Pigment is a substance that can color objects. Pigments are soluble and insoluble, inorganic and organic. Inorganic pigments are generally minerals. Humans have long known that inorganic pigments are used to paint on rock walls and paint the body with colored soil and minerals. Organic pigments are generally taken from plants and marine animals, such as indigo, gamboge and purple extracted from shellfish in ancient Rome. Soluble pigments, also known as dyes, can be used for direct printing and dyeing fabrics. Insoluble pigments should be ground and added to media such as oil and water. And then coated on the surface of the object to be dyed to form a covering layer. There are many pigments made of synthetic chemicals in modern times, which can meet the needs of human beings when they need to divide the hue carefully. For example, painting requires many different pigments, with subtle differences.

The basic requirement of artistic pigments is that the finer the particles, the brighter the color and the more lasting the color (better stability).

Watercolor pigments Watercolor pigments are almost transparent except white. Only in this way can we meet the needs of watercolor overprint.

Gouache pigment was originally invented by adding white powder to watercolor pigment to make the color opaque. Because watercolor pigments are transparent, it is difficult to modify once they are wrongly painted. Gouache pigment is easy to be modified because of its opacity. Later, raw materials such as Arabic gum were added to gouache pigment to further improve its performance. Arabic gum can make the dry surface of gouache paint have a layer of luster, but in special occasions (such as drawing renderings, coloring animations, etc.), gum will form irregular spots on the color surface or make the color uneven, so there is a special degumming pigment.

Oil painting pigments are pigments diluted with oil.

Traditional Chinese painting pigments are very rich and varied, ranging from mineral powder to plant extracts to animal extracts.

Theoretically, as long as there are three primary colors of red, yellow and blue, other colors can be transferred, but the purity of the transferred colors is always not high enough, so modern art paint manufacturers produce high-purity pigments for colors of various hues and lightness to meet various needs. From the most basic 12 color to the usual 24 colors or even 48 colors to 60 colors. Special metallic colors are not included.