Omg it finally looks like a painting I’ve made.

This is exactly what I said to myself, after I turned the painting I had been working on for the last hour, to something that resembled my work.

If you follow my Instagram Stories, some of you may have noticed that there have been some unexpected colour palettes being used in the canvasses I have been dabbling in of late. I’ve been trying to challenge myself to explore a soft colour palette, where the colours are muted…rather than distinct with their own character. Let’s just say the process has been interesting…

So in order to ‘guarantee’ that I would actually use a soft colour palette, I purposely purchased a whole range of soft colours in the Global Fine Art Acrylic Impasto paint from Riot Art & Craft. And yes I actually purchased pre-made colours, rather mixing my own paint colours! To be honest, I was afraid that I would just mix a whole tonal range of phthalo blue, turquoise and magenta, and call it a day. Whilst trying a soft colour palette, I also wanted to explore some other colours, other than the ones I’m obsessed with.

After I picked 7 muted, soft colours, I was really confused as to how this colour palette would work. So I picked 3 strong colours matching the soft ones, as a backup.

This mistake in purchase should have stood out like a sore thumb at the time, but it didn’t…

And back in the studio, I just found myself gravitating to the stronger colours, with the promise that I would add the softer colours to the top layers soon…

I also convinced myself that having strong colours on the bottom layers was completely justified.

And necessary…

Today was all about top and final layers. That being said, there are as many final layers, as there are bottom layers, so really, ‘final’ is completely the wrong word.

I tried. I really tried.

I actually tried for more layers than I was motivated to. There were many points where I wanted to make it the last layer and ditch the entire concept all together. But I continued.

Then without realising I made a decision. I added turquoise.

Then a lighter shade of turquoise…

Then phthalo blue…

You can’t have turquoise, without its companion phthalo blue.

Have you seen how dramatically phthalo blue can impact a painting? Let alone one housing a series of soft colours. Moment of beauty.

And yes, this is the point, where I said to myself, “Omg it finally looks like a painting I’ve made”.

So what happened to that soft colour palette I was working on? Well it disappeared.

At least for this painting…

Charlie x