Much more important than red states or who controls congress. Cadmium reds and yellow are some of the most vibrant colors and can be mixed together to make a perfect Halloween pumpkins orange, but that’s not the scary part, they have a dark side too and along with many other careful artists, I have taken the step of banning them from my palette since they are highly toxic. Light fast colors keep the paintings from fading over time but I don’t want to fade either.
Recently, I found them on the recommended list for a painting class I was taking and decided I would not conform with the rest of the class. An artist who is non-conforming? yeah I guess that’s OK, but how else to capture the rosie flesh tones of the models?
I was ordering some supplies from Daniel Smith and noticed an innovation. They formulated a new series of Cadmium “Hues” and say they provide “the richness of classic cadmium colors without the toxicity of heavy metal pigments”. Well I ordered some and can’t wait to try them, but I probably still won’t fit in at class.