Bread by Amanda Bates

This is great Amanda, lovely textures that describe bread perfectly, stale or otherwise. You manage to make your acrilic colours look natural, why do mine look so artificial....especially blues for the sky, no matter what colour I add to knock the blue back. Did you use brush or knife for this one?

Brush here, Fiona. Skies... what blue are you using? Don't use ultramarine (much); my favourite is phthalo blue with white. Occasionally a touch of magenta or even ultramarine to warm and deepen the blue. You can use ultramarine, with burnt umber and white, to make grey clouds.

Forgot to say - it was a large (~3/4 inch) flat brush. Apart from the signature.

Agree with Fiona - the textures are rendered beautifuly. A super piece.

I mainly use ultra marine Amanda.

Well, there you are. Ultramarine is one of those pigments that (I think) behaves differently in watercolour and acrylic - mainly because of the white one is inclined to add when using acrylic. Somehow, ultramarine blue "dies" (not dyes, because it is, of course, a pigment - phthalo is a dye, though) when you add white. You get a pretty pastel baby blue, but it just sits there, resentful of all the titanium dioxide you smothered it in. (Other people may know how to wake it up again, but I tend to go elsewhere for my blues*. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *John Lee Hooker, say... ;-)

Thanks for the info Amanda. The only other blue I have is cerulean, which is perhaps a little on the cold side for skies....I don't know. I've just posted another knife painting, I would be interested to hear what you think....no bloomin blue in it, anywhere!! Lol.

Cerulean... not one I use much, but skies vary a lot. Thing is, as I'm sure you know, there are no set colours for these things and no set ways for making art. Try seeing what happens if you add a hint of ultramarine to a cerulean/white mix.