It’s color week 16 and some color mixing this week brings transparent orange to the post.

Interestingly, in Europe, the color orange didn’t have a name until the 16th century. Prior to that time it was simply called yellow-red. Before the word orange came into common use in English, saffron was sometimes used to describe the deep yellow-orange color. This changed when orange trees were brought to Europe from Asia by Portuguese merchants. The color was then named after the ripe fruit, which carries through many different languages. Orange in English, naranja in Spanish, arancia in Italian, and laranja in Portuguese.

From mymodernmet.com

Orange is an eye catching color but rarely a personal ‘favorite’ color. The association with Halloween, Home Depot and safety equipment kinda dominate the color image.

Chinese white: an opaque-white watercolor made from zinc-oxide pigment; “Chinese white” was the proprietary name given to zinc-white watercolor by the Winsor and Newton Company, which first introduced it in 1834. 

Art Institute of Chicago

My current watercolor class instructor frequently add a touch of chinese white when mixing a color to tone it down, and give a creamy consistency. A good tip.

I’ve started a new watercolor class with an instructor that has a different approach from past classes – Finding Your Voice in Watercolor (Online) with Yong Hong Zhong. 

Looking to learn techniques for fresh brushstrokes and color.

It was not my intention to feature cadmium yellow but cadmium works almost like yellow gouache so it definitely stands out in this little watercolor sketch and thus has become the color for this weeks post. This is a work completed while participating in Karen Abend Sketchbook Revival … this was a workshop featuring Shari Blaukopf as instructor.

When Cadmium Yellow was introduced around the 1840s, it was an expensive color used sparingly or flaunted by those who could afford to use it lavishly such as Monet

Today Cadmium is a permanent color with good tinting strength, considered lightfast and brilliant.