The third of my recent Observation to Abstraction paintings changed things up a gear but adding a third colour – Transparent Orange – to the palette. There isn’t anything that makes use of raw orange in this piece (or raw green or rose for that matter) but it created a significant range of additional colour options, including a range of subdued greens and browns. If you remember yesterday’s Schmincke colour chart, you will see that is at 90° to the axis between Phthalo Green and Permanent Rose. It is funny how colour works; I even managed to get the effect of blue(ish) colours where teal greens sit near orange browns.

I wasn’t completely satisfied with this one and would have preferred to get flatter washes for the blocks of colour but I did like the contrast of detail and larger areas. I had also tried to get darker mixes but ended up resorting to a bit of a cheat for the next painting, which I will post tomorrow.