Light Red

[Gloria]

Hello Dennis. I have two questions. I have a tube of watercolor paint, Cadmium Red Light. Is this the same as Light Red.
Question No.2. I have tubes which I bought over twenty years ago. Some are still good but there are others that have turned very hard, then there are a few that are still good but I cant get the caps off evenafter putting them under hot running water. Is there anything that I can do to save them or do I have to throw them out.

[dennis]

Gloria, no they are not the same.

In the past I have had tubes that have gone rock hard. What I did was to slit open the tube along the length and open up to get to the actual paint itself. You should be able to re-activate the paint again with a wet brush, although it may take a bit of scrubbing. Try it and let me know how you got on.

It's actually the same as if you have squeezed some out from a tube and it drys out. This often happens to me and I have used this method (dry squeezed out tube paint) even when giving the live classes.

[Gloria]

Thanks Dennis, will do that. I almost threw them out so it's good they wont be wasted.

[eftpower1]

Gloria,

Good question,

All but two of the colors I'm using for the classes are from tubes that had completely dried out  I put them in "pill boxes" 

Those little plastic boxes that are set up with a compartment for each day of the week for people to organize their medications.  I got the first ones from the " Dollar store" then the local pharmacy started giving them away.

  I put the dried out color I "peeled" out of the tube in a compartment , added a couple of drops of water and labeled the compartment with the name of the color, (Like Dennis has on his pallet) 

Don't know if the water helped or not, now I just use them like 'pan water colors"

Mine are more than 20 years old, and seem do be working fine ( I DO want to blame the paint when my ding, dong blankety blank washes go South { opps  } in the wrong direction

Brian

[Gloria]

Thanks Brian for the tip. I am going to put them in those pill boxes as soon as I get them peeled. I was happy to know that they are still usable because I thought that I would have to throw them out. I had also bought a cheap box of tubes fifteen years old, I never used them and they hardened and I threw them out a few years ago. Now I wish I hadn't. On my first question, I bought a tube of light red, Winsor and Newton Cotman. That was the only one I could find in two stores that I went to. It seems to be a popular color of many artists.

[dennis]

Nothing wrong with them - used them for years. 

[Phillippe]

Hello Gloria

I am new to the forum. Going through past posts, I saw your query about Cadmium Red Light and Light Red. The answer slipped through the conversation. Did you ultimately get it resolved?


Best regards
Phillippe

 

[musika]

Cad red light is PR108 (Pigment red 108) (W&N name = cadmium scarlet)
Light Red is W&N name for PR102 which is an earth colour of iron oxide.

Here is a comparative swatch - Light Red is the lower one.

Details

For lots of info on watercolour pigments, see:
http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/waterfs.html

[Gloria]

Phillippe, Musika has the right answer. I did eventually buy a tube of Light Red for as Dennis said, its different from Cad Red.