Red pigments are the most widely available pigments by far. Each of these red pigments has its own unique properties. The entire range of Rembrandt oil paints offers the highest degree of lightfastness, so all colours have the same excellent lightfastness. Other properties such as opacity, lightfastness, colour temperature, undertone and tinting strength, however, can differ immensely between seemingly similar shades of red.
In the video below, we show you a selection of our beautiful red shades. Since the actual colours can be difficult to judge straight from the tube, each shade is mixed with white to showcase its unique properties and undertones. This might help you select the right colours for your next artwork.
One of the colours demonstrated in this video is Carmine (318). In the past, this pigment was made from the female louse cochineal. Nowadays, we use a synthetic alternative, which is optimally lightfast and much easier to make. Carmine is a red at the blue end of the spectrum, therefore we consider this shade to be a bold colour. This colour is widely used in portraits because of its similarity to realistic flesh. Think of veins in eyes or blood under the skin of the lips, for example.
Transparent Red Medium (317) is, as the name suggests, a transparent colour with a yellow undertone. This adds warmth to the shade. Transparent colours are great to use in thin layers on top of each other to create a wonderful depth. They allow you to see through all these coloured layers. Applying a thin layer of transparent red to a white or lighter background visually lightens the colour.
Experiment with different reds to find the perfect shade for your painting. All properties of Rembrandt oil colours can be found on the tubes, our website and colour charts. This video can help you make a more informed selection to try out.
The Rembrandt assortment features different deep red shades with varying undertones from bright pink to light red and even yellow undertones. To highlight these undertones, all shades shown in the video below were mixed with 104 Zinc White.
The following shades of red were used in this video:
