You were so proud of your watercolor painting of some roses. You had achieved a good drawing as a base for the painting. You loved the composition and how it spanned the picture plane. The light spread through the roses and gave you the effect you were looking for by balancing the shadows from very dark to beautiful bright red highlights. It was one of your best pieces to date. In fact, it sold very quickly and that made you even happy.
But a couple of months later, the buyer contacts you. Something had changed in the painting. The buyer said that he has lost some of his shine. You agree to look at the painting and are surprised by what you find. It seems much less vibrant to you. Some of the red areas that were rich in color now look dull and washed out. You can’t believe what you’re seeing. What happened?
Runaway colors — that’s what happened. The artist was unable to read the labels of the paints she used or truly understand the permanence of the colors she had chosen. Perhaps it was the first time she had chosen those colors. She had no idea that some of them were “runaway” colors. In this article, we’ll briefly go over what fugitive colors mean and how to read paint labels to better understand what she’s buying, whether it’s oils, acrylics, watercolors, gouache or other paints.
A fugitive color is a paint that has a pigment that can change over time. Most of the time the changes are caused by exposure to strong light, especially sunlight. Each manufacturer of better paints places a rating on the tube by the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM). You’ll also find this rating on best colored pencil brands. They rate lightfastness (the ability of the pigment to resist exposure to light) on a scale of I-IV, with I being Excellent and IV being Fugitive. Look for that number on your paint tubes. It may look like this: ASTM IV or ASTM II. The higher the number, the more fugitive the color. Always try to use the ones marked I or II no matter how much you like the color. Especially if you are going to sell the work. Customers are not happy when their paints change over time!
Reds are the most fugitive colors, hence the rose painting example above. Historically, alizarin crimson has been a fugitive, but now you must look for rephrasing as “Permanent Alizarin Crimson.” Fugitive color reformulations are much more stable and can also be referred to as “New” like some yellows. With runaway colors like gamboge, again, look for “New Gamboge” as that is a new wording. Any color with the name “madder” is also a fugitive, like Rose Madder.
Try and become familiar with the way different brands mark their tubes. At Winsor & Newton, for example, you’ll see permanence marked AA for extremely permanent, A for permanent, and B for moderately permanent. They also show a Serial number that relates to price, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. And finally, the light fastness marked I, II, III or IV.
Each manufacturer provides the same information in different ways. So, read your tubes and have fun with the colors you like. But be careful if you want permanence in your job.