Art materials and color permanence


Part of the Scribal Arts collection.


 

Research paper

The material posted here was turned into a research paper for the 2014 Midlands Regional Arts and Sciences faire, where it received a 2nd place (less than half a point from first!)

 


Preliminary and ongoing notes

There are several different standards used to measure color permanence.

 

The three I've seen used most often are the Blue Wool standard (numbers 0 - 8 where we want 6-8 for SCA purposes), the ASTM standard (I to III where we want I and II), and Winsor & Newton's AA through C letter grading (where we want AA and A).

 

(I'm going by the assumption that we want scrolls to last at least 25 years and preferably longer, so those are the cutoff points I'm using for reference.)

 

General guidelines

Reds, pinks, magentas, and purples are often less colorfast than others. However, some manufacturers' entire lines are less colorfast than other manufacturers' reds.

 

If you're planning on investing in a full set of art materials, it does pay to read the colorfastness data before investing; I've looked at several sets that I ended up not buying because over half the colors weren't guaranteed even 5 years of lightfastness.

 

Art manufacturers' colorfastness rating charts

Some of the manufacturers from whom I've collected colorfastness charts:

 

 

"Informal but empirical" lightfastness tests

Since Lady Sofya has a set of Reeves Gouache, and Lady Roana has a set of Lefranc and Bourgeois, and neither of those manufacturers provide formal colorfastness guidance, I'm running my own lightfastness check on them. Results to date are being maintained at Lightfastness Test Results.

 

(Generally speaking, the reds and the shades that depend on red aren't colorfast, but most others are.)

 

No official word on lightfastness

Manufacturers I haven't been able to get official lightfastness information from and would be interested in: