Reference

Oil paint pigment codes, and what they tell you

The code on the tube is the only part of the label that cannot be marketed at you. Here is what it means, and a table of 105 oil paints with theirs.

Every tube of oil paint carries a Colour Index name somewhere on the label: PB29, PY43, PR108. It is the only honest description of what is inside. Marketing names change between manufacturers and mean nothing on their own, but the pigment code tells you what you are actually holding, and two tubes with the same code will behave the same way on the palette whoever made them.

The letters give the colour family and the numbers identify the pigment: P for pigment, then Blue, Yellow, Red, Green, Orange, Violet, Brown, Bk for black, W for white. So PB29 is Ultramarine, PY43 is natural yellow ochre, PBk9 is bone black. A code with a plus sign is a convenience mixture rather than a single pigment, which matters more than most painters expect.

Why single pigments mix cleaner

Every pigment you add to a mixture pulls light out of it. Two single pigments mixed together give you a result you can predict. Two convenience mixtures mixed together are four pigments fighting, and the result goes grey faster than you meant it to. This is the practical reason most teachers push limited palettes: not because fewer colours is virtuous, but because fewer pigments per mix stays clean.

It also explains why the same nominal colour behaves differently between brands. Two tubes both labelled "Sap Green" may be PG36+PY110 in one and PG7+PY83 in another. They look similar in the tube and mix nothing alike.

The 105 paints in the BrushLens library

These are the paints BrushLens can build mixing recipes from, grouped by family, with the pigment code and the masstone the app uses for each. You can pick any subset of them as your palette, and add your own by photographing a swatch.

Whites (6)

Yellows (18)

Oranges (6)

Reds (16)

Earths (19)

Greens (14)

Blues (12)

Purples (6)

Blacks and greys (8)

Every pigment code in this list

61 distinct codes across 105 paints:

NBr8, NR9, PB15, PB15:3, PB16, PB27, PB28, PB29, PB35, PB60, PBk, PBk11, PBk19, PBk31, PBk6, PBk9, PBr24, PBr6, PBr7, PG17, PG18, PG19, PG23, PG36, PG50, PG7, PO20, PO43, PO62, PO71, PO73, PR101, PR102, PR106, PR108, PR122, PR176, PR188, PR209, PR254, PR264, PR83, PV14, PV15, PV16, PV19, PV23, PW, PW1, PW4, PW6, PW6:1, PY, PY110, PY129, PY3, PY35, PY42, PY43, PY53, PY74

Written by Soren Ulsig. Last updated 2026-08-29.