Payne's grey is a dark blue-grey

colour Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

used in painting. It can be used as a mixer in place of black. Since it is less intense than black, it is easier to get the right shade when using it as a mixer. Originally a mixture of iron blue (

Prussian blue Prussian blue (also known as Berlin blue, Brandenburg blue or, in painting, Parisian or Paris blue) is a dark blue pigment produced by oxidation of ferrous ferrocyanide salts. It has the chemical formula Fe CN)">Cyanide.html" ;"title="e(Cyani ...

), yellow ochre and crimson lake, Payne's grey now is often a mixture of blue (

ultramarine Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afg ...

or phthalocyanine) and black or of ultramarine and

burnt sienna Sienna (from it, terra di Siena, meaning "Siena earth") is an earth pigment containing iron oxide and manganese oxide. In its natural state, it is yellowish brown and is called raw sienna. When heated, it becomes a reddish brown and is calle ...

. The colour is named after William Payne, who painted

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

s in the late 18th century. The first recorded use of ''Payne's grey'' as a colour name in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

was in 1835. The source of the colour displayed below is the ''

Robert Ridgway Robert Ridgway (July 2, 1850 – March 25, 1929) was an American ornithologist specializing in systematics. He was appointed in 1880 by Spencer Fullerton Baird, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to be the first full-time curator of bi ...

color list'', entered onto the Internet from his 1912 book ''Color Standards and Color Nomenclature''. The normalized colour coordinates for Payne's grey are identical to dark electric blue, which was formalized as a color in the ISCC–NBS system in 1955. Paynes grey

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Payne's Grey Inorganic pigments

See also

References