Gamblin 1980 Oils - Cadmium Yellow Light (PY37; PY74)
Gamblin’s approach is different. 1980 colours contain pure
pigments, the finest refined linseed oil, and marble dust (calcium carbonate).
Since oil painting began, these three ingredients have made more affordable
colours.
Painters experience true colours without homogenized texture
or muddy colour mixtures. Gamblin's approach to using traditional raw materials
and processes ensures that artists experience the luscious working properties
they expect from their oil colours.
Cadmium Yellow Medium: This is a pure medium yellow with
excellent opacity, a naturally muted tint, and high hiding power. This
chemically pure cadmium colour replaced toxic chrome yellow for the
Impressionists. It is most useful for natural light painting and is slow-drying
in oil form.
PIGMENT COMPOSITION AND PERMANENCE
- Pigment Name: PY37-Cadmium Yellow
- Pigment Type: inorganic, cadmium
PROPERTIES
Cadmium Yellow is brilliant, dense, and opaque, with good
tinting strength and high hiding power. It is the artist’s principal bright
yellow and is available in light, medium, and dark shades. The deeper shades
appear deep orange and have the greatest tinting strength.
It is slow-drying in oil and is used in oil and watercolour.
It cannot be mixed with copper-based pigments.
A clean Cadmium Orange is created when Cadmium Yellow is
mixed with Cadmium Red. Hues vary by brand.
Cadmium pigments have been partially replaced by azo
pigments, similar in lightfastness to the cadmium colours, cheaper, and
non-toxic. Cadmium Yellow is usually available in a pure grade or a
cadmium-barium mix. This mix has the same permanence with a lower tinting
strength.
PERMANENCE
Cadmium Yellow is lightfast and permanent in most forms, but
like most cadmium colours, it will fade in fresco or mural painting. The deeper
shades are the most permanent. The pale varieties have been known to fade with
exposure to sunlight in conditions where moisture can penetrate the binder.
TOXICITY
Cadmium Yellow is a known human carcinogen. It can be
hazardous if chronically inhaled or ingested.
HISTORY
Cadmiums get their names from the Latin word cadmia, meaning
zinc ore calamine, and the Greek word kadmeia, meaning Cadmean earth, first
found near Thebes, the city founded by the Phoenician prince Cadmus. Metallic
cadmium was discovered in 1817 by Friedrich Strohmeyer. Oil colours were first
made from Cadmium Yellow pigments in 1819, replacing toxic Chrome (lead)
Yellows. However, their production was delayed until 1840 due to the scarcity
of cadmium metals. Landscape painters, such as Claude Monet, preferred Cadmium
Yellow to the less expensive Chrome Yellow because of its higher chroma and
greater purity of colour.
PIGMENT AND PERMANENCE
- Pigment Name: PY74-Hansa Yellow
- Pigment Type: monoazo
PROPERTIES
Pigment PY74 is one of the most commercially essential
pigments of the Hansa Yellow group, considered superior to many others in its
class based on both tinting strength and lightfastness. Several PY74 grades
with different particle sizes are available. Grades with finer particle sizes
are more brilliant and transparent. Pigment PY74 ranges from reddish-yellow to
greenish-yellow, with temperature shifts from cool to warm hues. It has high
tinting strength and average to slow drying time.
PERMANENCE
This Hansa Yellow has better lightfastness than other yellow
monoazo pigments, particularly in darker shades.
TOXICITY
Hansa Yellow has no significant acute hazards, though its
chronic hazards have not been well studied.
HISTORY
Hansa Yellows were first made in Germany just before WW1
from a series of synthetic dyestuffs called Pigment Yellow. They were intended
to be a synthetic replacement for Cadmium Yellow.
