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1. Jim Cobb Paintmaker, Owner of Chroma 29 Oct 2007

   Dear Steve
   
   Great to get comments on colour.
   
   The old "original" Hookers Green Liquitex was Napthol Green B which failed badly when tests for lightfastness were done way back, and all today’s "Hookers" Greens are mixtures which vary from brand to brand.
   
   I will send you a "Forest Green" which I think you may find similar to "Hookers". It also resembles Jenkijnes Green in Golden.
   
   I agree that a Yellow Oxide would be useful – it’s opaque and lighter than Yellow Ochre, so there is room for both, plus Gold Oxide (or Mars Orange), a colour we need for desert landscape.
   
   Napthol Crimson can be dropped: Pyrrole Crimson is nicer and close in colour.
   
   I agree about the Pink Grey. It is very close to Jaune Brillant. Viridian could be considered. (Does anyone else miss Viridian? Yellows: I think they are lurking there with unfamiliar names: Arylamide Yellow Light and Deep, Transparent Yellow (Arylamide) is transparent and also very greenish when white is added.
   
   To provoke more comment, I’ll make you a deep grey we used to have and many people have missed. I stand by "the shaded blacks" for the moment. Who likes these?
   
   The important thing here is that people should understand that a range of 75 colours can be open for review and can be changed.
   
   Now that we have the Internet, we have a way to communicate and make the right choices, so I hope many people will make suggestions about favourite colours.
   
   After thinking about your email, I realized that there are quite a lot of colours which use the same pigment but have different names in Atelier Interactive, Golden and Liquitex. It may help to give the alternative names on our website so that people can match up easily. There are also colours which use different pigments but still make a close match. Does anyone want action on this?
   
   Jim Cobb
   Paintmaker
   
   

2. Ian Bruce Northport, Maine, United States of America. 11 Nov 2007

   Jim, thank you for sending me a tube of Transparent Yellow. It is a very impressive paint--and, as you indicated it does seem greenish when mixed with white (odd--it is a very warm green by itself). It did enable me to mix a wider range of greens but I don't think that I would call it a replacement for Lemon Yellow, however. I would rather use the Transparent Yellow for its own (very superior) qualities. It is incredible for glazing and wonderfull in mixes. It will be a standard on my pallette. I would love to see Viridian as well. It is the only green that I feel is necessary to my palette. Viridian, a warm and a cool yellow, a warm and cool blue and as many as four reds enables me to mix any green I might need. (I use Viridian strictly for mixing--seldom using it alone). Of course, I am an unreconstructed traditionalist as far as pigments are concerned, having come to acrylics fairly recently from watercolor. Watercolorists love the older pigments and single pigment paints, so I am a bit at sea as to the advantages of the many newer pigments. I absolutely love your paints and intend that they be my only acrylic brand. Going to have to find a deserving young artist to give the rest to. I admire your enthusiasm and dedication.
   
   Ian Bruce

3. Jim Cobb Paintmaker, Owner of Chroma 12 Nov 2007

   Ian's comment above is in response to an email I recently sent him in regards to a question he had about Lemon Yellow.
   
   See below his original email and my response.
   
   Jim
   I have been using Interactives for a while now and like them. I have one problem--no lemon yellow. Arylamide yellow light is too warm and I can not tell from the color chart if you have a cooler yellow. Cadmium light is cool in some brands but does not look noticeably different from Arylmade yellow light in your chart. Neither does transparent yellow. HELP! I can't mix a full range of landscape greens without a cool yellow--totally impossible! Is one of those yellows a lot cooler than they appear on the chart or am I going to have to mix brands--which I do not want to do as Interactives are so different.
   Waiting anxiously for your reply,
   Ian Bruce
   
   
   Dear Bruce,
   I decided to look more carefully into your question about yellows, send you an image, and some samples and ask for your comments:
   
   1) Because it is very important to get primary colours right, and lemon yellow is the greenest PY3 or Hansa 10G (i.e. has 10degrees of greenishness by old Hoechst reckoning.)
   
   Our Transparent yellow PY74 transparent is referred to as 5G, so it is not as green, but it is very strong and very transparent, and when white is added it looks more like 10G yellow.
   Our Cad yellow light is very greenish for a cadmium.
   
   2) The underlying question here is this: Does Atelier Interactive need to have a Hansa yellow10G or are we green enough?
   
   3) I can see the potential for another interesting topic on Paint Talk for landscape painters about what colours are needed for different parts of the world, given differences of vegetation and outdoor light? Most of Australia is very dry and needs “warm” colours. There are similar needs in parts of California, Arizona etc and in Spain and South of France, Scicily and Calabria.
   Any comments on this? I want to add Gold Oxide (Mars Orange) for desert painters.
   Jim Cobb
   
4. Steve Frenkel Marietta, Georgia, United States of America. 30 Nov 2007

   This comment is in response to a sample color, Violet Grey, that Jim Cobb sent along to me. First, thanks for the opportunity to look at this color. While it is a very pleasant color, I found that I could almost exactly match it with a few of the Interactive colors on my palette. I guess I would prefer colors that are more difficult to mix than a shaded or toned violet. Hope that this comment helps. I continue to really enjoy these paints.

5. Jim Cobb Paintmaker, Owner of Chroma 30 Nov 2007

   This comment came to me from Ian Horn via email please see below for my response
   
   
   Chroma,
   
   I have been using Atelier acrylics since they came on the market but occasionally I have been left high and dry - sometimes in the middle of a project - by a colour change. One was the change of olive green which thankfully has returned to its original formula. I have been devastated by the deletion of Permanent Purple Madder with the introduction if the Interactive range. I have been unable to find a suitable substitute with the density of this colour. It has exceptional tonal depth with great opacity. Permanent Brown Madder does not have these qualities.
   
   I understand that you cannot provide an infinite range but while there have been some excellent additions, (ie:the wonderfully transparent Red Gold), I find some, especially the new black range to be spurious, because alternatives are easily mixed.
   
   Overall I am full of praise for developments with Atelier as, for the first time, acrylics are beginning to match the richness and flexibility of oil techniques. (Acrylics have always been more flexible but now can overlap into the special subtle transparent qualities of oils.)
   
   Regardless of the advice I have been given by your people, by far the biggest issue with acrylics is the drop in value - darkening on drying. Whether or not it eventually happens in oils as well (as one of your reps once told me) is irrelevant as it does not confuse the relative tonal balance during the actual painting process. With gouache, I found the colours actually became brighter on drying.
   
   Kind Regards,
   Ian Horn
   
   
   My response follows
   
   Permanent Purple Madder and Permanent Brown Madder were both high performance transparent colours made for the auto body industry. The purple has been extinct for several years now,(it takes time for stocks to filter through) and now the Brown Madder is also extinct, which also has an effect on Permanent Alizarine which was a mixed colour with Permanent Madder components.
   
   How do we fill the gaps?
   
   For Permanent Alizarine we have found a Pyrrole pigment, a single colour which is a rich ruby red and very transparent. If you can email me your postal address I’ll send you a tiny pot to try out. In the meantime see the attached images for comparison. I think this is an improvement.
   
   Permanent Brown Madder is not too far away from Transparent Red Oxide, which is used in woodstains and will therefore not become extinct. There is a Quinacridone pigment which is closer (PR206) and is sold in the Golden Range as Quinacridone Burnt Orange. Does anyone want this colour or can it drop out?
   
   Permanent Purple Madder; I always liked this colour, for reasons you have put forward, but haven’t been able to find a near equivalent. Quinacridone Red Violet is probably the closest, or maybe the new Pyrrole Alizarine and a dash of Diox Purple? I use the mixed Purple in Series 1 a lot for landscapes, but it isn’t as deep as the old Purple Madder.
   
   I have found a deep brown, very definite Vandyke Brown type colour, made from an umber pigment, which I prefer to the present Brown Black. I use Paynes Grey, Blue Black (Indigo) and Green Black. Of course they can be mixed: does anyone else want to comment?
   
   I would like to add Yellow Oxide and Gold Oxide to the range.
   
   Your last paragraph:
   "Regardless of the advice I have been given by your people, by far the biggest issue with acrylics is the drop in value - darkening on drying. Whether or not it eventually happens in oils as well (as one of your reps once told me) is irrelevant as it does not confuse the relative tonal balance during the actual painting process. With gouache, I found the colours actually became brighter on drying."
   
   Have you read my earlier comments on this?
   
   Moistening your dry painting will return its wet values giving the balance you speak of when you overpaint.
   I agree this was the biggest issue, but it is gone now.
   
   Read more here towards the bottom of the page under Overpainting and Tonal Change http://www.chromaonline.com/chrom...ng_interactive/painting_wet_over_dry
   
   Notes on Colour Swatches
   
   1. Interactive Crimson Series 1.
   Manganese Crimson which is transparent and mixes in much the same way as Alizarine Crimson, but is less deep in mass tone.
   
   2. Quinacridone Magenta
   The high performance pigment used in offset printing as process magenta, and is quite clearly the most intermixable transparent blue shade red available to artists, and which should have displaced Alizarine on the basic palette. Is it news travelling slowly, or its “sharpness” compared to the more neutral Alizarine, which explains its lack of popularity.
   
   3. Pyrrole Alizarine
   Not as deep in mass tone as the old Alizarine pigment but is as transparent and is a beautiful colour.
   
   4. Permanent Alizarine
   Blended from Quinacridone Magenta neutralised by Permanent Brown Madder (now extinct) is the current Permanent Alizarine used in AI.
   
   5. Alizarine is not shown and has fallen into disrepute because it has inferior lightfastness. The colours shown above are the modern alternatives available. Do you have comments to make?
   
   
   
   Jim Cobb
   Paintmaker
   
   

   Manganese Crimson which is transparent and mixes in much the same way as Alizarine Crimson, but is less deep in mass tone.

   The high performance pigment used in offset printing as process magenta

   Not as deep in mass tone as the old Alizarine pigment but is as transparent and is a beautiful colour.

   Blended from Quinacridone Magenta neutralised by Permanent Brown Madder (now extinct) is the current Permanent Alizarine used in Interactive.

6. Jim Cobb Paintmaker, Owner of Chroma 30 Nov 2007

   This question was emailed to me recently, please see below for my response.
   
   Dear Chroma,
   
   I stumbled upon Elisabeth Cummings' stunning artworks two days ago.
   See Elisabeth's artwork in our Gallery section here http://www.chromaonline.com/chrom.../fine_artists_a_z/elisabeth_cummings
   
   Question: does Chroma ever give out a list of palette colors used by Elisabeth? I am assuming she buys the 'Archival Oils' since her paintings, and other artists, are displayed on your site.
   
   My gratitude for a reply,
   
   Judith Forster-Monson
   Minnesota USA
   
   My Response:
   
   Judith
   
   I'm sure Elizabeth would be pleased to know you have found her paintings and really like them. She is away in India at the moment, but we have several of her paintings in our house because we love them too, and peering at these, there is a lot of Smooth Gel used to build texture and a fairly standard warm/cool use of colour plus the normal earth colours.
   
   She does use some Superchrome yellows and reds which we make especially in 300ml cylinders for artists who use a lot of paint.
   
   She uses Fast Drying White and the Smooth Gel to make her paintings dry quickly. She also uses transparent colours like Permanent Brown Madder, etc. to key up her colours when she wants to.
   
   I'm sure she'd be pleased to add her own comments when she comes home.
   
   Jim Cobb Paintmaker
   
   

   Elisabeth Cummings. Diptych. 175 x 300cm. 2004 Oil on canvas.

7. Gill Knox Lower Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand. 12 Jav 2008

   I wanted to say that Red Gold and Payn'es Gray are my very favourite colours and thank you for making Naples yellow, how wonderful to have a cream already mixed(I used it for a request the other day), and I can lightly tint it again if desired to fit in with a particular hue. Please don't ever delete thes colours :)
   I love the darks that can already be mixed and would prefer miximg my own, so I will not be trying the tinted blacks.
   I am a BIG fan of your interactives, not the least reason because I love the plastic tubes....could you consider a double sized tube of white, rahter than a pot?
   Also, I cannot remember if you have any interference paints, I would LOVE a few of those in your collection
   Gill Knox
   

   One of my paintings using red gold

8. Jim Cobb Paintmaker, Owner of Chroma 17 Jav 2008

   Gill
   Thank you for your comments on Interative. There are Pearl White, trans white (with a hidden pearl content) and Silver - a quality aluminium metal pigment.
   
   For "interference" paints I suggest you use the Jo Sonja's Iridescent colours, available in gold, green, red, violet, blue and turquoise. They look better over a dark colour ground as you probably know.
   
   Keep watching Paint Talk if you are interested in colour choice.
9. Jim Cobb Paintmaker, Owner of Chroma 21 Jav 2008

   This question came into the suggestion just before Christmas please see below for my response.
   
   Dear Jim...
   
   I'm a semi-ablstract painter who, although I work from nature (mostly here in Arizona), I don't try to copy natural colors. I'm more in line with the “Fauve” school of painting so my color concerns are somewhat different than most of those shown under this topic. I work in acrylic and when I'm flush I buy Golden, when I'm not I get the Dick Blick house brand. I've been dying to try your Atelier Interactive acrylics and it looks like I'm getting an art store gift certificate for Christmas which leads to my question: It's important to me that I'm able to get maximum intensity for any hue I need out of my pallet. Suppose, say, I wanted to start minimally and choose a split-primary pallet..warm/cool red, warm/cool blue, etc. What colors would give me the best over-all range? Going a step further to nine colors, what would be the best secondaries to fill in between? Going all out to 12 colors, supposing I wanted to have a “true” red, yellow or blue to fit between the warm/cool primary variants? (I didn't mention earth colors because I prefer to tone down my colors by first mixing for hue and value then mixing and adding a gray of the same value until I get the proper intensity.) Anyway, Jim, whatever guidance you could offer would be greatly appreciated.
   
   All the best,
   
   Jim F
   
   P.S. I tend to prefer the mineral colors like the dirarylides, napthols, etc. to the organic colors like the cadmiums because you don't get as much of an intensity reduction when you lighten their value. However the cadmiums are wonderful at full strength.
   
   My Response
   
   Dear Jim F
   
   I note that you are working on landscapes in Arizona: I have painted “plein air” using Atelier Interactive quite successfully, but used a hell of a lot of water spray, so it will be interesting to hear how you get on in a similar climate outdoors.
   
   Colour
   I would suggest (warm/cool you requested):
   Arylamide Yellow Light (cool)
   Arylamide Yellow Deep (warm)
   Napthol Red Light (warm)
   Crimson (cool) or Quinacridone Magenta (according to your tastes)
   Pthalo Blue (cool),
   Ultramarine Blue (warm)
   and Carbon Black (for chroma reduction) plus white.
   
   This equals eight colours. I would then go:
   Perinone Orange,
   Pthalo Green,
   Diox Purple to maximise high key secondaries.
   
   Alternatively: what is your golden palette? It should be easy to transpose colour choice from that.
   
   Can you throw an image on the website? It would help me and others to understand your approach. I tend to use earth colours with bright colours to reduce chroma. You seem to use grey from what you have said.
   
   Jim Cobb
   

10. JIM F PHOENIX, ARIZONA, United States of America. 22 Jav 2008

    Hi Jim...
    
    Once I got my Dick Blick gift certificate I was too impatient to wait for your reply so I went ahead and ordered my Interactive colors. Would you believe I ordered EXACTLY the same colors you suggested above! (What are the odds!) It's funny that once I received them, the only color I was slightly unsatisfied with was the Crimson which I wished would lean a little more to the purple, and of course that's the color in which you offer an alternative of Quinacidrone Magenta which I'll order next time. I'm very pleased with the body and intensity of the paint (I'm a fanatic when it comes to intensity) and I'm just starting now to explore their use. Painting wet-in-wet using acrylics is a new experience for me and I like the expressiveness and unpredictability I'm getting as opposed to my usual painting over dry paint. I'm enclosing one of my Arizona landscapes (painted in the studio) to give you an idea of my style.
    
    All the best,
    
    Jim Flanagan

    BIG SKY

11. Barry Dallas, Georgia, United States of America. 26 Jav 2008

    Jim , I just wanted to chime in here and tell you that your AZ. landscape is great. As a former Phoenix resident I can appreciate the color that you've captured in the cloud formations.What kind of surface are you painting on and are you going transparent or opaque? That's my kind of painting . Let's see more
    Barry Sholder

12. Steve Frenkel Marietta, Georgia, United States of America. 14 Fév 2008

    Hello Jim,
    
    I was very excited to receive samples of some newly suggested colors by mail, yesterday. I opened them up and "played" with them in my studio this morning. I'd already made some comments about the Violet Grey and still stick with my first impression after giving this color another look. I feel that it is an easy mix from the existing color line and not a very clean item.
    
    The other new colors that were sent, however, were all very clean. I really liked the Pyrrole Alizarine. It seems both brighter and cleaner than the Permanent Alizarine that I've been using. The Rich Brown is a great fill in within the earth items. It should work very well in paintings of the built environment and where a good flat color brown is needed. Wonderful! In fact, this color and the Viridian remind me of school (tempera) colors I used when I was a kid. That's a good thing! I am very pleased to see the Viridian. It's a color I asked for awhile back. I used Viridian, Black and White to create a painting some years back. When I was working in oils it was an essential item on my palette. This Viridian is brighter and cleaner than the Forest Green I've been depending upon. It is a great addition to fill out the greens.
    
    I've had both the Toning Grey Mid and Pinkish on my palette for several months, but have found them to be difficult to figure out. The Toning Grey Yellowish, though, has earned a permanent place on my palette. It is a great color to warm up and/or neutralize other combinations. The new Neutral Grey that I was sent would be just fine for mixing warm "toned" colors. Toned colors, for those who might not know this, are those with both black and white added. I'd also like to use it as a basic gray and mix tints (white added) and shades (black added) from it. I'm praying for this one to make the Interactive line.
    
    All in all, with only the Violet Grey as an exception, I would welcome these new colors into my studio and add them to my Atelier Interactive palette. Included with these new colors was a tube of Transparent Perinone Orange. I have never had an orange in my studio, so I'll be doing a little experimenting with it. It's a lovely clean color, though, and I'm going to see if I can make some interesting mixes with it.
    
    Here's an unasked for idea. Could you create a swatch book (with actual colors, not reproductions) that shows all of the color line and then shows easy 1:1 or 1:2 mixes of these colors. For instance, perhaps Viridian and Pthalo Green? Or Nuetral Grey and Purple? I'd be willing to pay up to $10 for such a chart.

13. Jim Cobb Paintmaker, Owner of Chroma 29 Avr 2008

    This comment came in via email.
    
    Hi Jim,
    
    Your discussions about developing colors on the chroma website were very interesting to me. I'm a professional artist who has painted in most everything that's out there.
    http://www.terrimwells.com
    I tried your paints through a donation from Jerry's Artarama for a charity event I worked in Austin, TX. I love the juicy feel of your paints as they go on the canvas, and the colors are great.
    My only wish is for the classic color, ivory black.
    In oil, ivory black is perfect for greens when mixed with cad yellows, and gives that amazing blue/purple for distant hills and water that you see in CA plein air paintings. It?s a color in oil paintings that is much admired, but can not be reproduces with any other blue combinations. Kenn Backhaus is a current artist who uses it, but as you know, it?s been around a long time.
    http://www.kennbackhaus.com
    Paints and their qualities are of great importance to me. I carefully picked out my watercolors using the Wilcox guide for permanence and mixing. My oil palette was developed from observing artists whose work I admire. I gave up acrylic years ago, but your Atelier is enticing me to use it again. I?d like my acrylic palette to be Atelier for it?s versatility and painterly touch, but without ivory black I feel it?s missing an important key to landscape painting. Is there any chance that you are developing this color?
    
    Terri M. Wells
    http://www.terrimwells.com
    
    http://www.pleinairaustin.org
    

14. Jim Cobb Paintmaker, Owner of Chroma 30 Avr 2008

    Dear Terri
    
    Colour names can be confusing.
    Mars Black is opaque and made from iron oxide.
    
    Another range of blacks is made from carbon, which is transparent, I think this is the characteristic you are seeking, and our Carbon Black is strong and transparent.
    
    You can dilute it so that it becomes weak and more like “Bone Black” you can add mediums – Slow Medium or Thick Slow Medium to get what you want.
    
    Realbone Black, or Ivory Black was made in large quantities when the West was won and millions of buffaloes were slaughtered. Ivory Black was unkind to elephants – these are probably just names today (one would hope) and PBK7 identifies Carbon Black, as being used in a colour bearing the name “Ivory Black.”
    
    Jim
    

15. Terri M Wells Austin, Texas, United States of America. 02 Mai 2008

    Dear Jim
    
    I agree about those color names! I think the quality I'm really concerned about is the tendency of the black to be more toward a specific color. Can you tell me the difference between PBK9 and PBK7? Do you have a black that is based on PBK 9?
    
    Terri

16. Jim Cobb Paintmaker, Owner of Chroma 21 Mai 2008

    Hi Terri
    
    On further reflection what you have brought up is a very important subject in my opinion, and I’d like to know more about what your bone black does, and now that we have digital cameras and the internet its very easy to send an image that illustrates what you are talking about and if there is a valid reason for having bone black as a separate colour I’d go ahead and have it made up.
    
    Thanks for raising this issue with me and I hope you can send me a digital image.
    
    Jim

17. Kyle Rockville, MD, United States of America. 17 Juin 2008

    Hi Jim!
    
    I'm a big proponent of single-pigment paints, and I would love to see some more of the "modern" colors in your range. In particular, it'd be great to have Indian Yellow made with isoindolinone yellow (PY110) instead of the current mixed pigments, a transparent pyrrole red, and a transparent yellow oxide. An indanthrene blue would be great as an alternative in mixes to pthalos. A graphite gray (like in the Tri-Art line) would also be spectacular if it's possible to do that in the interactive format.
    
    I don't really see the point of the following colors in the present line: Brown Black, Green Black, Red Black, Olive Green, Pacific Blue, Terre Verte (I'd much rather have Viridian), and all of the toning grays. I can easily mix more suitable versions on a per painting basis of all of those.
    
    Thanks!
    Kyle

18. Diana , , . 31 Juil 2008

    First of all, I have not even received my paints but in looking over the colors available and I have to agree with the greens....Sap Green, Thalo Yellow Green are two of my favorites. I would love to see an Ultramarine Blue also. I have been learning to mix colors and my color palette was derieved from books on landscape oil paintings as this is where my primary interest lies.
    
    In my request are any of your colors close to what I am looking for?
    
    I am excited to get these paints and begin to play... Each artist is different, and has a different "desire" in finding the paint that will most fit what they are trying to
    achieve and I am thinking that these new Interacitve Paints are going to be my answer.
    
    Diana

19. fabulous , , . 10 Août 2008

    What colour have you made to replace the yellow light hansa PY3 ? and i would like to see the true cerulean blue added to the colour chart instead of the cerulean that one can mix from cobalt. regards janna

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