The first colour in the CCC2020 project was Cadmium Scarlet. To describe Cadmium Scarlet and its beauty first and foremost would be to highlight its opacity and heaviness, but there's also a brilliance that glows with intensity, like the coals of a burning fire. The deepest colour appears most brilliant when applied densely and would most commonly be referred to by a layperson as fire engine red. It is the warmest of the reds available in Winsor & Newton professional watercolours before identifying it as an orange. There is certain predictability with Cadmium Scarlet. Each time I revisit this colour on my palette, it reliably performs and has a significant presence.

Cadmium Scarlet’s beauty comes in its duality; the more apparent is its mass tone’s density, depth, and brilliance, but also, surprisingly, the subtlety and gentle presence of its undertone. When Cadmium Scarlet is strongly diluted to become translucent with the addition of water, a wash that carries the least amount of pigment can bestow the colour of flesh, which is incredibly warm with life.

One thing I could note about its sureness is that when you move the brush across the paper surface, the particles possess a propensity to scar the paper quite quickly, reflecting its staining characteristic. Although not every square is perfectly rendered, that is more my handling limitations because it was the first colour that I attempted for this study. The dried surface colour results would be more consistent with time and practice.

There was a sureness with the application, which makes for more consistent handling, and I expect it will hold to the paper and allow for glazing with the migration of pigment. It was easy to apply the wet colour to the edges of the square and know that the diluted colour would travel within the initial barriers. Whether George Field’s description of inherent qualities of the beauty of colour and its sureness is what I'm interpreting… I'm not sure, but this behaviour intrigues me, so I will look into this a little bit further throughout the colour observation.

The development of this cadmium-free colour (and others that will be observed further) was initiated by Colart International Pty Ltd (Winsor & Newton) to provide a colour option for artists that do not possess the toxicity and environmental concerns of the traditional cadmium colours. The performance of Cadmium-Free Scarlet is almost the same as the actual cadmium pigment, other than a slight staining ability that is not as pronounced in the original Cadmium Scarlet (that we have previously observed and discussed), and this is likely the result of its unique pigment chemistry (proprietary knowledge).

The undertone has brighter transparency, but its masstone is still opaque and looks identical to the original cadmium pigment when it's dry; it's virtually undetectable. If anything, I would declare that the Cadmium-Free Scarlet was much easier to handle and versatile because of this duality of the pigment. This colour’s heaviness, density, and sureness are consistent with its design to replicate these inherent qualities of the original cadmium pigment. There is reliability with Cadmium-Free Scarlet’s ability to cover and sit on the paper surface consistently and evenly.

You can see in the grid studies that even in the way that the images have been rendered, each square maintains more even control with a reduced pigment load and that, when applying additional layers of wet colour to a previously dry film, it showed no evidence of lifting or moving the dry layer underneath. It allowed the colour to build and handle the water, indicating its inherent staining quality. This colour sat in the layer of the paper’s surface more quickly than Cadmium Scarlet did (but this could be my handling), and it also appeared different when wet. It seemed brighter and vibrant when I worked with it, and I detected a slight yellower undertone. This was also evident in the glass palette, with the pigments in the residue left on the palate developing yellow scarring around it. I had previously noticed this behaviour in the large glass cylinders when I completed the Gol Gol Layer Colour Observations #5 and #6.

Once dry, the painted surfaces of both colours side by side are undetectable. I suggest that Cadmium-Free Scarlet provides a sureness in its ability to apply multiple layers of colour and perform glazing techniques more consistently and evenly than the traditional Cadmium Scarlet.

Scarlet Lake is a semi-transparent colour and, looking at the dried colour on the grid studies; it appears very similar to Cadmium Scarlet. It also possesses a warmth and brilliant glow in the depth of its saturation, through to the most diluted transparent coloured squares. The tones of the dry diluted colour samples are very similar to the Cadmium Scarlet. Cadmium Scarlet appears to sit on the paper, whereas the Scarlet Lake lies in the paper. Indicative of most organic pigments, it stains with immediate vibrancy. Still, this synthetic version of the colour today does not indicate its historical colour name (as would have been familiar in George Field’s time), as it now has much higher reliability and durability. Today’s colour mirrors the same working properties of its ability to glaze.  

While applying Scarlet Lake to the grids, it was challenging to maintain the strength of colour and control the staining, as it can bruise the paper or leave an echo on the paper that's hard to shift. With greater control of the water and working more slowly and deliberately, it's possible to get very even gradations and increase the intensity of colour. It's perfect for glazing, but its power and brightness rely on the whiteness or the lightness of the surface behind it. It initially looks like Cadmium Scarlet with its beautiful intense warmth and brightness. Still, it is better at mixing colour with the lighter weight of its pigment and extending the colour palette further.

It is opaque and has a presence but sits on the paper. It is the most popular red for artists on their palate, which I have examined many times. There is no doubt that it is popular for a reason; its presence on the paper indicates its inherent quality of sureness, hence, its reliability, and this is what pleases an artist when they work with it. I had tried to ignore and was dismissive of something quite unique about working with this colour. Although my representation on paper is not without its faults, it’s a pleasing colour to work with because it feels different as the brush glides the surface of the paper with it and whether that’s the physical particle or whether that’s the action of the particle with the water and the paper, I'm not really quite sure. But there definitely is something in the quality or the inherent behaviour of Cadmium Red that is unspoken that seems to connect with artists and, as I said, I had tried to work with other colours. I have worked with many different reds, and I very rarely work with the Cadmium Red but, in this instance for this CCC, I found myself enjoying this page more than I had ever expected and will probably place it in my top three colours to work with in terms of its tactility and its sureness- in terms of its depth and brightness. It has intensity, but it is not as bright as expected. It appears quite dull and matte in appearance. I had long criticised Cadmium Red as an inadequate colour on a palette for mixing. To use Cadmium Red’s full potential is to use its opacity, where it sits on top of another colour or applied, allowed to dry, and then have a glaze of a Scarlet or a cooler Crimson overlaid to build that depth of colour.

Even in its most diluted state, Cadmium Red has a presence on the paper. Even when I had cleaned the brush with just the smallest pigment particles, a residue of colour left traces on the paper, like the softest flesh of a baby. It has incredible power because of its opacity, and the colour is subtle, not garish. If used for flesh, the diluted colour might be the most convincing. I suspect that its preference on the artist palette is not due only to its ability to dominate a painting but also to the value of its diluted colour.

Cadmium-Free Red, the replacement cadmium colour, performed similarly to the traditional Cadmium Red. Like the Cadmium-Free Scarlet, it possessed the staining property that the standard cadmium doesn't exhibit. I found the two cadmium red colours virtually identical. However, if anything could be suggested as different, the Cadmium-Free Red had a little more brightness and luminosity. However, it still had a range in the depths of colour and intensity of colour. When working with the wet colour, its dispersion over the surface was a little more predictable or more easily controlled. This was most noticeable in the mid-tones, where I didn't get as much scarring on the paper and bleeding. Whether that was just the atmosphere at the time because it was quite a warm day, I seemed to manage those lighter tones there, not quite mid-tones. The most saturated colour seems darker in tone in the Cadmium Red sample than the Cadmium-Free Red one, but I will investigate further.

This colour is characteristic of a cadmium pigment in its opacity, and it typically sits on top of the paper. It also very typically had the same depth of colour as the previous cadmium colours. It performs very much like all the warm colours, and there's not much differentiation between them other than the transparency and staining properties. This colour, however, is not so sure to be worked with; particularly in watercolour, it seems to behave in its own way. Yet, this is not an undesirable quality. It possesses a subtle quality and a bluish undertone that makes it quite interesting to work with. After repeated layers and glazes, the depth of colour becomes a deep rich crimson. It has a potential that I haven't recognised before, and the most diluted, lightest colour is not dissimilar to the Cadmium Red. Still, it has a quite cool undertone. This could prove to be quite helpful for glazing and repeated layers. I think it's a colour that could be easily overlooked as an option, and I could imagine that Cadmium Red Deep diluted with cool greens could make some interesting greys.

It is not a bright, intense red but a receding red and its intensity is more about how it moves back rather than progresses forward. When working with it, wet colour covered the whole glass palette, and it took a bit to pull the colour out of the dilutions. In saying that, it was a colour that I felt like I discovered for the first time, and it's one of those colours that I will go away and re-investigate because there's something different about the properties of that Cadmium Red, deep pigment that is genuinely unique.

As with the other cadmium-free colours, Cadmium-Free Red Deep has been designed to provide artists with a non-toxic alternative to the traditional cadmium pigments. It provides a suitable option as its similar performance is convincing, except for a slight difference in its undertones. Compared with conventional cadmium pigment, the Cadmium-Free Red Deep may be preferable to work with as it possesses more depth and richness of colour. It has a quality of ‘sureness’ and reliability when handling the watercolour on paper, as evident in my samples, where it can be seen to dry with less scarring and blooming. When applying progressive wet layers over a previous dry layer of colour, I experienced an unevenness of the pigment on the paper. This, of course, could be my handling of the colour and my inadequacies. In the bottom row, the Cadmium-Free Red Deep shows an extraordinary versatility and depth of colour as it has presence from the very palest tints where the colour is most diluted right next to it is the densest deepest cool deep red, and it is those that point of difference and the reliability to achieve that that makes this an extraordinary colour to work with.

I have deliberated over the placement of Winsor Red, as it sits so definitely between the warm reds and the cool red palette for artists. It is a mid-red (primary), but it does not have a pink undertone, and for that reason, I will place it in the warm red palette. I will review this to consider whether it is cool or warm at a later date, and it could very well appear differently when in the wet state as opposed to on paper as a dry paint film.

Winsor Red is a staining pigment PR 254. It is an organic Pyrrole pigment with characteristics of opacity but also intensity. I found its staining properties quite tricky to manage with the deletion of water, and it was very easy for the pigment to get carried away and saturate all surfaces with colour. It takes a concerted effort and restraint to maintain the lightness of the surface when using Winsor Red. I can see the benefits of including this colour on your palette, as it presents possibilities for intensity and the ability to stain again.

This is a colour that takes some getting used to, and its performance as a mixing colour may be more effective than the Cadmium Red due to its ability to stain and layer with brightness.