Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor No.751 PEARL MAY GREEN

Pearl May Green No. 751 is a single large pan from Kuretake's Gansai Tambi Pearl series – a fresh, mother-of-pearl shimmer May green that shifts between delicate lustre and rich, vibrant tone depending on water content. Handcrafted in Japan from water-based pigments, this colour combines the creamy-soft consistency of the classic Gansai Tambi line with the characteristic pearl lustre of the Pearl collection. The large pan allows for broad, fluid brushstrokes as well as finely controlled accents.

Features

• Mother-of-pearl shimmer May green: The water-based pearl lustre pigment creates a delicate, shimmering tone on light paper; on dark or black paper, a vibrant, metallic-looking green emerges – both from the same pan.
• Variable opacity depending on water content: Applied with little water, Pearl May Green works almost opaquely and holds its own on dark surfaces. Heavily diluted, it creates a transparent, light-permeable shimmer, ideal for glazes and backgrounds.
• Creamy-soft consistency: Hand-crafted pigments dissolve evenly – no scratching, no lumping. The brush picks up the colour directly and controllably, enabling precise work with fine brushes as well as quick application with broader watercolour brushes or water markers.
• Large pan (48 × 28 mm): The extra-large format offers ample surface for broad brushes and allows area coverage without constantly reloading.
• Lightfast and non-toxic: ACMI-certified, non-toxic formulation; the colour is lightfast and suitable for durable illustrations and artworks.
• Available individually: Can be integrated selectively into an existing Gansai Tambi palette or used as a single colour for specific projects.

Use & Tips

• On black or dark paper: Pearl May Green unfolds a vibrant, metallic-shimmering presence on dark surfaces. Ideal for botanical subjects, calligraphy and brush lettering on black watercolour board or toned paper.
• Transparent glazes on white paper: Diluted with plenty of water, a delicate pearl shimmer emerges – suitable as background wash, for light and reflection effects in illustrations, or for subtle overpainting of stamped motifs.
• Sumi-e and Japanese painting techniques: The traditional manufacture and creamy consistency make Pearl May Green a natural addition to Sumi-e compositions, where pearl lustre colours bring ink drawings to life.
• Brush lettering and calligraphy: With a soft brush or water brush, the colour can be used directly for mother-of-pearl shimmer lettering projects and greetings cards – particularly effective on textured watercolour paper or smooth card.
• Mixing with other Gansai Tambi colours: Pearl May Green combines well with other colours from the Gansai Tambi line. When mixed on the palette or wet-in-wet on paper, the pearl shimmer is retained as long as the proportion of pearl colour predominates.
• Paper selection: The pearl shimmer is most pronounced on smooth, calendered paper. On more heavily textured watercolour paper (e.g. 300 g/m² cold pressed), interesting texture effects emerge, where depressions in the grain take up less pigment and create a lively interplay between light shimmer and deeper green.

For Calligraphy and Illustration Enthusiasts

Gansai Tambi is a traditional Japanese watercolour form: solid pigment cakes made from hand-crafted, water-based pigments pressed by hand in Japan. Unlike Western watercolours, which are primarily designed for transparency and granulation, Gansai Tambi colours combine watercolour transparency with the opacity of light gouache – smoothly adjustable depending on water ratio. The Pearl series complements this quality with light-refracting pearl lustre pigments that vary the colour tone depending on angle: on white paper a pale, delicate May green with silvery shimmer, on dark surfaces a saturated, almost metallic green. This optical depth is created through the use of interference pigments that refract light rather than merely reflect it. For calligraphers working with brush lettering on dark paper, or illustrators wanting to give botanical subjects and landscapes a luminous, lively quality, Pearl May Green offers a colour quality that purely opaque or purely transparent colours cannot achieve.

Technical Specifications