The Colouriest Colours

I have, for a while been interested in the materials produced by Culture Hustle. I think I first heard of the paint from a facebook post by Joolz Denby, and then obviously discovered the somewhat amusing vantablack/pinkiest pink/black 2.0 etc comedy between Stuart Semple and Anish Kapoor.

I’ve been a little unsure what to make of it all and indeed the somewhat esoteric art materials. Semple is a respected artist, but to some extent they had a slight air of hipster about them. Also I am not put off by high prices, but was unsure of the real quality. I’d also read some poor reviews of the service (though I beleive these are in America, in all fairness).

However, Semple offered a £10 voucher recently for taking a survey so, armed with this, I bit the bullet, and ordered a set of “The World’s Colouriest Powder Paints“. Culture Hustle’s marketing machine is obviously in full swing, as it offered me a discount on various other items at the checkout, so I thought “sod it” and grabbed the Hallowe’en Orangiest Orange as well.

So here we have the Pinkest Pink, The Yellow Yellow, The Greenest Green, The Orangiest Orange and the Loveliest Blue. I am quite pleased about the name of the latter, being a pedant and all that, as while there is a careful disclaimer aboutn whether they are the pinkest pink etc. there is no pigment natural or man-made that is a true blue (i.e. only reflecting the blue wavelengths of the electromagnetic specturm). This is certainly not it, lovely as it is; it is said that the closest is the hideously expensive recent Yinmn or Oregon blue – which may be another story when I can afford the £39 it costs for a half pan!

Now, powder paints are not really something I have thought of since primary school – I remember mixing large bottles of poor quality paint, with a splash of washing up liquid to help it mix (and the inevitable foamy mess), but these promise to be miscible with linseed oil, acrylic Binder or clear gesso, or plain water.

This is all well and good, and they do indeed mix with water very well (though a drop of soap helps) but I am a half-pan kind of guy, so my instant thought was whether I could create some half pans.

So armed with my powders, some mildly soapy water, a morter and pestle and the cheapest newspaper in Waitrose (I really must grab some free papers and save them), I set to work.

I had no real idea of amounts, but found broadly that about a half pan of powder and the same volume of water made an acceptable paste that seemed smooth and pourable. I mad a couple of half pans of each, and left them to dry.

The powders do have slightly different mixing consistencies, something that became evident after a couple of days drying. The orange cracked a little, while some of the others which seemed the same thickness at the time shrunk to a good half the volume. But after a second batch I ended up with some prettty acceptable half-pans.

Of course the other concern was how well they would re-wet. I think in future iterations a drop of glycerol may be useful, but all in all they have worked quite well. I think to get really strong colours mixing thicker would be useful, but they work very nicely in pans and behave like any other mid-quality watercolour.

I’d be interested to know the pigments. The blue granulates a little, and is most likely based on a synthetic ultramarine (as this is now pretty cheap and wide spread). The orange has the slight salmon undertone of a pyrrol, to my mind. I’d guess the yellow to be an arylide, and the pink to be quinocridone violet. The green is perhaps a phthalo, mixed with a yellow. I suspect they all contain some optical brighteners. But who knows?

Here’s the Colour Swatches:

All in all, for the amout of use I will get from them, particularly as half pans, I think the price is ok, they are good paints, and I had no delivery problems (other than I felt £6 was a little more than competitors).

I’ll definitely buy and explore some more at some point, definitely the blacks and some more of the powders as other colours come out.

And as for the leftovers from the mixing? A quick bit of pop-art…