Drunk on Color

OK.....my name is Alison and I admit it.....I'm a Color-oholic. There I've said it!

My story is, I recently got a bit-o-time in between projects....and I decided to try some color experimentations with a current painting. The design called for some far away foliage in the lower background.

I had long had in the back of my mind a color explanation/experiment I'd seen in a book  ages ago. I dug out the book from my stash, and based on the points I'd read I tried this:

I squeezed out a bit of alizarin crimson, cobalt blue, cerulean and quinacridone gold.....i.e. A cool red, medium blue, greenish blue and a yellow. I then squeezed out a bit of white for all four colours, and mixed the colors with the white.

Then I did it one more time. The article I was working with said to do it for five piles of colour, but since I am working with fast drying acrylics in this case, instead of oils.....I stuck to the abridged version.

After I had my colours set out.....and in the beginning they were in nice organized piles! I proceeded to play. And the first thing out I found I needed a green for bits of the far away foliage. So's I immediately pulled together the cerulean blue piles and the gold piles.....and viola I had a green.

Then I needed a purple, and mixing the alizarin with both the blues gave me both a dullish violet (alizrain +cerulean = dullish violet 'cause the cerulean leans towards green which means it's automatically got a bit of yellow in its composition. And we all know yellow is the complimentary of violet which equals instant greying of the violet's intensity).....and a vivid violet (alizarin + cobalt = vivid violet 'cause cobalt and alizarin both lean towards the purple side of the spectrum and no yellow or warm color involved so no complimentary dulling)

After a lotta messing around, I started painting with leetle dabs of paint here and there following my photo reference. And I thought I could stop doing this “pointillist” type painting in spots of color......but I found I couldn't just stop at one bit of color here......I had to smudge it, then I found I needed a bit of it's compliment just beside it.....and I couldn't stop!

But of course, since I'm typing this blog post.......I DID step away from the palette....I CAN stop with colours.....I can......Oh wait! Is that a tube of Phthalo Blue? I wonder what that would look like on........

To be continued..........