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Is Your Naples Yellow Dull? Mix Your Own in 30 Seconds With This PAA Tutorial

 

Paint Mixing: PAA Director & Founder, Anna Neis
Videographer & Editor: PAA Operations Manager, Kelsey Doherty

Do you find the Naples Yellow you use from the tube dull? Undoubtedly, you’re not alone.

PAA Director & Founder Anna Neis is a ceaseless advocate for mixing colors on the palette and straying from commercially mixed tubes when possible. Watch Anna mix a rich, bodied Naples Yellow with proper elasticity in this short clip. Using paints that have high pigmentation is critical in achieving the desired hue. If you’re like most fine artists, you likely have three to five versions of every paint color you own. For those reading that do not paint, this is due to variations in hue and texture across brands.

We’ve listed the brands we used below if you would like to try out Anna’s exact mixture. 

Are you interested in a little bit of the back-story of Naples Yellow? Read on.

Naples Yellow occurs in nature as the unusual yet common mineral Bindheimite, named after Jacob Bindheim (1750-1825), a German chemist who made the first chemical analysis. Bindheimite is found globally in the oxidized portions of antimony-bearing lead deposits. However, artists never actually used its natural form to create pigments.

File:Bindheimite-211575.jpg

Instead, ancient civilizations used a synthetic version created from the calcination of a lead compound (oxide, nitrate, or lead white) with an antimony compound (oxide, sulfide, or potassium antimonate). Naples Yellow is one of the first

 known synthetic pigments.

Try Anna’s mixture, and let us know how your experiments work out!

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Paints Used in Tutorial Video:

Cadmium Yellow Pale – Winsor & Newton Cadmium Yellow Pale

Titanium White – Winsor & Newton Titanium White

Raw Sienna – Winsor & Newton Raw Sienna