IONIC Blue Violet

A violet turned toward blue

Blue Violet stands on the boundary between two color families. By its number it still belongs with the violets, but its undertone is clearly blue and it leads on to the lavender tones. That position is valuable to a modeler. A pure violet tends to be aggressive over larger areas, whereas a shade with a blue lean can be used without hesitation as a shadow even where a true violet would hit the eye.

Where you will use it

In figure painting it serves as a cool shadow on white fabrics, on snow and on silver armor, where it takes the place of gray and keeps the scene colorful. On dioramas it is applied to the distant planes, because air at a distance shifts colors exactly toward blue-violet. On space subjects it forms the base of nebulae and of the glow of energy shields.

Notes on use

In acrylic technology, violet shades are among the least covering, because they are made from pigments of low density. Over a dark area it is therefore better to apply them over a light gray base. Plain water will handle the thinning, but for spraying reach for the manufacturer's own product. The version with a retarder is useful when you want to blend a transition for longer than a few tens of seconds.

Mixing with its neighbors

With white it gives a pale, icy tone for frost and for the edges of ice floes, and with dark blue, by contrast, depth for night scenes. Anyone painting metal can use the shade as a cast on polished surfaces, where in reality the sky is reflected. A thin glaze over silver gives sheet metal a chill that a plain gray cannot reach.