I've found a use for viridian... (self portrait in the bathroom mirror) by Amanda Bates

Great way to get a self portrait in the bathroom mirror Amanda, blu tacking the paper to the mirror, it's worked really well !

All your self-portraits are obviously good likenesses. I'm curious as to why you load so much colour onto the paper. Your skin tone loses its luminosity with these opaque washes.

Kim, fair question. The answer is probably related to painting mainly in oils (neat, with a knife) and acrylic (again, thickly, although I do use brushes as well as knives with acrylic. I'm used to a quick fix of colour. I'm permanently short of time, so I rely on alla prima techniques. I'm feeling my way into watercolour. This piece was also painted under artificial light, with fairly heavy shadows.

I rather like this green effect and the opacity. I'm like you I started with oils, then tried watercolour (not used for a while) and ended up being too faded. I may have to get the watercolours out again now. Perhaps another self portrait ....

Just had to stop by and leave a comment Amanda! This is my favourite of all your portraits and I admire how you have controlled that pesky viridian . Usually viridian can ruin a painting but I like this and your limited pallette alot :)

Thank you, Sarah. I rather like this one, too. I find portraits, and, indeed, life studies - both being largely monochromatic subjects - quite effective for restricted palette treatment. Self portraits bring no external expectations and so I find that it is easier to experiment. The viridian sucess was a lovely surprise - it is a ridiculous colour if it's not mixed out of recognition - especially as I was mixing on the paper / on the fly. (But the fly did keep on moving... sorry. Bad pun.)