Designers Cyan| Matisse acrylic paint

Designers Cyan | Matisse acrylic paint

The Origins of Cyan – From Kyanos to CMYK

The colour Cyan derives its name from an Ancient Greek word, kyanos, meaning “dark blue enamel”, first invoked to describe the highly prized qualities of lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stone once ground to produce the earliest Ultramarine pigments. 

Today, the contemporary colour profile associated with Cyan has shifted from these deep blues of antiquity to incorporate lighter blue-green hues such as turquoise. In printing and design practices, where our colour derives its inspiration, Cyan, or “process blue” as it is sometimes referred to, is a cool and saturated transparent hue, suitable for a wide variety of applications, including CMYK screen printing.

Featuring a pelagic medley of phthalocyanine blue and green, our new Matisse Designers Cyan is both a sublime pillar of the Designers range, and powerful standalone colour. Experiment with bold contrasted layering like Pop Art era icon Andy Warhol, or sink depth into a briny seascape, this new addition is sure to delight. 

 

What is CMYK?

This versatile blue paint forms a fundamental component of CMYK printing, a subtractive colour model that involves the layering of successive hues: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and key (black), to produce an almost unlimited number of tones. Established during the early 1900s in response to increasing production demands, this technique flourished through commercial applications and was readily embraced by artists working with experimental painting and printmaking practices.

Safety Data Sheet for Matisse Designers Cyan (SDS)

To view or download a copy of Burgundy SDS, please  CLICK HERE * (271kb)  
*The above link will open an external Dropbox window