Quinacridone gold PO49, from (dry) pigment to handmade watercolor paint
Channel: Dirty Blue Tube
Date: 2023-02-28

The legendary, almost mythical pigment that is Quinacridone Gold, PO49. 

This is the pigment in it's dry form and the process of it being hademade into a lovely watercolor paint.

* Note that the washes of the swatch are more vibrantly yellow in real life. *

It’s a shame it got discontinued but I’ve been lucky enough to still get my hands on some. The discontinuation and extinction of pigments is, unfortunately a reality. Whereas bigger industries than the art industry finds no use for it anymore, a pigment is taken out of production. Sometimes that’s because more stable and permanent alternatives are found of sometimes it’s even because of costs. A lot of pigments were taken out of (mass) production because of their toxicity. This is nowadays less common. Although cadmiums, manganese, cobalts and other modern pigments might be still more harmful than others, it’s not as pressing an issue as it was for some pigments in the past. 

Most often, it's about the costs now, some mixes are just cheaper to get a hue very close to a single pigment. In the plastics or car paint industry, there's no use for pigment qualities that we love in watercolors. Mixes will just be as good there. 

When it comes to these earthy Quinacridones, they're probably being all replaced by iron oxides over time. 

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