Cerulean Blue Chromium (PB36) (Daniel Smith)

Here are the scans I've created for my video on Daniel Smith's Cerulean Blue Chromium (PB36).

Cerulean Blue Chromium is one of my favourite blues. The other two are Phthalo Blue (GS) and French Ultramarine. This is a colour that can be used straight from the tube without mixing and it will still look right with other colours around. My main uses for this colour is for mixing colours for skies and greys.


When mixed with a cool red, you can get really beautiful purples or violets. When mixed with warm reds, the purples and violets are more muted. The really attractive thing about Cerulean Blue Chromium is the granulation. For some reason, the pigment does not mix completely with other colours, and this results beautiful granulation where you can see both the blue and the colour it's mixed with very clearly. This optical mix is really beautiful, mesmerizing even. Not a lot of other colours can do this.


When mixed with a cool and medium yellow, it can produce a bright cheery green. Note that the granulation is still quite obvious.


When mixed with New Gamboge, a warm yellow or orange, we get a really muted green, a colour that's can even be quite difficult to identify because of the lack of saturation.


Here's another variation of green when mixed with Quinacridone Deep Gold.


Cerulean Blue Chromium is great at mixing greys with Burnt Sienna. Sometimes I may add a little red to the mixing to give the mixture even more variation.

If you're interested to get yourself a tube, visit Amazon (US) or Jackson's Art (UK).

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3 Comments

Hello teoh, i am sweta from

Hello teoh, i am sweta from india, really appreciate all your reviews. I have a question, can you please suggest me a shop in singapore where i can buy daniel smith, winsor Newton professional watercolor and other art supplies like brushes at reasonable price. As my friend will be travelling back from singapore to india in few months he will buy for me. D.S are not available here in india and importing price are huge. Thankyou and pls suggest.

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