Sennelier Watercolour Cadmium Green Light (823)

Cadmium Green Light (823) 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. Phthalo Green is a transparent, cool, bright, high-intensity colour. An excellent base colour for mixing a range of bright greens.

Pigment Name: Cadmium Yellow PY35

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 form and is used in both oil and watercolour forms. 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.

Chemical Name: cadmium zinc sulphide

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.

Alternate Names: Aurora Yellow, Cadmium Primrose Yellow, Cadmium Zinc Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Primrose Yellow. Deep Cadmium Yellow is sometimes called Orient Yellow.

Pigment Name: Phthalo Green PG7

Phthalo Green is a transparent, cool, bright, high-intensity colour used in oil and acrylics. It comes from a Phthalocyanine Blue pigment where most hydrogen atoms have been replaced with chlorine, forming highly stable molecules. It has pigment properties and permanence similar to Phthalo Blue. It is slow drying and an excellent base colour for mixing a range of bright greens. Phthalo Green is considered a good alternative to Viridian because it is intense, mixes well, and can be used to emphasize mineral colours in various tints. However, its tinting strength is very high, so that it can overpower other colours. This pigment most closely resembles the discontinued and toxic Verdigris.

Chemical Name: polychlorinated copper(II) phthalocyanine

Permanence: Phthalo Greens are completely lightfast and resistant to alkali, acids, solvents, heat, and ultraviolet radiation. Due to their stability, they are currently used in inks, coatings, and many plastics and are considered a standard pigment in printing ink and the packaging industry.

Toxicity: Phthalo Green has no significant hazards, but it contained PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) until 1982.

History: This bright blue-green was developed in 1935 and has been used since 1938.

Alternate Names: Bocour Green, Cyan Green, Intense Green, Monastral Green, Phthalocyanine Green, Rembrandt Green, Thalo Green, Winsor Green.