Michael Hardings Kings Blue Deep - WetCanvas: Online Living for Artists (2024)

sabana

This is an interesting one.

http://www.michaelharding.co.uk/colour/kings-blue-deep/

Created as a Smalt substitute(made obsolete because of ultramarine blue) also in light version.

If you like these venetian or flemish painters colours then it seems a goto.:)
Michael Harding describes it as ‘aerial’? like venetian decorators. What does that mean to you?. Its opaque but is airy?

Has anyone used it in the forum. Any thoughts?

oldboy

Lovely colour to use for skies with perhaps a touch of Ultramarine blue. Mixing some Naples Yellow into it certainly gives it an ‘airy’ look.
Indian red or Aliz. Crimson gives it some atmosphere for distant and overcast skies.

Hardings KB Deep is about the same value as Rembrants Kings Blue, maybe, just maybe the Rembrant is a tad greyer.

sabana

Thanks Oldboy. I may give it a go. The Ultramarine blue always seems a bit harsh in remastering old works and a more subtler blue is what I need. The palette of the Venetian decorators relied on it(smalt) to a large degree. Interrsting you mentioned the Rembrandt version. If it is greyer as you say then maybe thats closer to what we see today?? Just because smalt ‘greys’ over time.

Alan P. in OC

This is an interesting one.

[url]http://www.michaelharding.co.uk/colour/kings-blue-deep/[/url]

Created as a Smalt substitute(made obsolete because of ultramarine blue) also in light version.

If you like these venetian or flemish painters colours then it seems a goto.:)
Michael Harding describes it as ‘aerial’? like venetian decorators. What does that mean to you?. Its opaque but is airy?

Has anyone used it in the forum. Any thoughts?

King’s blue deep is simply ultramarine, zinc white, and titanium white.

http://www.dickblick.com/items/01597-5933/#colorpigments

I use MH paints, they’re great, but I wouldn’t buy one that I can mix from 2 other ones I already have.

Ron Francis

I wouldn’t buy it either.

Ron
www.RonaldFrancis.com

sabana

Id rather open one tube than three :).

Alan P. in OC

Id rather open one tube than three :).

You’re gonna need to mix it with something anyway, right? I’ve never encountered a paint that’s perfect for every hue/value/chroma of it’s particular color:).

sabana

You’re gonna need to mix it with something anyway, right? I’ve never encountered a paint that’s perfect for every hue/value/chroma of it’s particular color:).

Not neccesarily Alan. Im assuming its a fairly accurate reproduction of smalt and that it comes in dark and light shows its to be taken as it does what it says on the tin when it comes to chroma and value. Maybe a few tweaks but not far off what you want. The idea of doing a sixty inch plus painting having to premix is not my idea of fun.

yellow_oxide

A long time ago gunzorro was reviewing Rublev oil paints here and included a swatch of smalt from Blue Ridge. Note that Blue Ridge doesn’t make smalt paint anymore and also that gunzorro’s experience with Rublev paints seems to be outdated now, because I have some newer tubes and haven’t had any of the issues he reported.

Here’s the chart he posted-

As you can see genuine smalt is very transparent and very weak. Simply adding white to any regular blue paint, and therefor increasing opacity, can’t match smalt’s handling. The masstone of blue plus white is obviously also very light to begin with, as opposed to smalt’s dark masstone. The color match in modern king’s blues appears to be for what smalt would look like in a light/thin application, though again without transparency.

As a material there isn’t too much point in color matching smalt specifically. Color matching a sky would make more sense, but then the sky is different colors at different points in the same sky, times of day, elevations, etc., and color adjustment would still be needed. Having a starting color that’s close to what you want is useful, but you’ll still need more than one tube.

Alan P. in OC

Not neccesarily Alan. Im assuming its a fairly accurate reproduction of smalt and that it comes in dark and light shows its to be taken as it does what it says on the tin when it comes to chroma and value. Maybe a few tweaks but not far off what you want. The idea of doing a sixty inch plus painting having to premix is not my idea of fun.

I get it. We all have our convenience mixes, I love Payne’s gray when it’s just ultramarine and ivory black.

karenlee

I have to agree with Alan P; MH KB is nothing special. Now that MH Lapis…I am so goad I got that!!!

Michael Lion

I think that ultramarine is already a weak low-tinting-strength pigment, so there’s nothing to be gained with this convenience mixture.

I can see the point of phthalo blue mixtures because pure phthalo is a real pain in the *** to use because it’s so powerful.

W&N Ultramarine Green Shade is great for skies and is less than half the price.

JCannon

This might be an area where a student line could serve as well. The Georgian/Dick Blick Studio “Light Blue” is ultramarine, pthalo and titanium, a similar recipe to the MH King’s Blue, and the swatches (on the Blick site) look fairly similar. Does anyone out there have any first-hand experience with this paint?

Count me among those who buy the occasional convenience color. They’re just…convenient.

sabana

A long time ago gunzorro was reviewing Rublev oil paints [URL=https://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=622061]here[/URL] and included a swatch of smalt from Blue Ridge. Note that Blue Ridge doesn’t make smalt paint anymore and also that gunzorro’s experience with Rublev paints seems to be outdated now, because I have some newer tubes and haven’t had any of the issues he reported.

Here’s the chart he posted-

[img]http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c80/gunzorro/IMG_9216web.jpg[/img]

As you can see genuine smalt is very transparent and very weak. Simply adding white to any regular blue paint, and therefor increasing opacity, can’t match smalt’s handling. The masstone of blue plus white is obviously also very light to begin with, as opposed to smalt’s dark masstone. The color match in modern king’s blues appears to be for what smalt would look like in a light/thin application, though again without transparency.

As a material there isn’t too much point in color matching smalt specifically. Color matching a sky would make more sense, but then the sky is different colors at different points in the same sky, times of day, elevations, etc., and color adjustment would still be needed. Having a starting color that’s close to what you want is useful, but you’ll still need more than one tube.

Thanks for that.
Yes the genuiness is a concern. As it was as a substitute for ultramarine because it was readily available and cheaper of course and ultramarine hadnt come.along yet. Its not going to.be anything special. But the preperation and ingredients differed a bit too. Ie ground cobalt glass.

So wheres the cobalt?

Gigalot

Cobalt is gone! But we can try to mix our Cobalt blue and Glass powder to match original thing more close. After my miracle experiments with transparent materials, I can mix Prussian blue or Phthalo to be Smalt hue. But since I have some Cobalt on my palette, I can do Cobalt smalt, which is honestly better thing.