66. Day Twenty-Four: Man with a Dozen Eggs

Urban landscape, oil on Loxley stretched canvas, 10" x 8"

Hi Everyone, he's now finished and I wish I knew his name. On the day we were having the car fixed, I saw him between two buildings, holding his dozen eggs and looking very serene sitting on a bench, softened by an old car seat! However, he was actually complaining to himself in a low, consistent mutter, completely oblivious to the rest of us. 

I loved the way the he was in silhouette, with the sun streaming in beside him from between the other building, bleaching the grass so that it hurt your eyes to stare at it. The upper part of the image is actually another building - it was generally grey but had lovely pastel colours reflecting from it in the heat. In the foreground, there was a carpet mat precariously strewn across the large concrete step but I left it out - everything else is as it was.

Warning: nerdy element follows...

Have you guessed yet that I love Michael Harding's paints? They are beautifully intense as they contain no fillers or driers but are worth the initial layout as you need only use a fraction compared to other brands. However, initially, I used various mixes of MH Ultramarine Blue for the jeans but, even tempered with Burnt Umber, it was too bright. I had to scrape it off and pull out my Schminke Delft Blue, which is Indanthrene (or Indanthrone Blue in other brands), PB60. I love the indanthrone pigment and have used it a fair bit in watercolours and acrylic over the years. It's a lovely compromise between the very bright ultramarine (PB29) and the sometimes dull Indigo (various pigment mixtures depending on manufacturer). 

I always replace my paints according to pigment colour to ensure I get the same hues across manufacturers and, if the name changes, you are still OK. A few months ago, I wanted an opaque yellow to lighten mixes so did a hunt for PY35 across W&N, Royal Talens Rembrandt and Schminke Mussini (have you tried Schminke soft pastels? Yummy!).  In the end, I chose Schminke's Cadmium Yellow1 Light, simply because the price was best in that particular store.

Does anyone out there use PBk60? Schminke Mussini Atrament Black (aka. Perylene Green) is one of my best discoveries and it appears in all my Caribbean palm and coconut 'tree-scapes'.