[alt-photo] Re: Klein Blue (ping Katherine...)

[Katharine Thayer]

Well, I didn't research it heavily either,  but enough to gather that  
the makeup of the paint is  proprietary.  It does seem to be  
generally believed that the pigment is ultramarine, although I can't  
find an original source for that assertion, but that there's  
something about way the pigment is held in the binder (PVA  
apparently) that gives it its special quality.

I agree, you're never going to get anything that intense, or even  
close to it, using ultramarine in gum printing.  Ultramarine isn't  
one of the stronger blue pigments and is relatively unsaturated as  
far as hue saturation goes.

I'm actually somewhat dubious that this is ultramarine;  it looks  
more like pthalo than ultramarine to me, and if one can believe  
Wikipedia--big IF--  the hue angle of the color  is 223 and the RGB  
values are 0, 47, 167.  (Those values are listed as unsourced, which  
makes me a little nervous, but that's Wikipedia; it's all potluck.)   
But IF those are the accurate values for the color, then ultramarine  
is an unlikely pigment, because ultramarines generally fall closer to  
300 in hue angle.  The closest pigment to the hue angle 223 is PB 16,  
pthalo turquoise, but you know what?  Now that I think of it, I don't  
believe that 223 number that Wikipedia gives.  Because 223 is very  
much in the teal-turquoise range, and I wouldn't put Yves Klein Blue  
in that range at all.  So I'm inclined to discount those numbers.

I'd go with pthalo, in as heavy a concentration as you can manage  
(the nice thing about pthalo is that it doesn't take much); to my eye  
that will get you the closest possible to that intensity of color.   
But you also have the transparency thing going against you.  One  
description of Klein's paint describes it as industrial-looking and  
very opaque, like gouache.  So maybe use gouache rather than  
watercolor paint.  Just an idea, I don't know if it's a good one or  
not.  Hope any of that is useful,
Katharine



On Jul 29, 2010, at 7:20 AM, Keith Gerling wrote:

> Painter (and photographer) Yves Klein laid claim to a particularly  
> vibrant
> blue that has come to be known as Klein Blue.
> http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=80103
>
> I haven't researched this heavily, but it seems to be based on  
> Ultramarine.
> When I try to make gumprints with Ultramarine they look terrible.   
> Dingy and
> weak.  Do any pigment experts out there have any advice on how one  
> might
> achieve a Klein Blue intensity in a Gum Bicrhromate print?
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