Phthalo green is a very intense green colour that is one of, if not the most popular green paint all over the globe. With phthalo green being such a popular color, we often see a range of questions from the community about it so we have decided to start answering more and more of the questions that we see asked on a regular basis.
The most popular question that we have noticed being asked time and time again is how to make phthalo green paint or pigment at home. Thankfully, there are a number of ways that you are able to make phthalo green at home ranging from mixing other colors in your palette to mixing phthalo green pigment with the paint medium you require.
That said though, a number of people do consider green paint a non-essential in the palette of an artist due to most greens being easy to mix yourself. In our opinion, a decent phthalo green paint can be a great addition to any artists palette due to it being a high chroma green that can be hard to get by mixing other colors.
This is why there are fewer combinations to make your own phthalo green than many of the other greens but we do have some later in our article that you can take advantage of. Another popular method to make your own phthalo green is to either make your own pigment or get a pre-made phthalo green pigment and mix it with the required paint medium and we will also cover this below.
That said though, due to a tube of phthalo green paint being cheap and readily available it is usually going to be much easier for most of our readers just to purchase some premade paint. Unless you have the exact colors required for mixing this will almost always produce a better end results for your arts and crafts.
What Is Phthalo Green?
Phthalo green is a very intense, high chroma color that is very versatile and used in a huge range of useful color mixes in arts and crafts as well as being useful as a stand-alone color. The use cases for phthalo green range from subtle natural colors all the way through to very strong, brilliant colors with it also performing well as an opaque option too.
Due to its versatility and the use number of use cases for phthalo green, it has managed to grow to become one of the most popular green paints and pigments used in arts and crafts today. With greens making a come back at the time of writing, we are confident in saying that its popularity is only going to increase over the coming months and years too.
What Colors Do You Mix To Make Phthalo Green?
The easiest way to make your own phthalo green from existing colors is to use a base of cadmium yellow light and then mix small amounts of either phthalo blue, Prussian blue or ultramarine blue to it. Please note that either of the blue options will do, there is no need to add all three, and that the main thing to keep in mind is to add your blue to your cadmium yellow Light in very small amounts.
This is due to most people only needing a small amount of blue in their cadmium yellow Light to get close to phthalo green. It is very easy for people to add too much blue right from the start and then to have to lighten is by adding more yellow making the process a pain.
Another easy way to make your own phthalo green by mixing paints currently in your palette is to start with any of the following colors and then darken or lighten as required. This is due to the following colors all containing phthalo green in their pigment graph and being close to phthalo right out the tube:-
How To Make Phthalo Green Pigment!
Phthalo green was first introduced back in 1938 and is a synthetic green that comes from the phthalocyanine dyestuffs group. This is why the green has such a high chroma when compared to the majority of other green paint options on the market helping to ensure that it is one of the most versatile greens available.
Due to this though, it can be an absolute nightmare to make your own phthalo green pigment at home for the average person. As we mentioned back in our article on how to make your own phthalo blue, the majority of our readers will not have the required equipment in their home to accurately synthesize a phthalo pigment and sourcing some of the base reagents can be a pain too.
Due to this, we always recommend that when it comes to synthetic colors, our readers either go with a pre-made phthalo green pigment or just purchase their own phthalo green paint from the start. If you are not able to make your own phthalo green from mixing colors already in your paint palette then either of these two options is probably the best way forward.
How To Make Phthalo Green Acrylic Paint!
making your own phthalo green acrylic paint is one of the easiest options and you simply add your phthalo green pigment to some clear gesso acrylic and then mix it. Depending on what you have to hand, some people do use white gesso too but this will require more pigment to get it closer to phthalo green so using a clear gesso is usually the best option.
With both clear and white gesso we would recommend that you start to add your pigment in small amounts at first as it doesnt tend to take much to render your gesso into phthalo green. Once you have added your first pigment batch to your gesso mix it thoroughly and then add more pigment and repeat the process as required. If you are using a white gesso then you can use larger amounts of pigment during the process as it will always need considerably more phthalo green pigment due to the initial white pigment in the gesso.
If you don’t currently have some pigment and either clear or white gesso in your arts and crafts collection then just picking up some commercial phthalo green acrylic paint is probably going to be the better option. It will usually workout to be much cheaper unless you need huge amounts of phthalo green and the commercial phthalo green usually gives a more consistent result right out of the tube where as homemade paints can take a few runs to get the consistency right.
How To Make Phthalo Green Oil Paint!
To make your own phthalo green oil paint simply add your phthalo green pigment to a suitable oil based paint medium. Although there are a number of professional oil paint mediums on the market, you can usually save yourself a few dollars by just using something like good old lintseed oil and many people will have this in this home already and it tends to perform very well.
When mixing your phthalo green pigment with your oil based paint medium, starting small and working your way up is always going to be the best option in our opinion. As we have mentioned throughout the article, most people new to making their own paint at home usually over estimate the amount of pigment that they actually require to get their paint the color the need.
Ensure that your pigment and oil medium are thoroughly mixed each time prior to adding more pigment though. Due to oil based mediums usually being dense, it can be common for the pigment to sit at the top of the medium, even when mixing making it look like it has mixed all the way through when in fact it is only the top third or top half that has had your pigment worked into it.
As you can probably imagine, once gravity sets in over the coming days and the pigment sinks throughout the oil medium, the color can lighten drastically. Simply dip whatever you are using to mix your oil paint into the oil medium, all the way to the very bottom and then drag it up to look for any changed. Once you get the hang of the process it is extremely easy to do though.
How To Make Phthalo Green Watercolor Paint!
Although you can make your own phthalo green watercolor by adding your phthalo green pigment to a medium such as gum Arabic and mixing it until the color is optimal, we usually recommend that our readers avoid making their own watercolors. It can be a pain to get the gum Arabic to set correctly for use and the actual color spread tends to be inconsistent too.
Although some people do use other mediums for their watercolor pains, they tend to either be considerably more expensive than gum Arabic or perform worse. This is why we always recommend that our readers just purchase some commercial phthalo green watercolor paint it try to mix existing colors in their palette as covered earlier in the article.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over how to make phthalo green paint to a close. We hope that you have found it helpful and although some artists tend not to actually carry a green paint in their palette and prefer to carry their own, we go thing that an actual tube of phthalo green is a solid addition to any palette. That said though, if you do prefer to just mix paints in your collection to make your own phthalo green then the recipies covered earlier in the article should be able to get you excellent results.