Single-Pigment Paints Vs. Blends: Which is Better?

Why does it matter that a paint should be made with a single pigment? If the color looks the same straight from the tube, what’s the difference? Well, masstone– the surface appearance of an artist’s color– can only tell you so much. Once a paint is mixed with other colors, you’re able to see undertone, tint, and shade, and significant differences between single-pigment colors and blends become more apparent. Identifying those differences can help you select which paints can give you the best performance based on your techniques and process.

One key advantage to using single-pigment colors is that they perform more consistently in mixtures than most blended hues. Pigments differ in tint strength, which is the ability of a color to influence a mixture. When multiple pigments are combined to make a hue, some components will have stronger tint strength, and those tend to dominate the appearance of the mixture. When that blend is mixed further with other colors on the palette, the weaker pigment can be masked almost completely by a strong or opaque color. When a single pigment color is mixed on the palette, however, with fewer pigments interacting and competing, the influence of that color on mixtures is much more directly proportional to the amounts and proportions added. As a result, tints and shades are much easier to predict and control.

Factory-blended colors do offer some useful advantages of their own, however, depending on your process. When a blended hue matches a mixture you often mix on the palette, it can save mixing time. Also, the consistency from tube to tube will be better than hand-mixing small amounts on the palette repeatedly. A blend can also be a great choice when used in its straight-from-the-tube, “masstone” appearance, for instance in covering broad areas with minimal adjustment. If your process involves complex and subtle mixing on the palette, however, it’s worth considering single pigment colors over blended hues.

Some blended colors are manufactured as lower-cost substitutes for premium pigments, with the word “hue” after the color name. Colors like “Cadmium Red Hue” may have a lower per-tube price, but these substitutes are generally not as good a value as the single-pigment colors they’re based on, because they may lack the tint strength, lightfastness, and consistent color of the genuine pigment. One notable exception is a new category of “Cadmium Free” colors, which often perform so close to genuine cadmiums, it’s hard to tell the difference.

Image (right): Artist - Christina Madison

Unlike “cadmium hues”, which were largely developed as lower cost options, Cadmium-Free colors were laboratory-developed as full-fledged cadmium replacements. Cadmium-free colors contain premium pigments that fully duplicate the masstone, undertone, and tint strength of genuine cadmium, without the special concerns for health and safety associated with actual cadmium. Every component is also considered in terms of lightfastness, to ensure that as a painting ages, no loss of color in any one pigment would alter the overall appearance.

Without careful consideration of every pigment in a blended color, appearance over time may not be as reliable as with single-pigment colors. When considering the permanence of just one pigment, it’s relatively easy to anticipate performance over time based on the rating. For a blended hue, however, there are at least two pigments present, and sometimes as many as four. The lightfastness rating is for the least lightfast component of the mixture, which leaves the artist without a clear indication of how the other pigments in the mixture will perform. That makes it hard to know exactly how the mixed color will change over time, as fading in weaker pigments causes a shift toward the more permanent component.

Another important advantage to using single-pigment colors is that certain pigments have been used for so long, on so many works of art, that they have achieved the status of “major notes” in the standard palette. When additional pigments are present in one of these colors, it risks losing its personality. The addition of black to darken earth colors, for instance, can hide subtle undertones of colors like Raw Umber, resulting in a generic brown.

Image (left): The Virgin with Chancellor Rolin by Jan van Eyck ca. 1435

As a rule, paints made to bring out the best in a single pigment deliver the truest, most consistent color. Factory-blended colors can be an important, useful part of the palette, but it’s always recommended that artists read the package label to identify what pigments and how many are included in the color, along with the lightfastness rating for the mixture. This information helps you achieve the best results with any combination of colors, whether single-pigment or blends.