Nickel Silicate Green Pigment

Description

Nickel Silicate Green (PG56) is a handmade single-pigment Nickel Green Olivine, a modern ceramic green built on an olivine-type nickel silicate structure. It produces a bright, intense green with a distinct yellow-olive leaning undertone and a rich, mineral masstone. Compared to phthalo greens, this pigment is quieter and less staining, with lower chroma and a more natural, stone-like character; compared to chromium oxide green, it is cleaner, lighter, and less heavy or opaque.

In use, Nickel Silicate Green gives a controlled, versatile green ideal for foliage, moss, lichen-covered stone, cool landscapes, muted botanicals, and atmospheric architectural work. It has moderate tinting strength with a semi-opaque character, allowing it to cover confidently in masstone while still offering beautiful, nuanced veils of color in thinner applications. It mixes beautifully with yellows for a wide range of believable foliage greens, with blues for cool forest tones and blue-greens, and with earth colors and violets for sophisticated neutrals, olive shadows, and weathered, natural mixes that stay stable rather than muddy.

This olivine-structure ceramic pigment is chemically inert, heat-resistant, and highly resistant to acids and alkalis, which makes it suitable across a wide range of binders and mediums. In artist's colors it offers a dependable, mineral green that can serve as a primary natural green on the palette, a calmer alternative to high-chroma organics, or a key mixer for palettes that favor nuance, atmosphere, and a subtly geological character.

History

Nickel silicate greens such as Nickel Green Olivine (PG56) emerged from 20th-century ceramic and industrial color research, where chemists developed mixed-metal oxide pigments that could endure extreme kiln temperatures and harsh outdoor exposure. By incorporating nickel into an olivine-type silicate structure and firing at elevated temperatures, they created stable, yellow-leaning greens with excellent lightfastness and weather resistance.

These pigments found early use in tiles, porcelain, sanitaryware, and architectural coatings, where their restrained, natural greens harmonized well with stone, masonry, and outdoor environments. As interest in ceramic-origin, mineral pigments grew among artists and paintmakers, Nickel Silicate Green began to appear in specialist and handmade paint lines as a distinctly naturalistic green, less aggressive than phthalo, more nuanced than many traditional greens. Today it is appreciated by painters who want a cool, olive-leaning green with strong technical reliability and a clear mineral identity.

Pigment Information

Pigment Type: Synthetic (Inorganic) nickel silicate green, olivine-structure ceramic pigment

Suitable Mediums: Watercolor, Oil, Tempera, Acrylic, Encaustic, Cold Wax, Casein, Milk, Swedish Flour, Lime / Fresco, Ceramics

Lightfastness: Best

Opacity: Semi-opaque (moderate tinting strength)

Other Names: Nickel Silicate Green, Nickel Green Olivine, Olivine Green (PG56)

Color Index Code: PG56