My colour resource library. |
I have never owned hooker's green. I actually prefer to mix my own greens (usually with a cool blue and a cool yellow). I do carry a sap green (PY139, PG36, PR101) and a viridian hue (PG7) in my portable travel palette.
I have read that some watercolourists refer to hooker's green as a convenience green.
Hooker's Green (PG36, PY110) |
On the Handprint website I learned that hooker's green:
- makes more natural foliage than permanent green
- was the preferred green paint among 19th century landscape and botanical painters.
- was originally devised for botanical illustration by the famous Victorian botanist, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, director of the Kew Gardens (London, UK)
- was a mixture of iron blue (PB27) and genuine gamboge (NY24)
- To reproduce the historical color, you would have to use iron blue with either anthrapyrimidine yellow (PY108) or nickel azomethine yellow (PY150) as a gamboge substitute.
In my first try, I decided to use only two complimentary colours: permanent rose (PV19) and hookers green (PG36, PY110) and I decided it would be fun to paint a picture of botanist, painter Joseph Hooker (circa 1877) for whom the colour "hooker's green" was named..
Permanent rose and hooker's green make a beautiful grey.
permanent rose (PV19) + hookers green (PG36, PY110) =Grey |
Art journal sketch of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker using only hooker's green and permanent rose |
- Transparent: because of the transparency, is wonderful for glazing.
- It's a staining colour
- Permanence is A (Permanent)
- Lighfastness ASTM I
I am looking forward to adding hooker's green to my palette and using it in my future landscapes and still life paintings.
On my shopping trip today, I also bought Winsor blue (green shade) PB15 (transparent) and Winsor red PR254 (staining) ...... but more about that later.