‘Real’ colors at last

I’m always slow to abandon the freedom of under-painting and commit to working on the layers people will consciously look at, but I have to take the plunge eventually. With this painting I had some extra motivation: I was starting a second painting, and before I used the crazy yellow/purple underpainting scheme a second time, I wanted to see if it actually worked.

Spoiler: it works! Though since I’m still using fairly thick, opaque paints, the importance of the specific colors in the underpainting is questionable.

I painted this about two weeks ago (I’m behind on updating the blog), and I assumed I’d remember my paint choices. Note to self: “I’ll remember that and don’t need to write it down” is a dirty lie you tell yourself, and you should be ashamed. Here, to the best of my recollection, was the palette for the hand.

• Perylene? Red, which my phone wants to correct to ‘Problems Red’.
• Titanium white
• Yellow Ocher, probably
• That purple I love and have been using in everything
• Burnt Umber? Maybe? Or not.
• There could’ve been cadmium yellow. Its anyone’s guess.

Hopefully some kind of deep memory will kick in when I go to fix up the arm and I’ll magically grab the right paints out of the drawer. And perhaps I’ll win the lottery, while I’m practicing my magical thinking.

I already cleaned the palette, so I can’t even try to reconstruct it from the mess. This is a lesson for me — I’ll jot down my paint selections next time.