The history of Potter’s Pink is as quiet and understated as the pigment itself. It was invented by an unknown potter in Staffordshire around 1790 and introduced to the artist market shortly thereafter under the name pink colour. Despite its modest beginnings, its impact on watercolour painting was significant. For many years, Potter’s Pink was the only lightfast pink pigment available to watercolour artists.
Potter’s Pink is an artificial mineral pigment created by firing a mixture of tin oxide, alumina, chromium oxide, lime, and quartz at high temperatures. The resulting material is thoroughly washed and dried, producing a stable, earthy pink pigment. Its high quartz content means the pigment particles are hard and irregular, contributing to the distinctive granular texture it creates in washes.
While Potter’s Pink continues to be used primarily as a ceramic glaze, it has long held a place on artists’ palettes—particularly among watercolorists—who value its subtle colour and textural qualities.
Is Potter’s Pink Only Available in Watercolour Ranges?
With few exceptions, Potter’s Pink is largely limited to watercolour ranges. Winsor & Newton, for example, offer an acrylic version using the pigment PR233. Daniel Smith also produce a paint called Potter’s Pink; however, it is made using Quinacridone PV19 rather than the genuine PR233 pigment.
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In some cases, pigments are incompatible with certain binders—Prussian Blue being a well-known example—but there is no clear evidence to suggest that PR233 is unsuitable for oil or acrylic media. A more likely explanation lies in the pigment’s inherent characteristics. Potter’s Pink is opaque, low in tinting strength, and somewhat muted in colour, qualities that may make it less appealing to artists working in oil or acrylic, where stronger, more saturated colours are often preferred. |
Why Is Potter’s Pink So Useful in Watercolour?
Potter’s Pink is especially valued in watercolour because it is a strongly granulating pigment. Granulation is an effect that occurs when pigments with large or irregular particles are applied with generous amounts of water. Instead of dispersing evenly, the pigment settles into the natural texture of the paper, creating a distinctive grainy or mottled appearance.
Because of its mineral composition and hard, irregular particles, Potter’s Pink granulates dramatically. This makes it particularly effective for suggesting natural textures such as stone, skin, earth, weathered surfaces, and atmospheric depth. Many artists also use granulation simply as a visual feature—an element of character and movement within a wash.
The effect can be enhanced by working on rough or cold-pressed paper and by using wetter washes, allowing the pigment to separate and settle more freely. In this context, what might be considered weaknesses in other media—its opacity, softness, and low tinting strength—become distinct advantages, giving Potter’s Pink a unique and expressive role in watercolour painting.
Granulation is not evenly distributed across the colour spectrum. Many blues—such as Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue, and Cerulean—granulate naturally, as do several greens including Cobalt Green and Viridian. In the red spectrum, however, granulating pigments are extremely rare. This is where Potter’s Pink becomes something of a watercolourist’s secret weapon.
Potter’s Pink’s low tinting strength, often seen as a limitation, is in fact its greatest strength. When added in small amounts to a red pigment, it has little effect on the overall hue, but it introduces a granular texture that the original colour lacks. In effect, Potter’s Pink can be used as a granulation modifier, imparting texture and visual complexity to otherwise smooth, non-granulating colours.
Used this way, Potter’s Pink expands the expressive range of the watercolour palette, allowing artists to introduce texture into reds, skin tones, and warm passages without significantly altering colour balance—something that is difficult to achieve with most modern pigments.
If mixing with Potter’s Pink and you don’t want it’s colour to be lost, it’s best to pair it with equally low tinting pigment. It also compliments other granulating colours. When mixed with Cerulean Blue, it makes some soft, textural greys. With Nickel Titanate Yellow it becomes a blushing peach-pink.