Aqua Green Lt Matisse Fluid 135ml
"Aqua Green Light would be regarded by most artists as a very new shade of colour more akin to 21st century fashion than art from the ancient world. They couldn???t be more wrong about that. While it is not a precise match, Aqua Green Light is similar to the colour malachite which is a copper green colour that forms naturally and has been mined and used for as much as 5,000 years. A mine in Israel in the Timna valley is believed by some people to be one of the mines of King Solomon has been producing malachite for 3,000 years and is still operating, although jewellery is now a more important use for it than artists paints. Malachite is a bit darker than Aqua Green Light, and not quite so bright and clean a colour and to get the actual shade add a small amount of Phthalo Green and a small touch of black to the mixture. This beautiful green was used in ancient Egyptian paintings very purposefully since the colour was intended to represent joy. The ancient Egyptian name for it was wahdj and the hieroglyphic representation for this colour was 3 grains of sand underneath the symbol for green which in today???s terms looks a bit like a neck tie.
Malachite fell out of use for artists in the 18th century when cobalt green was developed which was more permanent but suffered from being a very weak colour. This modern mixture of white with Pthalocyanine Green (Blue Shade) is an ideal replacement. While retaining great permanency, it has the colour strength to make it useful for mixing. It is also a cleaner colour which is regarded as an advantage since it is easy to add a touch of a complimentary colour to make a colour a little softer and less saturated, it is never possible to make a colour that is already desaturated brighter.
Although there is no longer a religious or deeply cultural reason for people to associate this colour with the concept of joy, most would still regard it as a bright colour with a happy character. It is the sort of colour associated with water on hot summer days, and swimming pools, or the colour in a bikini, or in an oriental silk gown.
It is used to make a wide range of sea colours by mixing with Cobalt Turquoise, malachite by mixing with Phthalo Green, a bright grass green when mixed with Permanent Green Light and a lovely light yellow green when mixed with Nickel Titanate. Using Iridescent White to mix with Aqua Green Light makes a colour that wouldn???t look out of place on a Chinese silk gown and it makes a delightful soft light green when mixed with Ash Pink. Aqua Green Light is versatile and very useful to the artist trying to work with greens.
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