Watercolor paint tube labels - If you see “Hue”, it isn’t the color

Jillian Boon Author

I have been decluttering my studio of late to try and bring out whatever I already own - and USE them!

I recently learned something new about watercolor tubes and I want to share it with you because this is one of the things that I really enjoy doing - sharing my passion about watercolor.

On watercolor tubes, you would see the name of the color and quite often you might find a color name which has the word ‘Hue’ at the end.

What does that mean? Because we know by laymen terms, ‘Hue’ means color. So when you see it on the tube, it says Yellow Hue - It means Yellow color.

But why is it that some tubes have that word and other tubes don't? (Especially since everything in a tube IS color)

The reason for the word ‘Hue’ actually means that in the tube, it is not the exact color itself. Instead it is a replica or a copy of that color.

Watercolor paints come from minerals which are naturally made and with the rise of technology you can also create synthetic colors made in a lab.

When you see that they are colors that have the word ‘hue’, it means that most of them are synthetically made and basically it's a replica or a similar shade in that color.

To break it down into even more layman terms what I mean is that when you order a banana cake and it doesn't have bananas in it. But you feel like there's the flavor of the banana. What you actually got is the flavoring. So the baker has put in ‘the essence of the banana’, but not the actual fruit in itself.

In the case of watercolor, ‘hue’ actually means you are getting the ‘essence’ or the replica of that flavoring of that color.

But it isn't the actual color.

I hope that you found this tip helpful. Because when I was shopping for paints in Japan, this was something that popped up a lot and I decided to actually look into it. I've learned so much more about paint tubes.

And I am also excited to share that I'm going to be launching my next mini Workshop which is going to be focusing on color theory called “The Art of Color”.

There's so much information around this topic and I want to simplify it so that it's easy for you and removes any roadblocks that you might have with regard to figuring out what color to use next.

If this is a workshop you are keen on and have any questions you want me to cover - hit the reply button so that I can make sure it’s in the workshop!