It's amazing and economical that you can make a huge range of colors with just a few primary colors. Online guides typically direct you to nature-y primary colors, to achieve all the shades of tree trunk and dirt you could possibly envision. However, this excludes the whole section of bright and artificial colors that I prefer, and I have had to go through trial and error to collect a set of good primaries.
Without formal art training, I've sadly inadvertently bought a few shades that were not the most efficient way to achieve the widest possible range of color. 10 tubes of (not cheap) Golden acrylic paint and 2 years of painting later, I was amazed but also saddened to find tubes of color that could drastically expand my color range, meaning my existing tubes weren't sufficient.
The ones I recently bought were brights. This is what I surmise you really need for the full spectrum of all color: Warm and cool red, blue and yellow in three sets: bright, classic, and deep. Plus titanium white which has strong mixing strength (doesn't dilute easily), and perhaps some "convenient" colors that you use often and don't want to mix (eg true black). This totals 18+ tubes at $10-20/tube = ~$300
The theory of having all three bright, classic, and deep color families is that you need a way to keep high saturation in bright and deep colors, not just mix white or black into classics. However, reality isn't perfect, so even if this theory of 18 primary colors is true, I don't think it's that easy to accomplish. The perfect warm blue might not exist, because paint is derived from feasible/economical natural or synthetic sources. Things like purple and blue are apparently difficult to make, which that's why it's possible to have rare or impossible colors I suppose.
I find colors really lovely. I would be happy not to create any paintings and just get many tubes of colors to swatch and mix and observe them. In any case, I was very happy that my new brights were able to help me reach the full range of color in this painting.
Regarding the painting itself, I like that you can orient this painting in any direction. Overall it was super satisfying and joyful to manifest a simple vision that I had for a couple weeks. (Although I envisioned the spray part to be more cartoony, and couldn't figure out how to illustrate it actually.)
In other news, I only made 2 paintings this year + a couple 5x7 panels.
In 2021, I made 5 full-sized projects + 2 addendums + 1 panel.
In 2021, I made 5 full-sized projects + 2 addendums + 1 panel.
In 2020, I made 16 full-sized projects + 4 addendums + 15 panels.
This is almost exactly like my ebook and movie phases. High regularity for a year, periodic engagement in year two, and total rarity in year three (but also a sense of familiarity that I can pick it back up whenever I want). My key takeaway is it's nice to have a default hobby / momentum, but it comes at the expense of time for other things, so it's good to change it up too.
This is almost exactly like my ebook and movie phases. High regularity for a year, periodic engagement in year two, and total rarity in year three (but also a sense of familiarity that I can pick it back up whenever I want). My key takeaway is it's nice to have a default hobby / momentum, but it comes at the expense of time for other things, so it's good to change it up too.
