Friday, August 15, 2008

Five Red and One Black Plum
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Five Red and One Black Plum
oil on gallery wrapped canvas
12x6x1" Sold

While I don't usually talk much about technique I have to say that I learned something about paint while painting these last two paintings. There are several reds in my palette. All but Cadmium Red seem to be pretty transparent. They look dark when squeezed out of the tube but when applied to the canvas they are not so dark. So even by adding a darker color like purple, they remain transparent. Grr.

I know this is sideways, but click it and it shows the details well
So I decided to try using the cadmium, even tho it was the 'wrong' red. I mean it was too orange. I was hoping the alizarin crimson would work as it seemed to have the right pinkiness to it. And instead of using purple to darken my cadmium, I used pthalo blue! This is a way green blue and one would think it would make mud with the cadmium, but obviously it worked. For the black plum I used the pthalo again, warmed up with a touch of cadmium. It doesn't look a bit green does it?
This is painting #84 on the road to 500.

3 comments:

  1. It doesn't look at all like you have had to struggle with your reds. They look wonderful.

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  2. Love the narrow vertical format. Isn't it amazing the unexpected way colours blend? One of my all time favourite 'blends' is pthalo blue and magenta - more gutsy than the alizarin crimson.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:30 PM

    pthalo blue is one of my favourites. Endlessly useful.

    ReplyDelete

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