Sunday, March 24, 2013

The Perfect Pink

Dear All, I meant it when I said I would do more posting...and could not resist adding this little post about colour mixing.  You can see why I find selling decorative paint to be creative--I love colour mixing and I love working with colour (and pattern, texture, etc).

Good friend and artist Jacqueline Coates (try www.jacquelinecoates.com for more info on Jacqueline's work)  is seeking the perfect vivid and deep pink colour for her Salon Rouge Gallery decor  (see www.salonrougegallery.com for more detail).  If we can get it right, she may paint some of the gallery in Annie Sloan Chalk Paint decorative paint, and source the paint from our boutique, Brocante in the Barossa.  She called in yesterday to pick up flowers at neighbouring Viva The Flower Store boutique (see www.vivaflowerstore.com for info) and looked at some of the colour charts I had.  None was EXACTLY right, yet.  But I agreed to work on mixing some colours today and paint up some swatches for her consideration this week.

Colour Mixing dabs, marks, and notes.  Entered
into my copy of the Annie Sloan Work Book

Here is what I came up with.  Colours I mixed are Emperor's Silk, a brilliant bright red.  Greek Blue, a clear blue, a bit on the cooler side (I am sure it has
some magenta in it, just a teeny bit).  And Pure White, for a clear bright neutral white that has no yellow, blue, pink or grey in it.

I needed to knock back the Emperor's Silk a bit, to bring things closer to the magenta side of the equation, instead of scarlet.  So I added a bit of Greek Blue.  It changed the character of Emperor's Silk only slightly, but that is because Emperor's Silk is very strong, and is not a shy character at all !  A bit of Pure White made things look more pink, but the colour was not deep and vivid as I thought Jacqueline is seeking.  So more Emperor's Silk and more Greek Blue.  Much better.  Adding more Greek Blue pulled things towards (blue) violet.  More Emperor's Silk pulled it back to magenta.  And adding more Pure White tinted it carnation pink.

I think it is possible the two dabs at the bottom are what she is after. I think the one on the left is about right, but it could be the one to its right, or a mix of those together.  We shall see !

This was the fun bit of the afternoon !

No comments:

Post a Comment