Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor No.602 COBALT TURQUOISE LIGHT

Cobalt Turquoise Light (No. 602) is a bright, minty blue-green from Kuretake's Gansai Tambi series – the Japanese watercolour maker with over 100 years of experience in ink production. The wide pan in 48 × 28 mm format contains a creamy, pigment-rich colour suitable for both opaque application like gouache and transparent glazes. The shade – known in Japanese as 新橋色 (Shinbashi-iro), a classical fashion colour from the early Meiji period – sits chromatically between fresh mint green and light cyan.

Features

• Large pan format (48 × 28 mm): The unusually wide format allows the use of flat brushes, fan brushes or Japanese hake brushes without bending the bristles against the pan edges – ideal for broad washes and backgrounds.
• Creamy, semi-opaque consistency: Gansai Tambi characteristically sits between Western watercolour and gouache. Little water produces an opaque, matt layer with soft sheen; lots of water creates a translucent, luminous glaze – both from the same pan.
• High pigment density: The colour mass contains Phthalo Blue (PB15:3), Hansa Yellow (PY3) and Titanium White (PW6). This combination delivers opacity even on coloured or dark paper, where transparent watercolours would barely show.
• Dries with a subtle silk sheen: Characteristic of the Gansai Tambi series is a delicate sheen in the dried colour layer – particularly visible with thick application, giving the finished work a lively, velvety surface.
• Reactivatable: Dried colour can be fully reactivated with a damp brush. Colour accidentally left dry on the pan is not lost.
• Non-toxic (ACMI-certified): The word "Cobalt" in the colour name denotes the hue, not the pigment – the colour contains no actual cobalt pigment and is certified non-toxic.
• Available individually: The pan fits directly into Gansai Tambi palettes and can be reordered as a single colour without buying a set.

Use & Tips

• Activation: Before painting, work a well-moistened brush in circular motions into the pan – approximately 30 to 60 seconds – to fully open up the creamy consistency. Avoid excessive standing water in the pan, as the colour mass can crack when drying.
• Washes and glazes: Dilute colour first on a palette or white porcelain dish with water, not directly in the pan. This protects the pan consistency and allows precise control of transparency.
• On dark paper: Thanks to PW6 (Titanium White) in the pigment mix, Cobalt Turquoise Light covers well on toned watercolour paper, black sketch paper or toned paper blocks – producing particularly luminous highlights and colour accents.
• Wet-on-wet: On cold-pressed or rough watercolour paper, the colour blends well wet-in-wet with other shades in the series. Combined with the adjacent Grayish Blue (No. 601), it creates a fine atmospheric blue-grey-to-turquoise gradient.
• Illustration and lettering: Used as a background wash beneath ink lettering – the semi-opaque surface accepts subsequent ink lines well without softening too much.
• Botanical illustration: The cool, light blue-green suits highlight reflection on leaves, water droplets or sky areas in botanical sketches and nature studies.

For Watercolour Enthusiasts

The colour name "Shinbashi-iro" (新橋色) references a historical Japanese colour tradition: this light blue-turquoise became a fashionable geisha colour in Meiji-era Tokyo (from 1868 onwards) and carries cultural-historical significance far beyond its mere colour spectrum. Pigment-wise, No. 602 is a three-part combination of PB15:3 (Phthalo Blue, greenish tone, very high colour strength and lightfastness), PY3 (Hansa Yellow, for the greenish shift towards turquoise) and PW6 (Titanium White, for the characteristic brightness and opacity). This mixture appears somewhat darker when wet than when dry – typical behaviour of Japanese water-resin binders that lighten slightly on drying. Since Kuretake publishes no official lightfastness ratings to ISO standards for the Gansai Tambi series, primary use is recommended for sketchbooks, illustrations and print templates; for works to be permanently displayed unprotected, applied layers should not be too thin or heavily diluted, as increasing water content makes the colour layer more fragile.

Technical Specifications