gouache painting chart

This is an old chart, about ten years, which is good, as it shows if there are any color shifts or fading over time. Most of these color samples are Winsor Newton Colors. The "A" marked on the chart is a designation from Winsor Newton that indicates lightfastness.

 

The white stripes through the colors are to test for color bleed. If you notice on Gold Ochre for instance, white opacity is hard to achieve. When layering gouache colors you have to be careful, as some colors continue to bleed through the layers. Especially, what are called fugitive colors, that contain small amounts of analine dyes. Cadmium colors I have found will always cover up a color below, so even if you have a midnight blue background, a cadmium orange will happily sit on top without bleed through, solidly opaque.

 

I love Brown Madder-- but, you won't see it on this chart. It is a no longer made Winsor Newton color with a lightfast rating of B. In under a year, many works of mine faded using this paint. That is when I got smarter and started paying attention to the information on the tube. Overall, purples in the Windsor Newton series tend to be fugitive. As an alternative, you can create your own gouache using a pigment and gum arabic, like the bottom purple color shown.

Done