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I’ve been examining different similar acrylic paint colours, testing out colour mixes to see how the slight differences in hue might be useful (or not) as an acrylic artist. Today, I’m looking at titanium white and zinc white acrylic paint. These two white colours are the most common white acrylic paints.
If you’re a beginner artist at the paint store, and you’re wondering which is the best one to purchase as the white paint on your palette, or maybe you’re an intermediate artist who has only used one of them and is interested in the other, this blog post might help you.
Titanium white
Titanium white is the big one – it’s the most common white colour used by acrylic artists. It’s very opaque, meaning that it covers other colours very well. You can essentially block out any colours underneath your titanium white layer. It’s considered a neutral white, or even a touch warm.
I’m using Golden’s titanium white, which uses PW6. Titanium white replaces white lead paint, which was used in the past. Lead, of course, is toxic. The effects from lead pigment were deadly, especially for those who manufactured it. Eventually, lead pigment was banned in many countries, and titanium white because the main white for artists.
Zinc white
Zinc white is much less commonly used by acrylic artists. It’s quite transparent, which lets the artist to glaze over previous layers, allowing colours to shine through. If you’re a watercolour artist, you may have used Chinese White, which uses zinc.
Golden paint uses pigment PW4, zinc oxide. Many artists consider it a slightly blue-tinged, or cool, white.
Watch me compare titanium white and zinc white on my YouTube channel.
Testing colour mixes
Since titanium white and zinc white’s most important difference is their transparency, I’m adding black lines to my colour mixing sheet. This allows us to see how much the colour mix’s opacity is affected by the white paint.
I’m using the following paints to mix today:
- Hansa yellow lemon
- Cadmium-free yellow medium
- Cadmium-free red medium
- Quinacridone magenta
- Ultramarine blue
- Phthalo blue (green)
- Dioxazine purple
- Sap green hue
- Vat orange
Thoughts
I have always used titanium white and this was my first time using zinc white, so I was learning as I went through this video. This is pretty common in my videos.
I found, as expected, that titanium white has excellent opacity and zinc white was very transparent. Titanium white also has a high tinting strength, so I didn’t need much of it to decrease the value of another colour. I needed quite a bit of zinc white in comparison. The zinc white tints tended to be very vibrant compared to the titanium white mixes.
I didn’t find either colour to be particularly cooler or warmer than the other – both seemed fairly similar, temperature-wise.
I also did a pair of quick paintings in a sketchbook, to compare how they work in an actual painting, rather than just swatches.
Again, titanium white was very opaque and zinc white allowed other colours to come through underneath due to its transparency. Titanium white is great in situations where you need a strong, white highlight, and you don’t want any of the colour below coming through. The tints can be a bit chalky in swatches although I don’t find it too chalky when in the painting.
Zinc white is great for layering and allowing the colour to mix optically as they sit on top of each other, rather than just the typical colour mixing on the palette. I struggled with the zinc white painting because I initially treated it like a painting using titanium white. I had issues with not being able to cover over hard edges from previous layers. Similar to watercolour painting techniques, has I started with paler layers, adding darker layers on top, it would have been a more successful painting.
I will continue to use titanium white as my main white paint, however, I may add zinc white to my palette on occasion where I want to mix transparent glazes. I will find this especially useful when I’m mixing with other paints that are transparent, such as quinacridones or Indian yellow.
Learn more
Check out a listing of all my colour mixing blog posts and videos on my colour mixing roundup article.
Get your own
Pick up your favourite shade of black at your local art supply store or on Amazon:
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Canada
