Complements to the vase. All the colors are devoted to prettying up the pink of the vase. The greens are complements of reds. The more greens, the easier for the reds to pop out. Most of the background is mixed with yellow ochre and phtalo greens. Even the lower part of this oil sketch, the foreground, is greens mixed. These greens are muted. Muted colors are usually supportive colors to the ‘star’ of the painting; which in this case is the pink vase.
The paper used is not canvas. It is a heavy paper about 100 lb stock. Thick paper can support oils. Although canvas is the usual choice for oil painting support, Degas often played with oil on paper. “L’essence” is the special name of this art technique. Degas used original oils which dissolves with turpentine or other mineral spirits; I used water soluble oils.
The water miscible oils do not have as much oil leaks as original oils. It’s those leaky oils that makes paper decay more quickly than canvas. Some artists varnish or lacquer paper to prepare it to take oils.
Due to the support or grounds being paper, I dished the usual oil brushes in favor of short handled watercolor brushes. I use synthetic brushes because I believe that beauty does not need to trap or hurt animals as they do for many of the finer brushes. The synthetic do not have the snap and return of the finely made trapped animal fur brushes. I do not find this a problem because I got used to what they do well. They do push paint around and hopefully, the mastery is in the handler.
New plant growth behind the pink vase shows that we’ve had a rainy winter. I cut down those bougainvillea early November. They returned with fresher greens than the older plants. Those yellow greens are the perfect complement for the pink vase.