Carbazole Violet – Daniel Smith Watercolor | The Paint Show 21

In this episode of The Paint Show we’ll be looking at Carbazole Violet by Daniel Smith, which is an old favorite of mine!

Here’s the video on YouTube:

If you are interested in the written version, keep on reading (:

Carbazole Violet – Daniel Smith Watercolor | The Paint Show 21

I originally got this in the Daniel Smith Secondary set, which I highly recommend.

You can get the set here (affiliate link): Daniel Smith Secondary Set
Or the specific tube here (also affiliate link): Carbazole Violet 15ml Tube

Here’s what Daniel Smith say about this paint:

This slightly granular blue-violet is an intense, vibrant color with medium staining properties. A brushstroke of concentrated Carbazole Violet onto dry paper moves the pigment from black-violet to clear purple, and can invent an iris petal with each stroke. Add Indigo to Carbazole Violet, along with Quinacridone Rose or Anthraquinoid Red. Blot, squeegee and incise damp passages to created veins, variegated passages and highlights.

I did several paintings with the entire set, as well as this specific paint, and the thing I like the most about it is the insane range of values.

Here are some examples

It can go from really light to almost black. This is a really unique feature, and I don’t know of many paints that can do that.

And so, if you are interested in monochromatic paintings, or even doing a value matching exercise, this is a great tube to have.

Paint Info

Pigment: PV23 (Dioxazine Violet)
Excellent lightfastness, semi-transparent, non-granulating, medium staining.

Demo

Here is the swatch of paint going from light to dark (top), as well as the wet-in-wet swatch (bottom).

Notice the insane variety of values. This one gets REALLY dark. Also, notice the interesting patterns created in the wet-in-wet part (to get a better look at those, watch the original video HERE – this is a direct link to the wet-in-wet time stamp).

Based on Daniel Smith’s recommendation, I mixed this one with several paints. So from top to bottom, we got mixes with (1) Quinacridone Rose (2) Indigo (3) Phthalo Blue.

And here at the very bottom you can see what this looks like with the rest of the secondary set (Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Undersea Green).

And this is it!

I hope you enjoyed this review. I will try to share here on my website all of the new episodes of The Paint Show.

And I’ll talk to you soon.

– Liron

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