Phthalo Green (PG7) is a super vivid, deep, cool (blue-toned) green. To me, it feels like a glowing, hidden pond deep in the rainforest. It is incredibly bright; some folks find it “unnatural” so it may be most useful as a mixer than a natural landscape color.
(There’s another Phthalo Green Yellow Shade (PG36) which is more yellow-toned.)
Like all the Phthalos, this green is extremely strong and staining. Some people don’t like that about it, and it does have a tendency to overwhelm mixes with weaker colors… but I love it! I’m lazy and I love a color that doesn’t make me work. I just have to make sure my palette is full of similarly vivid colors that can hold their own.
Pigment Stats for PG7
Chemical composition: Polyclorinated Copper Phthalocyanine
Lightfastness: Excellent (I)
Toxicity: Non-toxic
Observations of DS Phthalo Green BS
Graded Wash: Gosh, look at how smooth that gradient is. It had lines it when I painted it, but they all disappeared in the drying and settled into this perfect graded wash that ranges in value from a deep jungle green to a very pale mint/aqua.
Opacity: Utterly transparent.
Glazing: Glazes to an even darker green!
Comparison to Other Brands
PG7 is one of those pigments that everybody has.
Da Vinci – Phthalo Green
Slightly more yellow-toned than Daniel Smith’s, I believe this one is a bit more useful if you plan to have only one Phthalo Green (i.e. not PG7 plus the PG36 Yellow Shade as well). I wrote “handles beautifully!” on there because it was such a joy and so easy to swatch out the gradient with deep color and a smooth even gradation. I also found the mixes easy to do.
Schmincke Horadam – Phthalo Green
A very similar color to DS (very cool/blue-toned), but I found it more difficult to use because – for whatever reason – the binder and the pigment kept separating, even in a new tube. I’d pour out some paint and some parts would be fine, but other spots would be clear, colorless binder. It’s a shame since the color on the outside of the tube is so much cuter than the color on the outside of the DS tube (and that matters to me, okay?!)
Winsor & Newton – Winsor Green (Blue Shade)
One of the more bluey/turquoisey tones. I find this one very beautiful. Similar to Daniel Smith.
Color Mixes
Hansa Yellow Light (PY3)
Just about the brightest neon yellow-greens you can get, with a cool cast.
Imidazolone Yellow (PY154)
Not as neon as the lemon mixes, but very vivid; makes a platonic ideal “primary green” mix.
Rich Green Gold (PY129)
Intense leaf greens; more muted than those with a straight yellow.
Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150)
Intense yellow-greens; similar to those with PY150 but with more of a yellow cast.
Monte Amiata Natural Sienna (PBr7)
MANS yellows and mutes the Phthalo green, making a nice range of granulating foliage greens/landscape colors.
Yellow Ochre (PY43)
Somewhat muted, but contextually bright, green mixes.
Gold Ochre (PY42)
More muted, deep greens.
Transparent Red Oxide (PR101)
Very textured brown-green mixes, which I think looks nice for shadowed landscape greens.
Venetian Red (PR101)
Mixes browns!
Indian Red (PR101)
More violet-toned than Venetian Red, Indian Red turns the green grayish.
Perylene Red (PR149)
Mixed browns!
Pyrrol Red (PR254)
Mixes a pretty neutral black, slightly cool-toned.
Quinacridone Rose (PV19)
This particular pair of PV19 and PG7 makes a pretty even gray, but please note that some other variations that are more blue-toned actually mix to make purple (such as DS Quin Rose + DS Phthalo Green Blue Shade).
Dioxazine Violet (PV23)
Mixes interesting muted blues! Lee Angold has a great post about using PG7 and PV23 to mix blue.
Ultramarine Blue (PB29)
Turquoises and sky blues; dilute is more vivid. Floating granulation.
Cobalt Blue (PB28)
Similar to the Ultramarine mixes; maybe a bit more vivid, with brighter granulation.
Cerulean Blue (PB36)
More muted, but also more light-colored turquoises.
Phthalo Blue Green Shade (PB15:3)
Lovely bright, vivid, wide-ranging teals and peacock blues. Mint and aqua in dilute.
Serpentine
This is probably one of the more expensive ways to turn Phthalo Green into a warm, saturated, yellow-green with granulation, but I really like it. It looks like summer leaves to me, more so than the MANS mix which I find too brownish.
What Others Say
The only green in my palette. Used sparingly it can save time, and is the perfect shade for some alpine lakes or the vibrant blue-greens of glacial ice. A little bit goes a long way!
Claire Giordano
It can be hard to understand another painter’s palette. I certainly wonder what moves someone to make foliage pthalo green, for example.
Tom Hoffmann, Watercolor Painting (2012)
If you use Phthalo Green, which looks like something that dripped out of the car onto the garage floor, be sure to tame it with a hefty dose of red.
Catherine Gill & Beth Means, Powerful Watercolor Landscapes (2011)
Both phthalo greens PG7 and PG36 are notable for their intense tinting strength and strong tendency to stain paper, attributes that arise from their small particle size. They easily stand up to or even dominate other strongly tinting pigments such as the quinacridones, dioxazine violet or pyrrole red, and they are an excellent choice as the foundation paint when nonstaining pigment glazes are to be laid down and then partially lifted or blotted away. The drawback is that phthalo green must be applied exactly where you want it on the first pass — make a mistake, and you’ll be scraping paper to remove it!
Bruce MacEvoy, handprint.com (2010)
My Review
People like to deride Phthalo Green for being an unrealistic foliage color unmixed, but who cares? Personally, I love the color plain. It’s the exact shade I would like every item of clothing I own to be! But even if you never, ever use it plain, it’s still a powerful and fantastic mixer for making deep greens with any number of muting reds, oranges, and earth tones. Mix it with Quin Gold or New Gamboge for a quick Sap Green hue. Mix it with Perylene Violet for a striking dark black.
Just beware, it is quite strong so it tends to overwhelm mixes. To me, that’s a plus! I like all my colors super strong.
Favorite version: Da Vinci offers a balanced hue that is neither too blue nor too yellow, which is good if you don’t plan to have PG36, and want a single “do it all” green mixer. As a person with chronic analysis paralysis, splitting the difference works for me. If, on the other hand, you like a very cool, blue-undertoned hue that is more distinct from PG36, the Daniel Smith version is the bluest one I know of.
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Da Vinci – Phthalo Green, 8 ml tube: Da Vinci Paints
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