Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor No.30 CADMIUM RED

Kuretake's Gansai Tambi watercolours are hand-crafted Japanese pan colours with a creamy-soft consistency and intense pigmentation. No. 31 Cadmium Red – known in the Japanese original as 朱 (Shu) – is a brilliant scarlet with a warm, orange-tinted undertone that dries with rich, radiant luminosity on paper. The water-based colour dissolves quickly and evenly, can be thinned infinitely, and is non-toxic and lightfast.

Features

• Creamy, fast-dissolving consistency: The pressed colour pigment picks up colour instantly with minimal water – no lengthy soaking, no waiting. The brush glides smoothly across the pan's surface.
• High opacity in the Japanese style: Gansai Tambi exhibit greater opacity compared to Western watercolours. No. 31 covers reliably even on mid-tone paper and remains mixable – depending on water content, the tone can be thinned from deep scarlet to pale coral pink.
• Large pan (48 × 28 mm): The extra-large pan offers ample surface area for wide brushes and generous colour loading – suitable even for larger format work.
• Lightfast and non-toxic: The colours are lightfast and comply with international safety standards. The product carries the AP Certificate from the American Art Materials Association.
• Vegan-friendly: Gansai Tambi contain no animal products.
• Individual pans for refilling: The block comes in a transparent plastic tray and can be inserted directly into an existing Gansai Tambi palette.

Use & Tips

• Illustration and manga: The warm scarlet is particularly suited to garments, accent areas and dynamic colour fields in illustrations and manga drawings.
• Sumi-e and Japanese painting: Traditionally, Gansai is used with large hair brushes on rice paper or watercolour board. No. 31 follows this tradition – swift brushwork, clean colour edges, beautiful flow with wet technique on smooth paper.
• Wet-on-dry for control: The colour behaves with particular control and precision on dry paper – ideal for detailed work and sharp edges.
• Calligraphy and lettering: The large pan readily accommodates broad lettering brushes. No. 31 makes a strong, warm red accent in calligraphy work – with a little more water, also usable as a translucent glaze.
• Mixing: Combined with yellow, it produces a vibrant orange; with a touch of dark brown, a warm earth red. As the colour is not purely transparent, it's also suitable for overpainting or correction layers.
• Dries with subtle sheen: Gansai Tambi dry with a slightly silky-matt to glossy surface – this gives finished work a fresh, saturated appearance.

For Watercolour Enthusiasts

No. 31 bears the Japanese colour name 朱 (Shu) – a traditional vermilion scarlet used for centuries in Japanese painting and calligraphy as a signal colour and for ritual scripts. The pigment base (PY3, SCARLET 215) yields a brilliant, warm red with a subtle yellow component – closer to scarlet than cool carmine. As Kuretake uses multiple designations for some colours, No. 31 may also be listed as "Cadmium Scarlet" or "Scarlet Red" depending on market; the pigment and colour tone are identical. Gansai Tambi dry with a semi-glossy surface and can be reactivated when dry, making subsequent corrections and reactivation of already-dried colour layers easier.

Technical Specifications