Friday, August 20, 2021

Petunias!

 11x14 Acrylic on Canvas Panel

I planted a riot of petunias in my front window flower box this year and they eventually worked their magic to make me do my first flower painting.  I find flowers intimidating what with all that petal action, but this was fun!

I also learned a lesson in paint colors for this one.  I couldn't get the pink I was after and looked at the pigment content of my Liquitex Alizarin Crimson. It's 2 pigments, one of which is a brownish red which turns the pink muddy when mixed with blue or another purple. I have an older tube with a different formulation, but the newer Alizarins have 2 colors so a cool bright pink is virtually impossible. I ended up buying a tube of Quin Magenta so I can have a cool bright pink.  I'm used to Alizarin in oils which makes an exquisite cool light pink.  I've come around to believing a limited palette is the best way to learn color mixing, and learned to check each color is a single pigment before I buy.