a unique porous nature that produces granular washes. Juicy washes flow from the brush, and drybrush work has an intense texture found only in a mineral pigment.

Traditional mineral pigments often possess a muted quality, while the unique Turquoise Genuine showcases true brilliance. The highest-grade mineral found closest to the earth's surface, where environmental factors have enhanced its structure to gemstone quality, deepens the tonal richness to a remarkable blue. Historical references to Turquoise date back to Egypt's first dynasty. Turquoise from the American Southwest has been uncovered in Aztec ruins, and Persian turquoise served as a trading currency.

• Pigment names: Genuine Sleeping Beauty Turquoise - Véritable turquoise Belle au Bois Dormant
• Lightfastness: 1 - Excellent
• Transparency: Semi-transparent
• Granulation: Granulating
• Staining: 1 - Non-staining
• Series: 5

The DANIEL SMITH PrimaTeks are gorgeous watercolours that mix beautifully with other colours. Since their introduction, artists worldwide have been thrilled to paint with these unique mineral watercolours, and you will be, too!

What are PrimaTek Watercolours?

DANIEL SMITH PrimaTek watercolours are unique paints made with mineral pigments; many are semi-precious minerals mined from the earth, ground finely, and made into beautiful PrimaTek watercolours for artists everywhere!

There are 37 exclusive DANIEL SMITH PrimaTek Watercolours made from minerals such as Amethyst, Bloodstone, and Jadeite. The raw mineral specimens that DANIEL SMITH finds worldwide are ground into pigments, mixed with gum arabic, and milled to create those gorgeous watercolour paints! Nearly all PrimaTeks have granulating properties, giving these watercolours wonderful texture and depth, which some artists have described as "magical."

People have been making paints with earth mineral pigments like ochre in yellows, reds and browns for thousands of years. While many natural pigments run to the "earthy" colours like the ochres we all know, some are unique to DANIEL SMITH, like Hematite Genuine, Bloodstone Genuine and Tiger's Eye Genuine, the "Genuine" after the mineral name for the watercolour usually means that the paint colour is made only from that particular mineral pigment. When made into paints, nearly all these minerals have beautiful granulation, giving artists extra painting effects. A few have a hint of sparkle or sheen from the crushed crystals, such as Amethyst, Kyanite, Red Fuchsite, Sugilite,  Bronze and Burnt bronze.

Many DANIEL SMITH PrimaTek Watercolours are made from minerals that produce vibrant, luminous colours, such as Genuine Amethyst, Serpentine, and Rhodonite. Most artists are surprised that "rocks" can become such brilliant colours in watercolours!

DANIEL SMITH has a mineralogist who, like Indiana Jones, searches the world, sometimes in remote locations, to find minerals with the potential to become DANIEL SMITH PrimaTek Watercolours. Once he finds the raw mineral, the DANIEL SMITH chemist rigorously tests it for colour capacity and reliability, how the mineral performs as paint, its lightfastness, and more. Once a mineral proves itself to meet DANIEL SMITH's high standards and what artists expect, it is made into a watercolour that will delight artists everywhere.

To make the minerals into the watercolours, DANIEL SMITH breaks them down from large rocks called "massives" into smaller rocks, then continues breaking them down and removing impurities until the minerals are eventually ground down into pigments. Once the pigments are ready, the DANIEL SMITH manufacturing team mixes them with gum arabic; the mixture is then put on a 3-roll mill and, after some time and tests, is made into DANIEL SMITH PrimaTek watercolours. The milling process for each watercolour is specific to that particular mineral pigment; if you mill (or grind) the minerals too small, the colour becomes dull.

The key is to ensure that each mineral pigment's particle size is large enough to refract the most light for the best colour and small enough to be used for watercolour. Every batch of watercolour is tested to meet DANIEL SMITH's standards for that particular watercolour, and the tests are retained to ensure the colour consistency that artists expect.