Favorite Paint Mixtures: Permanent Rose (PV19)

With spring flowers blooming in abundance and as I begin to bring them into the studio to paint, I realize that Permanent Rose is one of my go to paint colors when my subject matter involves flowers. I love its bright rosy color, its transparent quality without being overly strong and staining.

This quinacridone pigment (PV19) is one versatile color. It also happens to be my favorite color to mix with neighboring reds, oranges, and yellows when I want a vibrant color but also want to allow for subtle shifts in value and tone.

In my opinion, it may be the hardest working paint during the spring and summer season.

For my examples today, I thought I would share floral images to reinforce how helpful Permanent Rose is when mixing the correct shades of pink, magenta, and lavender. Permanent Rose is somewhat cool in its pure form, however it mixes especially well with yellows and oranges to emulate the glowing affects of yellow sunlight shining through translucent pink flower petals.

Permanent Rose is also a stellar color to select when you want to mix warm glowing oranges. I have found that when I want a particularly saturated orange, I often do not use cadmium orange but a mixture of Cad Lemon or Cad Yellow Lt and Permanent Rose, to achieve the glowing bright orange I am after. Permanent Rose also mixes well with Burnt Sienna, so when a muted orange is required you will be able to mix a softened, less saturated orange that still has an earthy warmth to it.

In the previous two examples I shared how Permanent Rose shifts warm rather easily, however the nice thing about this particular pigment is that it also shifts cool into the purples and blues with ease. Some of the most luscious purples come from mixtures with any of the Cobalt blues, turquoises, and greens. And when you use a high concentration of Permanent Rose mixed with medium, this pigment will create some beautiful effects as a glaze.

Permanent Rose is a transparent, a quinacridone violet pigment, that is strong and clear, and makes lovely mid-tone pinks. I love how it mixes with other paints, those similar in color as well as its complementary colors. It makes really deep blacks/purples when when mixed with viridian. I have found that is color is amazing in how versatile it is. When I used to paint the figure more often, it was almost always a color I relied on to add the rosy blush to a fair-skinned model. And now that I paint so many flowers, it is a color I always make sure to have on my palette.