Painting with Transparent Colors

As you may remember from our recent newsletter on our opaque colors, the opacity of a paint describes how it interacts with light. Opaque colors hide what is underneath, while transparent colors allow some light to pass through and partially reveal the underlayer.

Knowing the attributes of your paint puts you a step ahead as an artist. Being familiar with whether a pigment is transparent or opaque will help you in predicting how the paint will behave and give you a greater command over techniques such as glazing, layering, and color mixing.

Joanne Mattera, Silk Road 248, 12” x 12”, encaustic on panel, 2016. Collection of R&F Handmade Paints. Image courtesy of Joanne Mattera. A wonderful example of layering transparent color.

We categorize 19 of our colors as transparent, and 32 as semi-transparent. If you'd like to make your colors more transparent, R&F Blending Medium (for Pigment Sticks®) and encaustic medium (for encaustic) can be worked directly into a color to increase transparency.

More information about the opacity of our colors can be seen on our complete color chart - here. To see a list of our transparent colors, click here. And be sure to let us know your favorites!