Color Spotlight: Quinophthalone Yellow (PY138)

Quinophthalone yellow (PY138) is a pigment I have only ever seen in one paint, Permanent Yellow from Daler Rowney Artists. It’s a bright, bold, middle yellow.

This is my first paint from Daler Rowney, and English company that’s not too common in the U.S. You can generally find their student line, Aquafine, more readily than the professional Artist line, but I snagged this in my latest Jackson’s order after reading that it was a unique shade.

Pigment Stats for PY138

Lightfastness: LFII per ArtisCreation

Toxicity: Nontoxic

My Observations of DR Permanent Yellow

Color Family: Middle Yellow

Hue: Very primary yellow, neither warm/orangey nor cool/greeny. (If it looks cool in the bar below the gradient, it’s just because I accidentally painted it on before the ink dried so it mixed with the black ink. The gradient masstone is more representative of its hue.)

Gradient: Lovely, easy gradient from a bold, bright yellow to a pale. No dark tone but very bright and strong for a yellow.

Consistency: I found the paint runny out of the tube, but it dried and rewet well.

Opacity: Rated “Transparent” by Daler Rowney, but I found it left a bit of residue on the line and didn’t mix with other colors as readily as my most transparent paints; call it semi-transparent.

Glazing: Glazes nice and bold, similar to masstone.

Color Mixes

A truly primary yellow, this makes bright, clean oranges and greens. Especially bold mixes include the orange with Quinacridone Coral (PR209) and the green with Phthalo Green (PG7).

I found this a strong mixer, especially for a yellow. It was not easily overpowered by my stronger colors (Phthalos and whatnot), and even had a tendency to overpower my more gentle colors. (I actually organized my colors somewhat on this page with the stronger ones on the left, so you can see the difference.)

Like Hansa Yellow Light (PY3), this color almost resisted fully mixing with some colors and seemed to prefer to settle in a gradient with the yellow sinking to the bottom.

Comparison to Other Yellows

In the sorting of primary yellows from greenest (Hansa Yellow Light) to orangest (Hansa Yellow Medium), I placed this on the cool side of the middle.

What Others Say

The ASTM (1999) rates it as having “very good” lightfastness (II), and my own tests show a slight lightening of the pigment after two months of daily sunlight exposure. — Rowney permanent yellow is apparently the only commercial source; the paint is active wet in wet and resists blossoming. — A lovely basic yellow color, in a relatively new category of synthetic organic pigment. Possible alternative to the arylide hansa yellow (PY97) or benzimidazolone yellow (PY154) in the same hue category.

Bruce MacEvoy, handprint.com

My Review of Permanent Yellow (PY138)

A viable option for a primary yellow, especially if you have a lot of strong colors in your palette. This is a yellow strong enough to take them on! Although, as with Hansa Yellow Light and other opaque or semi-opaque yellows, I’m not enamored of its tendency to resist mixing in certain colors.

Favorite version: Daler Rowney is the only PY138 yellow I know of!

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Daler Rowney – Permanent Yellow, 5 ml tube: Jackson’s US