02: Mixing Colors

Update

Covid has taken a toll on me, making this week a slow one. I did, however, mix acrylic paints together. Here is the result.  

I only used primary red, yellow, and blue with titanium white and mars black acrylic paints. I applied these paints onto mixed media paper, with no water mixed. With advice from my friend Angela, I used one of those plastic coverings you get from take-out food as my palette, which was very useful. Thank you Angela! 

The first ones I experimented with were yellow and orange, which is why those are the ugliest, most sloppy ones (ha ha). As I continued on, however, it turned out to be really fun, and some parts turned out better than expected. For example, on the long skinny green segment, I kept adding blue to it after the ‘green+white’ part, and it seemed to be a darker green for a while. The switch to this darkish teal was rather sudden and surprising! I had forgotten that teal was a color. I also forgot indigo existed, which made adding blue to purple pleasant as well. 

Towards the end, I added all the primary colors together to get this ugly ‘dirty’ color. I wasn’t sure what it was, so I will call it ‘goop.’ You get to see the goop on the bottom side of the ‘purple+white’ segment. It was then I noticed I did not have brown, so I tried to make use of my goop, so the paint isn’t wasted. Adding red and yellow until the tone was right (mostly red), I ended up getting my brown. I thought I would try doing skin tones, but it immediately failed.

Next Week

Speaking of failures, that black spot in the bottom left was me trying to write my name (I had extra black paint on my palette). It did not go well! So to remedy this, my next activity will be practicing with Chinese brush and ink, with some attempts at calligraphy. The reason why I will practice calligraphy is because of its importance in traditional Chinese painting. In addition to the trees, rivers, and mountains, you often see poems written with the artwork. Moreover, the piece is not complete until the artist writes their name. Long story short, I need to know how to write my name. 

Good day!