Phthalo Green (PG7) is a super vivid, deep, cool (blue-toned) green. To me, it feels like a glowing, hidden pond deep in the rainforest. It is incredibly bright; some folks find it “unnatural” so it may be most useful as a mixer than a natural landscape color.
(There’s another Phthalo Green – PG36 – which is more yellow-toned, that I’ll discuss in a future post.)
Like all the Phthalos, this green is extremely strong and staining. Some people don’t like that about it, and it does have a tendency to overwhelm mixes with weaker colors… but I love it! I’m lazy and I love a color that doesn’t make me work. I just have to make sure my palette is full of similarly vivid colors that can hold their own.
Experiment Results
Graded Wash: Gosh, look at how smooth that gradient is. It had lines it when I painted it, but they all disappeared in the drying and settled into this perfect graded wash that ranges in value from a deep jungle green to a very pale mint/aqua.
Opacity: Utterly transparent.
Glazing: Glazes to an even darker green!
Comparison to Other Brands
PG7 is one of those pigments that everybody has.
Da Vinci – Phthalo Green
Slightly more yellow-toned than Daniel Smith’s, I believe this one is a bit more useful if you plan to have only one Phthalo Green (i.e. not PG7 plus the PG36 Yellow Shade as well). I wrote “handles beautifully!” on there because it was such a joy and so easy to swatch out the gradient with deep color and a smooth even gradation. I also found the mixes easy to do.
Schmincke Horadam – Phthalo Green
A very similar color to DS (very cool/blue-toned), but I found it more difficult to use because – for whatever reason – the binder and the pigment kept separating, even in a new tube. I’d pour out some paint and some parts would be fine, but other spots would be clear, colorless binder. It’s a shame since the color on the outside of the tube is so much cuter than the color on the outside of the DS tube (and that matters to me, okay?!)
Winsor & Newton – Winsor Green (Blue Shade)
One of the more bluey/turquoisey tones. I find this one very beautiful. Similar to Daniel Smith.
Color Mixes
Quin Gold
Nice range of green golds to Hooker’s Green or Sap Green mixes (actually, this is what DS uses to make Sap Green).
Monte Amiata Natural Sienna
MANS yellows and mutes the Phthalo green, making a nice range of granulating foliage greens/landscape colors. These are more muted and textured than the Quin Gold mixes, and less yellowy.
Van Dyck Brown
As you might expect, adding a dark brown gives a dark shadowy appearance.
Transparent Pyrrol Orange
Orange simultaneously warms and muted the green.
Transparent Red Oxide
Very textured brown-green mixes, which I think looks nice for shadowed landscape greens.
Deep Scarlet
I thought these might mix middle grays but I found it difficult to get it balanced; it’s a lot easier to make a muted green or a muted brown-red. It doesn’t get that dark, surprisingly; even the blackish greens don’t read as dark green so much as faded dark green.
Quinacridone Rose
This particular pair of PV19 and PG7 makes a pretty even gray, but please note that some other variations that are more blue-toned actually mix to make purple (such as DS Quin Rose + DS Phthalo Green Blue Shade).
Phthalo Blue GS
Lovely bright, vivid, wide-ranging teals and peacock blues. Mint and aqua in dilute.
Serpentine
This is probably one of the more expensive ways to turn Phthalo Green into a warm, saturated, yellow-green with granulation, but I really like it. It looks like summer leaves to me, more so than the MANS mix which I find too brownish.
What Others Say
The only green in my palette. Used sparingly it can save time, and is the perfect shade for some alpine lakes or the vibrant blue-greens of glacial ice. A little bit goes a long way!
Claire Giordano
If you use Phthalo Green, which looks like something that dripped out of the car onto the garage floor, be sure to tame it with a hefty dose of red.
Catherine Gill & Beth Means, Powerful Watercolor Landscapes
My Review
People like to deride the Phthalos for having an unrealistic color unmixed, but who cares? Personally, I love the color plain. It’s the exact shade I would like every item of clothing I own to be! But even if you never, ever use it plain, it’s still a powerful and fantastic mixer for making deep greens with any number of muting reds, oranges, and earth tones. Mix it with Quin Gold or New Gamboge for a quick Sap Green.
Just beware, it is quite strong so it tends to overwhelm mixes.
On my palette? Yep. This color ticks all the boxes for me: beautiful on its own, useful for mixing, strong, easy to work with and to grade, wide range of values, transparent, non-granulating, single pigment, and cheap. What more could I ask?
Favorite version: Currently using Da Vinci’s Phthalo Green, which is more of a balanced green, slightly easier to mix. But as a color on its own, I prefer the Daniel Smith or Winsor Newton bluer versions.
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