Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor No.56 FORREST GREEN

Gansai Tambi No. 56 Forest Green is an individual watercolour pan from Kuretake's Japanese Gansai Tambi range – pigment-based, pressed into an oversized well and activated with water. The colour sits in a rich, deep forest green: not bright grass green, but a muted, dense green of closed tree canopies. The pigment base is Phthalocyanin Green (PG7) and Hansa Yellow (PY1), which gives the tone a cool, slightly blue-green depth.

Features

• Large pan surface (48 × 28 mm): The oversized well works easily with broad watercolour brushes – no awkward point contact needed, but smooth mixing of larger quantities directly from the pan.
• Adjustable opacity: Applied neat with little water, Forest Green works opaque like gouache – solid areas, clearly defined forms. Diluted with more water, the colour becomes more transparent and glazing, without losing its vibrancy.
• Semi-gloss drying film: Gansai Tambi colours dry with a subtle sheen that gives illustrations and lettering work a lively surface – noticeably different from the flat finish of Western watercolours.
• Pigment base PG7 + PY1: Phthalocyanin Green is one of the most lightfast green pigments available; combined with PY1, it creates the characteristic forest green with a warm, yellowish undertone. Kuretake indicates lightfastness for this colour – depending on dilution, permanence can vary.
• ACMI-certified: The colour carries the AP seal of the Art & Creative Materials Institute and is classified as non-toxic.
• Over 100 years of colour manufacturing expertise: Kuretake developed the Gansai Tambi range based on its sumi ink technology – evident in the evenness of application and controlled flow behaviour.

Use & Tips

• Illustration and sketching: Forest Green is ideal for botanical illustration, landscape sketching and sumi-e – the tone gives foliage, moss and shadows in the green range credible depth. On rice paper, the colour behaves particularly smoothly.
• Calligraphy and lettering: With a medium-sized brush, you can create coloured letterforms with Forest Green – the colour flows evenly and shows clean edges without feathering on smooth, ink-resistant paper.
• Layering and colour gradation: Because the underlying colour layer re-dissolves when reworked, overlaying two tones creates organic transitions – more akin to gouache technique than classical wet-on-wet. This makes Forest Green interesting as a shadow colour over lighter greens.
• Black and dark paper: Because of its high pigment concentration and opacity, Forest Green reads as its own colour even on dark paper – a quality that purely transparent watercolours cannot offer.
• Mixing: PG7-based greens mix with precision. Forest Green opens towards turquoise with blue tones or towards olive with earth tones – the creamy consistency makes rubbing on the palette easier.

For Watercolour Enthusiasts

The pigment combination PG7 (Phthalocyanin Green) and PY1 (Hansa Yellow) places Forest Green clearly in the colour system between a neutral phthalo green and a warm yellow-green – with distinct weight on the cool side. PG7 ranks among the most lightfast organic pigments and is tonally pure; PY1 is, compared to PY3 or PY150, an older, less lightfast yellow pigment. For works intended for permanent display, this is relevant – for sketchbooks, cards, lettering projects and all work not exposed to UV, it makes no practical difference. The binder in Gansai Tambi colours is not based on animal hide glue, but on plant gums, starches and humectants – which explains the characteristically creamy, subtly glossy surface after drying.

Technical Specifications