Finally something new, I’m getting the ball rolling here!
So whenever I start a painting, I have to think about it. When I got this idea, I found myself in this position:
Ok so I have an idea now, thanks to the extra blood in my head. Don’t ask me why or how I ended up in this position either, I just did.
Now I have a canvas I pre-prepped with gesso. Here’s me next to it, showing you the size. Yea I’m out of focus, but I’m not pretty and you’re not missing much.
Next, I draw out what I’m going to paint on the canvas. I don’t need detail, I just want shapes so I can get my proportions correct. I guess this is where all the art teachers turn to their pupils and go “See? what did I tell you!” and the students go “aww fine I’ll do it alerady! sheesh!” Believe me as much as I want to start glopping it on, I need to get this done first.
My first layer of colored paint is actually gesso mixed with cadmium red, an inorganic pigment derived from cadmium oxide. I make two colors- one for the background and one for the main subject only differing from the background by about half as much cadmium.
Cadmium oxide is a toxic substance. Don’t allow the water you rinse it with to land on anything you eat off of, and if it does, run it through the dishwasher before eating off of it.
For the second layer, I mix two organic pigments together: Quinaicndrone Red and Hansa Yellow. These pigments are comprised of complex carbon-based molecules. The red pigment Gamma Quinacindrone tends to mix more brightly with other paints than cadmium, and also tends to run more transparent than cadmium. The same goes for the yellow pigment, yellow arylide, found in hansa yellow. I also mix thalo (or pthalo) blue, an organic pigment containing copper phthalosyenide with a little bit of red to form a very indigo pigment. I wind up with a caution-cone orange and a dark purple. These semi-complimentary pigments mix to form a very pretty and dull green. I make a smooth gradient on the canvas with these two pigments, and then its on to the next step:
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