Pigments -- The Versatile Triads

Three brands with strong single-pigment offerings. Here are the best triad options across warm and cool orientations.

The Concept: Split Primary Triads

A well-chosen triad uses a warm and cool version of each primary, so you actually have six functional colors from three pigments — each primary leaning toward one neighbor on the color wheel. This maximizes mixing range while keeping the palette clean and transparent.

Recommended Warm Triad

Why this works

PY150 is one of the most transparent yellows in existence — it glazes without any chalkiness and biases slightly orange, bridging naturally to the orange. Pyrrol Orange (PO71) is a single-pigment transparent warm red-orange with extraordinary luminosity — it handles the red-orange segment that most triads struggle with. Ultramarine Blue is the warm blue, biasing toward violet, which mixes clean purples with the orange-red and rich darks with earth tones.

Mixing range

• Greens: PY150 + Ultramarine → warm olive to muted sage (not vivid — this is a warm triad, so greens are naturalistic)
• Oranges: PY150 + Pyrrol Orange → brilliant golden oranges, deep ambers
• Reds/Browns: Pyrrol Orange + Ultramarine → chromatic dark browns, terracottas, rich near-blacks
• Purples: Pyrrol Orange + Ultramarine heavy blue → warm muted violets
• Darks: All three together → deep warm neutrals

Best use cases

Landscape in warm light, autumn and desert subjects, architectural stonework, figure painting with warm skin tones, golden-hour scenes. Sargent's Mediterranean palette is essentially this orientation.

Recommended Cool Triad

Why this works

Hansa Yellow Light (PY175) is a clean cool lemon yellow — transparent, lightfast, and biases green, making it the ideal partner for Phthalo Blue in mixing vivid greens. Quinacridone Rose (PV19) is one of the most transparent and lightfast pigments available, biasing blue, which makes it ideal for mixing clean purples and violets with Phthalo Blue. Phthalo Blue GS is the workhorse cool blue — extraordinarily transparent, high tinting strength, and biases green, bridging to the yellow side.

Mixing range

• Greens: Hansa Yellow + Phthalo Blue → brilliant fresh greens, from lime to deep forest (the best clean greens possible in watercolor)
• Purples/Violets: Quinacridone Rose + Phthalo Blue → vivid clean violets and blue-purples
• Oranges: Hansa Yellow + Quinacridone Rose → clear warm oranges and corals (slightly muted because both bias cool)
• Reds: Quinacridone Rose dominant → cool crisp reds and pinks
• Darks: Quinacridone Rose + Phthalo Blue heavy → deep blue-blacks and rich shadow darks

Best use cases

Floral painting, seascapes, cool overcast landscapes, botanical illustration, tropical light, snow scenes. The clean greens and vivid violets this triad produces are unmatched.

Combined: The Full Six-Color Split Primary Palette

Used together, both triads form a complete split primary palette:

This six-color palette covers the full hue circle with clean, transparent, lightfast single pigments. Every secondary and tertiary color is achievable by pairing the warm version of one primary with the cool version of its neighbor — the classic principle behind split primary mixing.

Transparency & Lightfastness Summary

All six are single-pigment, fully transparent, and ASTM I lightfast — as clean a palette as watercolor allows.

One Practical Note on M. Graham

M. Graham uses honey as a humectant in place of glycerin, which gives their paints exceptional flow and rewettability — a real advantage for wet-into-wet work. Their pigment selection aligns closely with DS and W&N on these specific pigments, so mixing across brands in this palette is safe.