Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor No.403 VENETIAN RED

Venetian Red No. 403 is a warm, earthy red-brown from Kuretake's Gansai Tambi line – a Japanese manufacturer with over 100 years' experience in ink and paint production. The colour is based on pigments PR101 (synthetic iron oxide red) and PBk11 (iron oxide black), giving it a yellowish-warm, muted red tone with deep substance. Supplied as a single pan, it fits directly into an existing Gansai Tambi palette or can be used independently.

Features

• Pigment base PR101 + PBk11: Synthetic iron oxide red (PR101) is considered one of the most lightfast red pigments available – the colour barely fades even with prolonged light exposure. The added PBk11 gives the tone its characteristic, earthy weight.
• Yellowish-warm undertone: Venetian Red belongs to the yellowish-tinted iron oxide shades – creating a rich terracotta-brown-red that stands clearly apart from bluish reds. Ideal for skin tones, architectural illustrations and earthy colour harmonies.
• Variable opacity: Applied with little water, Gansai Tambi behaves like gouache – opaque and covering. Diluted with more water, it creates transparent glazes with a velvety effect.
• Creamy consistency: The colour releases softly and evenly from the pan, mixes well with other Gansai Tambi colours, and neither spreads nor granulates on paper.
• Refillable and expandable: The single pan fits all Gansai Tambi palettes and is ideal for topping up used colours or deliberately expanding existing sets.
• Non-toxic: The water-based colour contains no animal-derived ingredients and bears the AP seal (non-toxic).

Use & Tips

• Watercolour glazes: Diluted with plenty of water, Venetian Red produces warm, transparent wash tones – excellent for atmospheric backgrounds, sunsets or aged masonry textures.
• Opaque accents: Taken directly from the moist pan with little water, the colour works almost like gouache – ideal for bold details or corrections over darker grounds.
• Skin tones and portraiture: Mixed with yellows and beige tones from the Gansai Tambi line, it creates natural, warm skin tones for illustrations and portrait work.
• Calligraphy and brush lettering: The creamy consistency makes the colour suitable for expressive brush lettering – on smooth, ink-resistant paper it flows evenly and dries with a subtle sheen.
• Sumi-e and Japanese painting techniques: Venetian Red works well in traditional East Asian motifs – as a base tone for autumn leaves, roofs or garments.
• Paper recommendation: On smooth, ink-resistant watercolour or Tomoe River paper, the colour shows full brilliance; on more absorbent papers, the tone becomes more muted and deeper.

For Watercolour Enthusiasts

PR101 (synthetic iron oxide red) is the industrially produced variant of classical earth pigments – brighter, purer and more uniform in grain than natural iron oxides (PR102). Combined with PBk11 (magnetite/iron oxide black), it creates a tone with warm value that, when mixed with other transparent colours, doesn't cloud the mixture but grounds it. Venetian Red has been a standard colour in Western painting for centuries – Kuretake translates it here into the characteristically velvety, slightly lustrous surface of the Gansai Tambi line, made possible by Kuretake's over 100 years of experience in ink manufacture.

Technical Specifications