Isodoline Yellow

Description

Isodoline Yellow (PY139) is a single-pigment isoindoline yellow, a modern organic yellow known for its warmth, transparency, and excellent lightfastness. It produces a rich, warm yellow that leans toward yellow-orange, with a glowing, “egg yolk” or cadmium-deep character in masstone and a clear, luminous quality in washes. Compared to traditional cadmium and azo yellows, this pigment is more transparent and cleaner in mixtures, offering a high-chroma warm yellow that still feels natural and versatile rather than harsh.

In use, Isodoline Yellow gives a brilliant, transparent to semi-transparent yellow ideal for sunlight, autumn light, florals, foliage highlights, golden textiles, and warm glazes in both landscape and figurative work. It has good tinting strength with a smooth, non-granulating character, making it excellent for glazing, layered washes, and precise color mixing. It combines beautifully with blues for a range of vibrant, slightly muted natural greens, with reds and magentas for deep oranges and fiery scarlets, and with earth pigments to create clear, sunlit ochres and golden browns that stay bright rather than muddy.

This isoindoline pigment is highly lightfast, chemically stable, and compatible with a wide range of binders and mediums. In artist’s colors it serves as an outstanding warm primary yellow for modern mixing palettes, providing both a glowing statement color and a reliable mixer for clean greens, oranges, and warm, luminous neutrals.

History

Isoindoline and related isoindolinone yellows were developed in the mid-20th century as part of a new generation of high-performance organic pigments engineered for industrial coatings, plastics, and printing inks. They were designed to offer excellent lightfastness, weather resistance, and chemical durability—qualities that quickly attracted the attention of artists and paintmakers looking for modern alternatives to more fugitive azo yellows and traditional lake colors.

Isodoline Yellow (PY139) represents a warm, orange-leaning member of this family, sitting between traditional gamboge-style yellows and deeper cadmium yellows in hue. Its combination of strong chroma, transparency, and permanence led to its adoption in professional artist ranges, where it often appears as a replacement or complement to cadmium yellow deep in watercolor, oil, and acrylic. Today it is valued by painters who want a dependable, lightfast warm yellow that remains clear and luminous in both masstone and glaze, and that harmonizes easily with both modern and historical palettes.

Pigment Information

Pigment Type: Synthetic (Organic) isoindoline yellow pigment

Suitable Mediums: Watercolor, Oil, Tempera, Acrylic, Lime / Fresco, Ceramic and cement applications

Lightfastness: Best

Opacity: Transparent to semi-transparent

Other Names: Isodoline Yellow, Isoindoline Yellow, Pigment Yellow 139

Color Index Code: PY139