Mars Brown

I know, I can get quite excited by the oddest things, while remaining stonily indifferent to others. Float a competition past me and I will barely flicker an eyelid; tell me where I can get a colour I used to use years ago but haven't been able to find since, on the other hand, and I will beat down doors to get at it. Mars Brown is a very useful colour - with Mars Orange, Mars Red, Mars Yellow - which I liked with perhaps a darker colour mixed with it as an alternative to Burnt Umber, which has a tendency to sink in. I used to buy it from the Daler Rowney range - and it may still be available from them, but I didn't see it when I last looked. I will of course look again. But - the Rublev paint-makers in the USA have just sent me an advertisement for the colour, and their paints can be obtained from the Supreme Paint Company, to which I cheerfully draw your attention. There are pigments from Rublev that you won't find anywhere else, plus other makers on the Supreme Paint website, and I draw your attention to it a) because I think Rublev make good paint, and b) because the SP Company isn't one of the vast conglomerates taking over the art supplies world, but an independent British operation, and it needs support. Granted, Rublev are USA-based: but they're headed by a qualified paint chemist, who has written more sense on paint than has come from a European manufacturer in years; and his partner is the daughter of a (recently deceased) Russian paint-maker - inspired by Ivan Rublev, than which you can't get much better.