Old John (Ultramarine) by Amanda Bates

Powerful colours, Amanda - like it a lot!

This is quite unusual and striking, I love it. The touch of warm colour really works well against the blues. I know this folly well, having lived close by some years ago.

The blue does make it zing!

Experimenting with the idea of &quot;flatness&quot;<br /><br />Do you mind explaining to a novice what this is Amanda?

There&#39;s a poster-like quality to it, which I presume is what you mean by flatness - an absence of heavy modelling, using colour alone to define features. I&#39;m extremely cautious about using ultramarine as a base colour - in certain lights, especially natural light out of doors, it tends to shout at you: jumps out of the picture plane in a way that almost prevents you from seeing the picture as a whole. I did once try toning the blue down with a red, burnt sienna or even a scarlet, and that helped a bit. <br /><br />It&#39;s a dangerous colour in landscapes, unmixed - but then: you like a bit of danger!

Robert has explained it nicely, Derek. The &quot;flat&quot; thing is considered by art historians et al to be an aspect of (some) Modern art; used deliberately, it is a reference to the surface of the painting, to the fact this is a painting, a two dimensional image, an illusion. A similar reference is achiieved by my deliberately not painting parts of my oil-on-linen canvases. (You&#39;re wishing you hadn&#39;t asked, now.) Anyway, yes, I do like to push the envelope a little now and then, Robert. I don&#39;t care much for ultramarine in many circumstances. It&#39;s a curious colour; loud and shouty by itself, dead as a doornail as soon as you add white. Makes a useful dark with burnt umber, of course - but we all now that one by now, don&#39;t we? Needless to say, there is also phthalo blue in this painting (and lemon yellow and magenta/quinacridone).