Hi there everyone...I know it's been way WAY too long since I've visited this space to say hello and think about color with you.  Well today as I walked through my garden I could not help but think about color.  The roses are frantically blooming and the irises are nearly spent, but I managed to capture their colors on my camera so that I could think about them after they were gone.  I have this arbor in my backyard that rains rose petals for two months.  Technically the rose is white, but as with every color that's nuanced by what is adjacent to it.  Against the green leaves the white seems creamy, but when the petals have fallen on the brick patio you can easily see the pink blush that is present.  On the opposite side of the arbor is a riotous pink rose that ranges from bright to pale on the same rose in a thousand different combinations.  Sometimes the outer petals are bright pink, the kind you can only get from using Quinacridone Magenta to mix a pink, sometimes they are pale.  It's endlessly fascinating to see.

Strolling down the bushes is a veritable colorfest.  Yellows turn to peach, jumping to a rose with petals that are red on the inside and white on the outside, to white, then to a different yellow, and on to one that is yellow, orange, pink and blush all on the same rose. 

The only way I feel I can really capture the color of a rose is when I use my acrylics as watermedia.  By mixing in the water to the fluid paints I can capture that almost velvet feeling of color that is the essence of a rose petal.  Water actually is a problem for Acrylic Paint in that it upsets it's perfect balance and causes the pigments to float out of the bond that was created when the paint was manufactured.  If you have ever wondered why your pigment seems uneven when you are using a very wet brush to paint, this is why.   It doesn't mean that it isn't beautiful and wonderful and exciting to see the outcomes when you work in a watermedia form.

Try it on wet paper and watch the fluid acrylics spread and leap and explode.  If you haven't tried the Light Molding Paste or the Coarse Molding Paste with the watermedia techniques then you are in for even more surprises!   Such fun.  Enjoy.  Let me know how you like it! 

Remember...when you stop to smell the roses...take a good look at their colors as well.