Bright Red
18" x 24" oil
“Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.”
― W. Somerset Maugham
I pulled out an old painting that was started a few years ago and decided to revitalize it using a palette knife and some intense colours. The colours I had, while quite saturated and intense, still didn't fit the vision in my head. How to really make them stand out? Fluorescent paint!
I ordered a few tubes of fluorescent oil paint from Kama Pigments and those colours...oh my, they are bright. Of course, fluorescent paint is vivid in natural daylight which contains ultraviolet light but under a black light the paint really become luminous. I don't have a black light, but may get one just to understand the effect on the paint.
Unfortunately, fluorescent paint does tend to have lightfast issues. Permanance of paint colour is rated on conditions that would represent approximately 20 years of gallery exposure. The exact time of fading for fluorescent paint under home conditions I don't know. But exposure to ultraviolet light can reduce the saturation of the colour, sometimes within an hour.
So why use a paint that is at risk of fading? The colour. Nothing else has the intensity that fluorescent paints which highlight form and pull in the viewer and I love that those tropical colours and will experiment more with them soon.
The very impermanance of something can also be its appeal.
3 comments:
Love this! Good thought to use the fluorescents!
very nice :)
haven't used fluorescent paint yet, but keep thinking i should with a college project
you could always get a nice scan or photo so the colours will at least always be bright on a print?
Suz,they sure are bright, just what I wanted.
Yes, that's what I was thinking Jen, but it will interesting to document any fading and the timing for these.
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