Colour theory is not my strength

 As I began to work my way through my thoughts of The Shape of Things III, I once again knew I wanted to colour the paper somehow.

I had in mind shades of indigo or maybe shades of navy blue. I had in my head that I had some indigo powder - that if I added water to it, would create for me the shade of deep dark blue I was hoping for. So a little while ago I went in search.

Excited that I found it! 

It looked appropriately dark and mysterious and I set about starting with the tiniest of doses.

I added a bit more and it went this colour. Not exactly dark and mysterious now!

Sigh. It looks more sky blue to me than indigo, and is seriously not going to be an answer of any sort, no matter how hard I try to re-frame the question.

So back to my inks and paints I went, testing this and that and getting nothing that matched the mood I was going for.

And this is where I landed - with a hotch potch of maybes and some very random notes about how to maybe create indigo from other colours.

I have no understanding of what goes with what to make what and so took the opportunity of asking my three super talented friends Susan, Steph and Tory how they would go about making indigo, when we had lunch a week or so ago.

Of course they all knew exactly what to do and look at the difference that made! My lower swatches are so much better than my upper swatches - glee I say!

Steph suggested I buy Indigo - great move. And Susan and Tory both suggested alizarin crimson, prussian blue, violet and lamp black.  So I bought Indigo and mixed it with a bit of the crimson and a bit of the blue and feel like I got where I wanted to go.

And I loved the wavy marks left on the butcher's paper after I lifted up the sheets I had painted with my new found indigo watercolour mix.

So pleased I can colour my pages just the way I imagined...