Daniel Greene's Palette

[Doreen Lepore]

After watching Mr. Greene's oil video I took note of the brand of paint he uses, Lafranc & Bourgeois, and found a web site for them. On the palette page they list their sap green as "Permanent Sap Green". So, my assumption is that he's using a mixed sap green too.

Administrator's note: try this site as one of many offering L & B paint. http://www.allartsupplies.com/item.asp?cid=172 My browser couln't translate the L & B site from French.

[ReNae Stueve]

Forgive my novice questions, but I'm a little bugged about the permanence issue. I love using Alizarin and Sap green, now together. Is there any meduim that can be mixed with colors that would bind, and improve a pigment's permanence? OR is there a time line for the color loss/shift.

[Steven Sweeney]

ReNae,

Questions about permanence (other search terms include "fugitive color" and "lightfastness") have been getting increasingly rigorous attention, not unlike questions about, say, toxicity, or discoloration caused by varnishes and various oils and mediums. It's just a sign of the times, that more qualified people are asking searching questions about the quality of the products they're using.

There are many painters who have gone to the trouble to conduct sometimes years'-long tests of various pigments, usually under accelerated aging processes (such as placing samples in long term full-sun exposure). Traditional sap green and alizarin pigments have reportedly done extremely poorly, some accounts indicating substantial fading in only 2 to 4 years. In similar conditions, many of the new "permanent" offerings do extremely well, with little or no degradation. Virgil Elliot, who brooks no inferior materials, has written that he's very impressed with Gamblin's permanent alizarin, which he says looks and behaves very similarly to traditional alizarin.

The overwhelming weight of advisories that I've seen are to take lightfastness ratings very seriously if you care at all about what your paintings will look like in 10 or 20, not to mention 50 or more, years. I now find myself always checking for a Type I or A rating, and if I accept a Type II or AA (or B), there has to be a pretty good reason. Under no circumstances would I purchase paints with ratings less than that.

So why are the fugitive pigments still on the market, and apparently selling well? Probably because of a lack of informed decision-making by those paying the price twice, once at the check-out counter and again, unwittingly, as the pigments degrade over time. I received some pretty reasonable training, and I try to pay attention most of the time, and I was never cautioned about the problem of fugitive pigments. To compound the problem, even if you're trying to be responsible about the matter, there's no uniformity amongst the manufacturers' rating systems. Some use Arabic numbers, some Roman. Some use A's and B's, some single A's and multiple, some "plus signs" [+]. Are two plus signs better than three, or worse? Two A's better or worse than three? It can be hard to find out, and only a search through the manufacturer's literature will tell you. No wonder the tide is slow to change. (Maybe a most-to-least bar would be a useful standard, with a mark to indicate the quality of the pigment you're holding. If they can do it with salsa, why not paint?)

All of which is why I will pursue the issue with Daniel Greene and try to get his thoughts on it.

Meanwhile, I'd suggest that both you and I get into the permanent sap greens and the permanent alizarins offered by various manufacturers and start mixing them up and seeing if there isn't something in there with which we can proceed happily and confidently.

[ReNae Stueve]

Steven,

Sounds like a plan. I've written to L&B to ask about the ratings of their "topic" pigments.

In the meantime, standing by for 50+ years to see if my painting vanish gives me yet another "raison d etre".

It just goes to show ya', it's always somthing.

Thanks,

p. s. I've a friend teaching in an American school in Taiwan, just look for the red-headed guy.

[Steven Sweeney]

I've written to L&B to ask about the ratings of their "topic" pigments.

It'll be interesting to see if they respond. Greene's first pastel video paid advertising homage to L&B, but according to him, there was legislation enacted at one point that required L&B to state the constitutent ingredients of their pastels, and they were so adamantly opposed to revealing those trade secrets, they ceased production instead. (Is this so? I don't know. I've worked in pastels but not of late, and I don't know if L&B is on the market.) They seem to be a bit suspicious of enquiries about their products. Greene's hundreds of pastels (his taboret is the size of a barn door) are now comprised of various other manufacturers' products.

[Mari DeRuntz]

The following sap green substitute mixture is on John de la Vega's palette.

2 parts burnt umber
1 part thalo green

It behaves itself in flesh shadow mixtures with permanent alizarin, but it dries faster than I like because of the earth color. I'll experiment with Schmid's mixture.

[Chris Kolupski]

For whatever it's worth, both Gamblin and Winsor and Newton now market permanent mixed versions of sap green. In my opinion, W&N's version comes closer to duplicating the beautiful but fugitive buckthorn berry variety. Gamblin

[Gina Rath]

I have found the website for Lefranc & Bourgeois oil paint colors. This site shows the lightfastness, transparency, etc. for each of their 'colours'. Hope this helps!

http://www.lefranc-bourgeois.com/rac...e_cadre_gb.htm

Gina

[Steve Moppert]

It was mentioned in this thread, "Traditional sap green and alizarin pigments have reportedly done extremely poorly, some accounts indicating substantial fading in only 2 to 4 years."

A couple of years ago I did a test of alizarin crimson by painting three squares of 1) pure alizarin, 2) one middle value (mixed with white), and 3) one light value, on two separate strips of canvas. I put one in a drawer and one on a window sill with north light. There was no direct sunlight. After only six months the one on the window sill was two to three values lighter, the pure one being the least changed. The one in the drawer was unchanged.

I would expect the same results with sap green.

Steve Moppert

[Steven Sweeney]

I have received a response from Daniel Greene regarding the questions raised in this thread concerning the fugitive or lightfastness qualities of some pigments. I