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Freffo t1_jadjsb8 wrote

This is really good! The red accent of the house is incredible, great composition overall. Just wow!

A dumb question about the red color, can watercolor be that saturated? I am not giving any critique about my question, just very curious. I want to pick up and paint with watercolor one day too.

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gorneaux OP t1_jae2kya wrote

Really, thank you so much!

Thanks for asking, and specifically about the paint.

The red of the full house is, if anything more intense than this. So especially as the Sennelier paints I like to use are not real saturated like, by contrast, Daniel Smith or Winsor & Newton, I was wondering how I was going to pull it off.

Did a lot of tests before I came up with a plan of a base layer of French vermilion, a really hot, orangey red -- which ended up being several base layers, one on top of the other, to make it seem strong enough. Then I laid a glaze of alizarin crimson over it to make it a bit darker, take some of the heat off.

I liked where that was going, and kept doing it, layer after alternating layer, really for days, until it just didn't seem to be getting any redder. So I call it Terminal Red.

That's a very inside baseball walkthrough of this piece. Normally, I like stuff that's low saturation and colors that are pretty dialed back, which tends to be how we roll out here in the foggy Sunset District by the ocean...anx in general a more, uh, watercolory look. Now if you like more saturated, intense colors, I'd point you towards the brands I mentioned above, or M Graham, which is another set I use: beautiful paints, a good value, and honey-based so they don't dry out.

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