Rembrandt's Brilliant Yellow Light

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

Rembrandt has discontinued their Brilliant Yellow Light color in the oils line and so I have been looking for a substitute. BYL was a very pale, almost white yellow that I liked for highlights on sunlit skin. I tried Old Holland's BYL but found it too pinkish; I've ordered Shiva's Brilliant Yellow Light and Williamsburg's Brilliant Yellow Pale to see if either works. Any other suggestions for this use?

[Timothy C. Tyler]

We have far more choices of colors than did the artists before us. You might just mix your own up and put it into a blank tube. You can use a bright white and try a pinch of lemon yellow or cadmuim yellow light until you get what you want, then mix up a ton of it and tube it.

I mixed up 4 "fleshtones" recently for one painting into tubes and these will last me for some time. The work is nearly done and I have more than half of each leaf over.

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

Thanks, Timothy. Someone else suggested that and mentioned using plastic film canisters to store it. The Shiva BYL looks quite close but still needs a touch more yellow.The Williamsburg is a very sunny yellow and too deep. I think you're right and I'm on my own for this one.

Do you use standard paint tubes or some other container?

[Timothy C. Tyler]

Leslie, I've used the film tubes for small bacthes of color I wanted to save briefly, but i've found the paint will dry pretty quickly with even a little bit of oxygen in the space. The metals tubes work perfectly after the mess of putting your new color into them. Maybe someone here can tell us both how to do this without of huge mess.

On this related subject, I have bought several odd colors from Old Holland which sometimes are more expensive than they should be had I mixed them myself (using Old Holland paint). I may mix more and more all the time.

[Richard Budig]

When all else fails (as it often does for me), I try mixing it, and an successful more often than not.

Some years ago, I ran into a book by Jose Parramon (The Big Book Of Oil Color), in which he shows how to mix every color using nothing more than Prussian blue, cad yellow medium, alizarin crimson, and white.

Yes, some of them are a bit brighter/duller than a tube color, but it's certainly amazing what you can mix with these three colors and white.

I still buy my palette colors, of course, but in a pinch, thanks to Jose, I'm not afraid to mix away, and usually, I get the color I want in a short time.

By the way, if you're mixing a lot of your favorite color, you used to be able to buy empty tubes from Daniel Smith.

[Mike Dodson]

Richard,

You are correct. I just recently purchased a couple dozen empty paint tubes from Daniel Smith.

They are relatively inexpensive, however, the shipping is almost as much as the actual product. May be more economical to purchase from a local art store if they carry these. I use my stretcher pliers to "crimp" the open end.

[Michele Rushworth]

Leslie, I like Winsor Newton's Naples Yellow Light. I use it for the same purpose you do -- it's like instant sunshine.

[Kimberly Dow]

Michele -
I was in San Antonio today picking up some supplies and I recalled what you wrote here about Naples yellow light so I picked some up.

When I got back to drop off supplies at my studio I couldn't resist trying this on a highlight on a still life vase. It's just what I needed and hadn't been able to mix up right for over 2 weeks.... thank you!

I gushed about this color at home for 5 minutes and my husband just shook his head and then pointed out I had paint on my dress coat (so what else is new?)

[ReNae Stueve]

Yes,

Naples Yellow Light is what almost always works for me. :-)

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

Thanks, Michele. I'll have to try some. Drat, I just placed an order at Dick Blick's yesterday morning, too, so I just missed the boat. No art supplies around here, for sure.