Hopefully, you will have received our latest postcard which talks about the specific organic pigments we have selected to mill so that we can provide you with a nice range of encaustic paints to choose from. In this article, I want to focus on one of those pigments; Anthraquinone Orange, as people tend to be less familiar with this pigment than some of the other organic pigments like the Phthalos or Quinacridones. 

Anthraquinone Orange is a deep orange very similar in mass tone to our Cadmium Red Vermillion. However, Anthraquinone Orange is semi-transparent and the undertones are slightly more vibrant and lean more toward red allowing for different mixing properties altogether.  

In this exercise, I have taken our whole range of paints made from organic pigments and used Anthraquinone Orange as the common denominator for mixing. As expected,  the colors that lay next to Anthraquinone Orange on the color wheel , such as Bismuth Yellow, Indian Yellow, Naphthol Red, even the Quinacridones are enhanced and maintain vibrancy and clarity when mixed with the orange.

As I go further away on the color wheel towards the Phthalo Blues, Greens, and even Dioxazine Purple, the mixes quickly become optically black and yet you will notice that when wax medium is added towards the outer edge of the picture, you can see some incredibly rich undertones revealed. These mixes are full of depth and intensity. 

I'm especially drawn to the clean shades of olive greens produced when mixed with Phthalo Green Yellow Shade. When mixed with Phthalo Blue Red Shade I am immediately reminded of colors you would see on the New England coast, but the mix that was most beguiling for me was with of all colors, Dioxazine Purple and might I add lots of medium. 

Alone or in mixes with other transparent and semi-transparent colors, Anthraquinone Orange lends itself naturally for creating glazes. Just make sure to add plenty of wax medium to bring out the colors as all of the paints used in this exercise have high tinting strengths and are most effective when extended.

If you did not receive our postcard, please sign up for our mailing list here or email us at info@encausticpaints.com. Thank you!

Have you had a chance to read our latest interview with encaustic artist Josie Rodriguez? Her sculptural works really inspires us to keep heating up our art!

Artist Block

"As a mixed media artist, I discovered that encaustic brought dimension to my work where the layering of wax and pigment gives a luminous quality of depth and transparency. This wonderful medium creates endless artistic possibilities where hot wax, pigment and heat come together. Encaustic is a process that is elemental, natural, organic, messy, transparent and experimental often resulting in the unexpected."

Ribbons of Memory

Josie Rodriguez teaches for the San Diego Art Institute Art Department. View her interview and more of her work here.