These were not really palette cleansers, I was using up some extra paint from various tubes. The background is red opalite with a bit of Venetian red (PR101), it creates an apricot colour but feels rough like sandpaper when dry. It is a natural pigment, that is, ground up rocks as opposed to a finely ground synthetic. The olive green was actually a burnt sienna (dark orange) with a bright green, and I added some quinacridone red (PR209) and winsor green (PG7) for visual interest.
Palette Cleanser #55, 9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour, January 2021 (No. 2524a)
I went ahead and used the whole tube of red opalite! It was pretty fun to squeeze out a whole tube of paint at once, it was a small tube of 5mL. Its a very weak paint, so I added venetian red to give it some colour. The rest of the painting was made with bloodstone genuine, and burnt sienna. It is like an abstract cave painting. This one is also rough like sandpaper due to the red opalite. It was from a special release by Schmincke, I wrote about for the
Albania painting, the paint is weak and hard to use. The manufacturer had to add a lot of gum arabic to make the crushed rock stick to the paper, which is why it feels rough. I have more respect for the historical painters now, they had to use some difficult pigments.
Palette Cleanser #56, 9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour, January 2021 (No. 2533a)
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