A plea

Back in the day I saw paintings by Sean Scully. I forget where and they were, maybe New York, maybe 90's, no matter. As ever, his work was monumental with simple, painterly stripes of alternating colours. The paintings I remember were exploring olives, earths and greys. These colours were thickly painted over a bright ground which peeked through here and there between the stripes.You will rarely see a more convincing exploration of how colours affect each other.

These works changed my attitude and were the beginning of a love affair with colour, although back then I didn't realise it. The practical effect was not evident for some years but in due course, I found I would use a searing bright orange for my underpaintings. It would glow through the colours, tying them together and would wink at you through any gaps in the paint.

It wasn't just a random orange though. Used with care it could burn your eyes, but it was also versatile in a mix - strong enough to hold its own but not so strong as to overwhelm the colours it was mixed with. It was semi-transparent, could be knocked back enough to let the canvas shine through, used with a medium in a very clear glaze or lifted off with a cloth to leave delicate almost peach-coloured staining. Used thickly and with planning it could appear to be opaque too.

The paint in question is Orange Lake by Michael Harding. It is no longer available. I am looking at alternatives - Michael Harding themselves recommend Permanent Orange as being a different colour with similar characteristics - but in the mean time, if anyone out there has any usable surplus they would sell at a reasonable price, please get in touch!

Left: neat Orange Lake squeezed from the remnants of a ten year old tube - Centre right: mixed with Michael Harding Lemon Yellow - Top right corner: mixed with Atlantis Yellow Lake