I chose this palette for a night sky painting – and to play with two new Schmincke colors, Indian Yellow and Perylene Violet! Phthalo Blue Green Shade is a classic cyan: bright, but transparent enough to achieve dark masstone. Indian Yellow is a combination of two warm yellows (PY154 and PY110), similar to DS New Gamboge. Perylene Violet is an oddball choice for me, because I usually find it too dark and dreary, but it’s perfect for the deep, dark violets of a night sky.
Reference
I chose this palette to paint a highly specific reference photo, one of the alternate choices Kolbie Blume selected for day 1 of their 10-day Painting the Wilderness challenge.
Although there are vivid magentas in this photo which I knew I wouldn’t get with Perylene Violet alone, I was keen to try to capture the very dark violets in the upper sky.
Color Wheel
You can see some water control issues here – that’s me and Schmincke!
Despite that, and despite the lack of a bright magenta, this set of colors feels like it generally captures the feel of the reference photo.
All three colors together make a stark black, which is great for this photo.
Individual Pairs
Phthalo Blue GS + Perylene Violet
This is the combo that made me want to use these colors. While Phthalo Blue does appear somewhat unmixed in the middle right of the photo, it also has the capacity to go very dark, especially with a darker warm mixer like Perylene Violet. You can see that just a touch of Perylene Violet makes the Phthalo Blue turn into this lovely dark indigo. A balanced mix is an inky night sky violet. And a little Phthalo Blue makes the Perylene Violet extra dark, this luscious, velvety, black cherry color.
Perylene Violet + Indian Yellow
This gradient bears a lot of resemblance to the left side of the photo: dark violet fading to gold. I do find these colors a bit muddy and ugly but they’re not unrealistic for the scenario.
Phthalo Blue GS + Indian Yellow
The blue and yellow together make a nice range of greens, which is not necessary or desired for this photo but good to know. In order to avoid them blending green accidentally here, I have to make sure to do them on different layers and maybe stick some red in between.
Painting
And here is my painting.
Here’s my dirty secret: I did use a little PR122 to ease the transition between Perylene Violet and gold. That’s what keeps the rusty orange in the gradient looking fresh instead of muddy, as in the two-color gradient of Perylene Violet and Indian Yellow. So technically this is a five-color painting, since in addition to the triad shown above, I used the PR122 and white gouache for the stars.
Perylene Violet alone may not be quite right as a dark magenta due to its low saturation, but you can’t deny that it gets super dark in that upper night sky! It was also perfect for making that super-dark blue with the Phthalo Blue.
The unmixed Phthalo Blue is perfect for the more bright turquoise parts of the photo.
I’m proud of a few things here:
- The even blacks with a mix of all three colors (no need for a black paint!)
- The way I didn’t let the blue-to-yellow gradients go green
- Paper towel pickup was a simple but effective way to render the galaxy
Conclusion
Would I use this triad again? Eh… I’m not sure. The Perylene Violet did some things well, and some things less well. Even with a touch of PR122, my painting is far less magenta than the source. I could see redoing this with PR202 or similar instead of Perylene Violet. I wonder if I could get the darks as dark. I do think Phthalo Blue GS was the right call, and I managed with Indian Yellow; but if I wanted less of a headache I could have gone with Gold Ochre or another earth yellow that doesn’t readily go green. Still, I’m overall happy with how it came out, so I can’t complain!