The Trouble with Pink

The pros and cons of fluorescent pink.

I love pink and as far as I’m concerned, the brighter the better.

So when I discovered art materials that came in fluorescent and neon pink I was very excited!

However…

If you’re an artist you probably already know that most pink pigments aren’t lightfast, they will eventually fade when they’re exposed to sunlight. In my experience, acrylic paint and markers DO stand up to bright sunlight which was a happy discovery. I’ve done lightfast tests on all the acrylics I have and so far so good. If you’ve found this not to be true of the paints you’ve used please tell me, I’d be very interested to know!

This is my most recent painting and I’ve used fluorescent pink but here’s the downside..

They don’t photograph very well! This means when I try to show the work on Etsy or social media the pinks don’t look anything like they do in real life, it’s so frustrating!

Below is a painting I did today using ordinary pinks, not fluorescent, luminous or neon, just plain magenta gouache mixed with white.

On the screen the pinks still pop as much as the pink in the cottage painting don’t you think?

I loved painting this one by the way. It’s part of a challenge I’m doing on Instagram called The 100 Day Project. I’ve chosen to do an abstract painting each day and so far (I know it’s only day 4 but hey) this is my favourite.

I’m still going to be using my fluorescents in my sketchbook because they make me happy but maybe not in work I want to sell because unless you see it in real life, the ping of the pink just doesn’t show on the screen. It really is lovely and bright in person!

I’ve already listed this one for sale so hopefully it’ll find its forever home soon. If you’d like to see, please CLICK HERE.

If you read my last post you might be wondering how my hallway is getting along. The carpet’s now down. yay! but we’ve had very dark weather the past few days and I’m waiting for the light to come back and then I can take some pictures and show you.

See you then!