Well I was having some trouble mixing colors for sure

but if you keep in mind that I haven't actually gotten my primary colors yet

then I think I can be forgiven for not being able to mix everything I'm trying for

I am a little miffed that it does not look as though the quinacridone gold and the quinacridone fuchsia are going to mix skin tone

it's been a long time since I've mixed skin tones because I haven't been painting people and I haven't really ever done it with watercolors

Both of my parents painted with watercolors

And so I did when I was a kid like a little kid

And then again when I moved in with my mom I guess for a while

And I did some watercolors that I put in her gallery and I sold at least one of them

I think I sold more than one

But I remember I had this one that I did

It was all bright colors and it had joy painted on it

I mean I don't really remember I think it was all abstract but it just said joy in the middle

But this lady came into the gallery on a day when I was there and she saw it and she was like my name is Joy and she loved it and she bought it

So that's cool I had forgotten about that

And what I find kind of strange

Is if you mention anything about doing art

To like a regular boring life type person

They ask you two questions

The first one is usually have you ever sold any

And the second one is what style of art do you do or how would you describe the style of your art or some variation on that like so is your art impressionistic or whatever term they've actually heard before of art

But whatever

I just wanted to paint

And by and large I am liking these choices

But I hate that amethyst

I mean it's pretty but not for me

It's too sparkly

And it just I don't know there's something about premixed purples that they just seem fake

Like I know those quinacridone colors

They're not like Earth tones

But somehow they just look right

And purples just don't

I mean if they're like magenta or something like that fuchsia looks great I love that color I love that color and I don't even mind it as a red but I love it

but when I was painting on that page and I put that purple I was like uhnnn

and then the purples that I mixed just looked so much better to me than that purple

and the funny thing is that there's no way it's in a natural color it's it is an earth color it's made from f****** rock

But whatever I don't like it

Also the transparent red oxide

Has a lot of granulation

Which works great if you're doing anything like trees or rocks or sides of buildings or things like that but works a lot less good if you're making something that's supposed to be you know skin or flower or something that doesn't have that kind of texture to it

So if I can find something that's maybe not quite that color but would work for mixing for things like that then I might end up with that

But by and large I'm really happy with all those colors and I'm also really happy with this brush I'm glad I did not also get a smaller brush because I don't need a smaller brush

The tip on this and the spring of it is good enough that you know there's no way I'm going to paint anything small enough that it won't work

I would like to have something that's a little less that puts down washes and big swaths of color better because this when you're doing a big swath it's it's not quite right for it

But they have another one in the same series that's more specifically a squirrel fake synthetic that's the word I'm looking for synthetic synthetic squirrel so I ordered one of those in the same size and I think that'll probably work for me I mean I'd like to have one of those sets with all the fancy brushes but I think I probably don't need it

And regardless of whether I need it or not I'm not getting it right now both because I don't need to be spending money on that

And also

Because you physically can't get them right now they're only carried in America by one place and they're out of stock on them and the Spanish website won't ship to America so even if it was vitally important that I have it it isn't possible to get it

But I think when I've got the primary colors

And I've got that umber

that skin tones are going to be a lot easier to mix

Because I think the umber is going to really help with that oh my God that's just too goddamn pink

So all in all I'm pretty pleased

And to be honest with you all that mixing is super duper fun for me That's actually a lot more fun than trying to paint detailed things

It's really all about the color

And the texture

And the painterliness of it

And maybe I finally will learn how to use watercolors

I mean when I was in college I had to learn how the oil paints worked and oil paints are really fun but really inconvenient

They dry really slow and you got to figure out where to put the stuff so that the cat doesn't knock it over and the paint and the turpentine and the mixing medium and all that kind of stuff it if it spills on anything it makes a huge mess

And I like to paint in that you know drippy kind of style well I guess I didn't do that as much when I painted with oils but whatever it still made a big mess

and none of that stuff is really good for you to breathe either

and then I started painting with acrylics and that is all different The paint works different The colors mix different

I mean with oil you can mix the color and put it on the canvas

And you can also put on a layer and then let it dry and put on another layer

And then you can glaze things

and really it probably doesn't look very good unless you do all of those things

Which means it takes a really long time because even if you put something on in the medium that speeds up the drying I mean it's going to take over a day

and if you want to work on more than one thing you got to have places to put all that stuff where your cat isn't going to knock it over and blah blah blah so it just doesn't really all that feasible if you're living in an apartment where you won't get your deposit back if things get messed up and you got carpet and all that

Now acrylic it dries really fast

It still screws stuff up if you get the paint on it because volleyball I mean

Soluble

It's soluble in water

But only if you catch it while it's still wet if you let it dry it's like plastic or polymer or something it like has to be scraped off

Which doesn't work if you get it on fabric

I mean you can paint a t-shirt with acrylic paint and it's you know an art piece you can wear

and wash and wear and it'll crack and stuff eventually but it takes a long time

But you know you can put down a drop cloth or area rug or something in the area where you're working to keep it from getting on the rug

And you can just stay in the area and wait until it dries to fend off the cat

but you still need an easel when it takes up a fair amount of space and you got to buy canvases and you know it has its drawbacks but I got to where I felt like I was you know reasonably good at it like I felt like I'd kind of got the hang of how the stuff worked

Couldn't really do a painting and then another painting on top of it and have it show through and stuff it pretty much is opaque and it covers everything

And you could kind of do glazes but they didn't work the same way

But I felt like I had kind of gotten the hang of it

and I had that one Daniel Smith acrylic paint that was a duochrome well I think I had more than one but I only really ever used one because it was perfect

And that became like a very important feature in the paintings so that you know when you turned them and moved them and looked at them in different light they looked different

And they have what they're calling a duochrome and watercolor but it isn't really

Because it isn't kind of based on what angle you're looking at it from it doesn't really shift if you paint it on something that's dark it looks one color and if you paint it on something that's light it looks another color well that's not really

I mean I guess it is technically do a chrome because it's two colors

But it's really an interference paint

And that's not nearly as exciting

But they have that same color and I came very close to ordering it as one of my original paints

but you know like all of them I did some research before I ordered and it was like I said interference not do a chrome so I mean why bother it's not that exciting

And I ended up ordering I guess the majority of the paints that I ordered were from Daniel Smith

and I'm not upset about that I like Daniel Smith a lot Daniel Smith makes a really good paint

But I kind of wanted to get a few from a bunch of different companies so I could kind of tell you know which one I liked better

And I did end up getting that one from sennelier

and I do really like that one and I really like the texture and I really like how it blends with things and it's a bigger tube it's 21 ml instead of 15 which is nice

Although some of the paints that I got were 5 ml

In that sample box they're very small

But I had really wanted to try something from schmincke

And qou wish I think that's how it spelled

I cannot spell it's so sad

I found out there's another brand called White knights but I don't think that one looks as good to me I saw a demo with it and it seemed like the pigment didn't flow and I don't know just didn't seem so good and there's old Holland and there's Van Gogh, da Vinci

and there's Rembrandt but for some reason I have a recollection of not liking Rembrandt

Although I'm sure they would have been oil paints that I used and they were probably student grade oil paints so that probably doesn't have anything at all to do with what their watercolors are like but I don't know I have some kind of recollection that I do not like Rembrandt

Not the painter he's fine I'm not trying to throw shade on him but the brand I don't care for and there's another one called mission gold I think there's another there's another part to it like mejillo

Or something like that which mission gold and mejillo sounds like it would be well it sounded to me like it would be from California to be honest but I mean I don't know it's from Korea South Korea which surprised me it didn't sound like a Korean company but sometimes Korean companies choose names that don't sound Korean at all and I guess they're not the only ones that do that I mean Häagen-Dazs is not European

this is a lot of talking without content that really is probably all that interesting to you

Sorry

Anyway I hope you're doing well I think I might take a nap

I don't want to sleep for a really long time I don't really like this psycho where I'm just floating later and later and later

I mean when I sleep I'm usually not sleeping longer than 8 hours but I'm staying up longer or I don't know something but it's just I don't like that it's floating later and later but and I realize that I've probably only been up for like wait eight to eight is 12 9 10 11 12 1 2 well so I've been up like 18 hours no wonder I'm tired okay

So I think I'm going to take a nap

I love you very much sweetheart 💋