Modern Ultramarine Blue

This color is a rich royal blue that comes in a handful of subtly different varieties. It's pigment code is PB29, meaning if you turn over a tube of paint, PB29 denotes that ultramarine is a pigment used in it. To make things a little confusing, PB29 can describe slightly redder variations of the color (meaning more of an indigo blue as opposed to a deep middle blue) as well as the natural Lapis Lazuli, which in modern paints is a very different experience than regular ultramarine. However if you're dealing with old school Lapis, the manufacturer will go out of their way to tell you so, as it is an expensive pigment and you will likely notice its enormous price as well. It's worth noting that it's difficult to find a bright blue genuine lapis paint due to the expense and difficulty of acquiring the finest quality grades, and the genuine lapis paint on the market that we've tried tended to be fairly low chroma compared to modern ultramarine.

Explore Ultramarine Blues

Sometimes the regular Ultramarine Blue a brand has will actually be what some brands call Ultramarine Blue Green Shade.

Ultramarine Green Shade?

Paintmakers vary a lot in how they apply the term "green shade" to ultramarines. We could take it to mean "not the red shade" or the slightly-less-indigo-one.

However manufacturers get creative and as an example of this, Rublev uses the term Green Shade to denote both the hue of the pigment and the binding oil for their ultramarine. See Rublev Ultramarine Blue (Green Shade). In the image above, Rublev's Ultramarine is second from the right. Most brands denote Green Shade to mean what we call regular ultramarine and separate it from the Ultramarine French variety. We'll have to do more testing across mid-tier and student brands to say much more about how this term is applied. It's safe to assume (most of the time) that green shade means regular ultramarine, however it's always good to check with the manufacturer.

Ultramarine Blue vs. Ultramarine Blue French?

In short, Ultramarine French is usually- but not always!- more toward Indigo than a true blue. Sometimes people describe the more indigo shade as being "redder." Unfortunately there is no way to tell by looking at just the pigment code as they share the designation PB29.

It's not always clear what the difference is when a person is standing in an art materials store or looking at swatches online. Furthermore the name space is a bit confusing because sometimes a brand will name Ultramarine regular as Ultramarine Light.

What About Ultramarine Blue Light and Ultramarine Blue Deep?

Sometimes Ultramarine Deep is the same as Ultramarine French. Unfortunately there is no tried-and-true way to determine the leaning of the pigment without trying it, since each brand varies.

We noticed that a number of European brands went with the naming scheme of Ultramarine Blue Light to denote the regular, less-purple middle blue shade, and used Ultramarine Deep to denote the more indigo (red shade) of the pigment. Here are a few Ultramarine Blue Deeps on Paint List.

A couple of European brands combined the terms Ultramarine Blue Light with the name French. Blockx has a French Ultramarine Blue Light, which is PB29. And then there is Old Holland, which does something totally different. Their French Ultramarine Light Extra (combines the terms ultramarine light and the word French)-- names a color blend that contains both ultramarine PB29 and cobalt blue PB28.

And then there is Schaal, who actually is French, who has Bleu outremer foncé. Foncé means deep.

Ultramarine in Premium Brands

The ultramarines shown here are a bright royal blue, and all the colors we tested here were fairly similar once the dried. To make these comparisons we mixed the colors with Williamsburg Titanium White. The semi-circle areas show the paint mixed 1:1 with white to show tinting strength. The glazes were made with a bit of Rublev Oleogel.

![Oil paint brand comparisons for Ultramarine Blue including Vasari, Old Holland, Michael Harding, Blockx, Rublev, and M Graham. This panel shows tinting strength to see which paint manufacturers had the highest tinting strength in their paints. One of the things that a person might want to look for in an Ultramarine is its depth in lightness. Sometimes student brands or budget brands will dilute their paint with fillers, which makes it hard to really get the depth that is possible with this pigment.

A good, high quality Ultramarine is potentially important for painters who paint with a limited palette of colors. In some limited palette schemas, ultramarine may be relied upon in mixes to create deep dark mixtures. A student brand of ultramarine may not be capable of the depth that is required.

In general the tinting strength of all of these colors was similar. Vasari had a slight edge and possibly also Blockx French Ultramarine Blue Light, however when plein air painting it seemed we needed a lot of Vasari in practice, and it was a bit looser in handling. Of the shades shown here, Rublev Ultramarine Blue (Green Shade) was a tiny bit warmer (indigo) in tints, however that was almost imperceptible. One thing we could see was that the Rublev Ultramarine Blue (Green Shade) was extra deep when applied opaquely. It’s probably the deepest blue. Close seconds would be Old Holland Ultramarine Blue and Michael Harding Ultramarine Blue. Both Vasari Ultramarine Blue and M Graham Ultramarine Blue had a great quality— a rich matte deep blue that was quite high chroma at a very slightly higher value. There are also a variety of binding oils represented here.

Ok, this is a bigger discussion than this article intends to tackle, but in general an artist would be well-advised to research the pros and cons of any binding oil.

Linseed oil tends to form the strongest paint films, however it does yellow. Safflower oil and poppyseed oil have less initial yellowing, however they forms a less strong film and can also cause problems in paint layers. There are rumors of both oils reversing their dried state under certain conditions which are not entirely understood. When used (if at all) they are best reserved for rigid supports and only used in the top-most layer of the paint film-- at least that is the current idea of a best practice. Williamsburg/Golden's Just Paint archives contain further information on Safflower oil and its use in painting.

Ok, that said, we also have Walnut Oil, which may be used for a variety of reasons.

New Information on Lightfastness

There is also new information on lightfastness. While this is fascinating for Ultramarine in general and focuses on the mixing white one chooses to use with it, this information is also possibly relevant for choice of binding oil. Golden researched their Wiliamsburg colors with white paints in a variety of binding oils, which gives an insight into how ultramarine reacts in blends with white but also may hint at its lightfastness reactions with different binders. While this was not expressly the topic of the study it opens up new lines of inquiry.

Good Lightfastness in an Area the Needs It- But Some Surprises

In the current (read here old and under revision) lightfastness designations, Ultramarine is ASTM I, which is the category for high lightfastness. However, some research that Golden just performed on Ultramarine in various mixing whites contained a few curve-ball scenarios where Ultramarine didn't perform as well as was thought, though part of this is a wider discussion about why many of the blue-purple pigments didn't do as well under QUV and Xenon exposures (when the same paints did well under exposure to natural sunlight). It appears that in natural sunlight Ultramarine did very well indeed.

For more information on emerging research on Ultramarine's lightfastness please see Golden's research on pigments in various white paints.

There are a lot of different choices within the ultramarines but in terms of hue it's hard to go wrong with any of these colors. The main differences we found have to do with consistency, and unfortunately brands don't disclose their additives. Our main tip beyond the binding oils, which is an important choice, has to do with the relative impasto quality of the paint right out of the tube. Here's where it is helpful to have an idea of your preferences as well as the application for which you're going to be using the paint. For example, if one is using this color for plein air, some of the more loose consistencies may be less satisfying -- for example managing a paint with loose oil during a plein air session is not too much fun. However the consistency is a very personal choice and the same paints which might be more challenging in a plein air setting may be the more stunning, gliding paints for glazing or studio painting. When it comes to some other colors, we'd also caution against using safflower or poppyseed oil in impasto-- impasto has its issues anyway. These middle-blue ultramarines were all beautiful.