SPQR BLUES Chapter V

Warmup sketch with two reds–kermes (bugs) on the left, cinnabar hue (substitute for genuine mercury vermilion) on the right.

I’m always worried I’ll overshoot the mark and ruin a painting by overworking it, but I’m planning to do a second layer (glaze) on the cinnabar red and on the skin tones when this is fully dry.

With the ‪second layer of red, the homemade fake cinnabar looks much more like real vermilion (even showing some of the same tendency not so much to granulate as to clump…that’s a technical term, for sure). The next batch I make, I’ll use more pigment.

I got the Stillman & Birn Alpha paper VERY wet and it held up with minimal buckling.