A light, bright, slightly yellow-toned orange.
Pigment Information
Pigment Code: PO62
Chemical Name: Monoazo benzimidazolone orange
Names:
- WN: Winsor Orange
- DS: Permanent Orange
- DV: Benzimida Orange or Sienna Fire (same paint, multiple names)
- SH: Chrome Orange Hue
Lightfastness: Excellent (confirmed by my tests, below)
Toxicity: Nontoxic
Observations of Winsor Orange
Hue: A light-colored orange that borders on yellow-toned. As a semi-opaque color, never gets very dark. It has a cheerful, bold appearance on the palette and dilutes to a light peach.
Gradient: Smooth gradation.
Opacity: Semi-opaque.
Comparison: Compared to Isoindolinone Yellow Deep (PY110), it’s more orange/less yellowy.
Color Mixes: I liked the way this mixed; it integrates well with other colors. Predictably, it pulled all the warm colors into an orange space; I especially love the range of golden hour canyon colors it makes with my earth tones. Oddly pleasant browns with purple. Muted greens with blues.
Comparison to Other Colors
Hansa Yellow Deep (PY65) and Isoindolinone Yellow Deep (PY110)
The most obvious comparison is to warm yellows, which look very similar unmixed. I compared DS Hansa Yellow Deep (PY65), Holbein Isoindolinone Yellow Deep (PY110), and Winsor Orange (PO62) in a variety of situations: sunset grading to red, sunset grading to blue, and mixing green.
PO62 performed similarly as a warm sunset mixer, looking only slightly more orange. Grading to blue, it tended to mix gray in the middle instead of greenish. And when mixed with Phthalo Green, instead of making warm naturalistic greens as the warm yellows did, it mixed more of a cool gray-green.
Comparison to Other Brands
Da Vinci – Benzimida Orange
Looks very similar to Winsor; a bit more orangey and less yellow in dilute, perhaps. I think I prefer it being a little more on the orange side to distinguish from deep yellow colors.
Lightfastness of Da Vinci Benzimida Orange
No noticeable change from 6 months of light exposure.
M. Graham – Azo Orange
Strong, with a buttery consistency typical of M. Graham. Slightly darker and lower-chroma than the other PO62’s I tried. I found that it was even more prone to mix gray and less prone to mix green than the other PO62’s.
Color Mixes
Hansa Yellow Light (PY3)
Nice bold yellow-oranges.
Hansa Yellow Deep (PY65)
Even deeper, yellowier sunflower oranges.
Naphthol Scarlet (PR188)
Bright, bold oranges.
Pyrrol Scarlet (PR255)
Slightly more muted, but still intense oranges.
Pyrrol Red (PR254)
Quin Rose (PV19)
More bold oranges! I don’t see a huge difference between the scarlet and rose oranges.
Phthalo Turquoise (PB16)
Unlike warm yellows (Hansa Yellow Deep et al), this doesn’t really mix green with cyan. Tonya at Scratchmade Journal calls this middle combination “a smoky teal thats reminiscent of misty mountains.” Adding more orange tips it into “gross brown” territory, though.
What Others Say
Use it solo for the perfect autumn orange, or mix it with Phthalo Turquoise to create a smoky teal that’s reminiscent of misty mountains, or try it with Pyrrol Red to gain a bright pumpkin hue.
Tonya @ Scratchmade Journal, Spooktacular 8-Color Fall Palette (2018)
An interesting middle orange pigment, yellower and lighter than cadmium orange or perinone orange, and one of the more commonly available pigments. It is frequently recommended as a substitute for cadmium orange, but it is only slightly more transparent, and cadmium orange is more lightfast, darker valued, has a higher tinting strength, and is slightly more intense at the same hue.
Bruce MacEvoy, handprint.com
My Review of Benzimidazolone Orange
On paper I love this pigment, because it’s lightfast, nontoxic, high tinting, etc. I also quite enjoy the color when swatching. In practice, in the context of my palette, it’s not one I usually reach for, because Hansa Yellow Deep or Isoindolinone Yellow Deep look similar alone (or with a touch of red) and mix better greens. Benzimidazolone Orange is a nice alternative if you specifically don’t want to mix green, or only very muted greens, but I usually use the earthier Raw Sienna for those use cases. Still, the orange is nice for a specific sunlit desert orange.
Even though it’s not very useful it sparks joy.
Favorite version: Da Vinci and Winsor Orange are both good and very similar in hue, value, and chroma. I tend to favor Da Vinci as a tiebreaker because the consistency is nicer in a wider variety of environments (Winsor paints can get very hard).
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Da Vinci – Benzimida Orange, 15 ml tube: Da Vinci
Comments
One response to “Color Spotlight: Benzimidazolone Orange (PO62)”
I have this color from DS and it definitely does not spark my joy. It’s a bit orangier than yours (more like the DV, I suppose) and I would call it semiopaque. And I agree with Bruce McEnvoy: given this, I would rather just go for cadmium orange. (I have a very nice one from Holbein.) I think the higher tinting strength of PO20 makes it easier to avoid those awful mud-browns.