Today's color is Winsor & Newton's Magenta...

Today's color is Winsor & Newton's Magenta. This is a glorious color for flowers and drapery, and has excellent applications for abstract work as well. I have tried 'magenta' colors across different brands and - I don't know exactly how they do it- but the Winsor & Newton Oil Color Magenta has amazing luminous properties and looks great in jeans. I am not talking about Quinacridone Magenta or Permanent Magenta, just plain "Magenta".

Magenta is a blueish-reddish purply tone that was first formulated in the mid-1800s at the boom time of the industrial revolution in France. Within the textile industry, aniline dyes were invented, and first mauvine and then fuchsine were developed, producing a magenta color, in between purple and red, and resembling the fuchsia plant (pictured below). Winsor & Newton's Magenta formulation appears to be somewhat secret (my research has not yet turned up the compound) but perhaps this delicious secret does not have to be revealed.

I love art-technique books and one of the first that I stumbled across was Ted Goerschner's book "Oil Painting, the Workshop Experience". If you're looking for a good primer on plein-air painting, this one suits the bill. His floral still-life (with magenta) pictured above. Goerschner extolled the virtues of W&N Magenta and used it to beautiful effect. I don't always have it on my palette, but when I do I am a happy camper. Magenta is #32 in #100colorstories #colorlove