I’ve been wanting to experiment with monochrome painting using ‘black’ made by mixing other colors together. One combination is to use Phthalo blue, burnt umber and cadmium red in fairly equal parts. I expected to get a purplish ‘black’ but ended up with a deep blue-green ‘black’ instead. My plan was to paint “Passchendaele” – the sea of mud, the burned tree stumps and the water filled shell holes. But this color just had ‘ocean’ written all over it. I’ll have to try again for that purplish ‘black’. Meanwhile, here is my stormy sea painting; I’d like to imagine it’s just off the West Coast of Ireland: