Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor No.42 AUREOLIN

Aureolin (No. 42) is a warm, vibrant chrome yellow from Kuretake's Gansai Tambi range – handcrafted Japanese watercolour in pan form, built on over a century of ink and pigment-making expertise. The colour is supplied as a compressed solid in a large format pan and dissolves instantly into a creamy, soft consistency with minimal water. Water-based, pigment-formulated, non-toxic and lightfast – a pure, radiant yellow that glows in glazes and builds rich coverage at full strength.

Features

• Handmade in Japan: Each colour pan is crafted by hand using traditional methods. Uniform pigment distribution is achieved through Kuretake's proprietary "Ultra-Thin Particle Dispersion" technology – pigment particles are exceptionally fine and evenly dispersed, producing smooth dissolution and homogeneous colour washes.
• Oversized pan (48 × 28 mm): The generous surface area allows working with wide brushes and rapid saturation of large areas – no reload issues when laying down extensive washes.
• Seamless transparency to opacity: Plenty of water creates delicate, luminous glazes; minimal water delivers creamy, nearly gouache-like coverage. Aureolin wet application: translucent honey yellow. Dry application: full, opaque chrome yellow.
• Lightfast and pigment-based: The colour is water-soluble but sufficiently stable once dry for illustrations and sumi-e work. Note: Lightfastness decreases with very heavy dilution – the more water, the lower the pigment density.
• Non-toxic with water-soluble binder: A water-soluble synthetic resin serves as the binder. This makes the colour easily reworkable when damp and brushes and palettes simple to rinse clean.
• Available as individual pan: The pan fits into a Gansai Tambi palette or can be used to supplement an existing set.

Use & Tips

• Washes and botanical illustration: Aureolin is a reliable transparent yellow in classical watercolour technique for underpainting and mixed tones – combined with blue it creates vibrant green, with red a warm orange. Applied in thin layers over blue glazes, it produces atmospheric sea greens.
• Sumi-e and Asian painting techniques: The Gansai Tambi series was originally developed for colouring ink drawings. Aureolin is ideal for adding colour accents to ink sketches – for example, chrysanthemums, bamboo or autumn leaves.
• Dissolving with water brush: A water brush (such as the LUIBAN range) is ideal: lightly stroke the pan surface, control water flow and apply directly. No separate water glass required – perfect for on-the-go work.
• Fineliner combination: On ink-proof, smooth paper, Aureolin can be applied as a coloured wash beneath fineliners or technical pens without smudging the line work.
• Build your palette: The individual pan fits Gansai Tambi palettes. If you need Aureolin as a primary colour in your colour wheel, you can methodically assemble a custom mixing palette without purchasing a full set.

For Watercolour Enthusiasts

Aureolin as a colour name has a long history in watercolour painting – traditionally formulated with cobalt yellow pigment (PY40), nowadays usually realised with modern, more lightfast replacement pigments. Kuretake does not list ASTM-standard pigment numbers on the pan, which remains an open question for pigment purists. However, Gansai Tambi colours use exclusively pigment-based formulations – no dyes, no pure dye-based wash – which forms the foundation for their lightfastness. The creamy consistency of the range differs from European pan colours in behaviour: it dissolves faster and settles with beautiful texture on rough watercolour paper, whilst on satin-finish paper it produces an evenly smooth surface.

Technical Specifications