Historical Color Matches: Historically Significant Colors Recreated with GOLDEN Acrylics

Below are mixing ratios for historically important colors and some recently discontinued GOLDEN colors. We have tried to duplicate each hue as closely as possible, however, pigments often have unique attributes which make exact color matching impossible. When using this guide bear in mind which characteristics are important for your application, such as chroma, opacity/translucency, masstone, undertone, etc. Also note that some historical pigments are much grittier than their refined counterparts. If this is significant to your work, a textural medium can be added, such as GOLDEN Acrylic Ground for Pastels, to mimic the roughness. Transparency also can greatly vary depending on the source of the pigment and the strength of each mixture.

Note: The below mixes are ratios, meaning the mixes have a relationship between each other. They are NOT based on percentage (100%). For example to create an Alizarin Crimson (Alternative Match) mix 10 parts of Quinacridone Violet to 12 parts Quinacridone Burnt Orange. In a sense mix 10 drops (or dollops) to 12 drops of each color respectively in order to match Alizarin Crimson.