Mixing Colors - Part One: PINK

As I often do, I turned to the Pantone website for color inspiration when I needed to come up with some new pieces to take to the recent Recycled Arts Festival.

I was hoping to find some good bright colors for summer, and I was thrilled to discover the Independent-ism palette. "With its tart, bold and gregarious colors, Independent-ism is geared toward creative artisans who are unafraid of true originality." Perfect!

So I decided to share the process by which I come up with my own creative version of these colors. It is by no means scientific. It is probably weird. What can I say, I am totally self-taught, and I can only use the materials I have at hand. With a mixture of good quality acrylic paints plus a bunch of inexpensive craft paints, I've been able to duplicate these colors pretty well, I think, although I don't know what Payne's gray is for and have never learned the correct way to mix colors. And I am by no means claiming that these colors are the equivalent of the Pantone system! Heavens no. This is just my personal take inspired by this fresh and fabulous palette. So, if you are interested in my DIY approach, I am planning to share it in a series of posts documenting the creation of the eight new Mandala Record Bowl designs I've made for Summer 2009.

Starting with...Pink!

Here is my finished product:

Well, it's not really all that complicated. To make this shade of pink, I used (roughly!) 3 parts Permanent Rose (Winsor & Newton) to one part each Titanium White (Liquitex), Medium Magenta (Golden), Quinacridone Red (Golden), and "Pretty Pink" (a fairly obnoxious Ceramcoat brand craft paint).

I printed the Pantone color palette out on my inkjet. The colors come out much truer on glossy paper, and the only glossy stock I had was some CD Labels (hence the random printing):

I basically started mixing colors and lining them up against the chart until I was satisfied. I started at the right side of the square and worked toward the left - so the color you see on the far left was my final mix.

And so I painted my record!





And that is the story of Pink.

The Carnation Pink Mandala Record Bowl is now available in my Etsy shop - please click here to check it out.