DANIEL SMITH Extra Fine™ Indigo Watercolor 15 ml. - World`s finest artists` paints

Our DANIEL SMITH Indigo formula mixes Indanthrone Blue with Lamp Black for an extremely lightfast, intense dark that closely matches true Indigo. Transparent, yet high in tinting strength, this Indigo leaves a gentle faded blue denim stain when blotted from a damp state paint. Blueberries, blackberries and plums are a few subjects to play with using this technique. Use Indigo wherever dusty purples are desired. Indigo evokes a feeling of atmospheric depth used for expressive, moody skies. Try flowing short strokes of Indigo into water, add touches of Sepia and Quinacridone Burnt Orange to create branches and birch trees. Historically Indigo, used since the early Egyption times, has been a very important blue dye in fabrics as well as art materials, though not lightfast like DANIEL SMITH’s Indigo Watercolor. Natural Indigo is a deep blue colorant named anil. It is obtained from the sprigs of the indigofera plant. In the late 1600’s, the major source of indigo was the French West Indies, where large crops of indigofera was grown and harvested just before the plant bloomed. Once picked, the plant was processed in vats where it was water filtered, then dried into cakes for export. Starting with 10 parts water to 1 part paint (by weight) in the palette, our chemist paints the top half of the swatch uniformly with a round brush to show the paint’s color and characteristics. For the bottom half, he dips a ¾” flat brush into the paint well just once, then applies the color in stripes until the brush is dry, which shows the color’s tone and behavior through a wash. We use these swatches for color matching during the manufacturing process.