averygoodun42 | The color purple.

Howdy. Been a while, hasn't it?

I was just wondering, as I work out how to do the next segment of my Mum's mural, how to make purple.

I'm not bad at mixing colors (Americans, please read that as modesty), but purple has, as of yet, eluded all my attempts to master it. I kind of wonder if it's even possible to make a fully saturated light purple with paint. And without glazing.

It should be possible. It certainly seems like it should be possible... And yet, I remember one of my teacher's answers to my question of how to lighten red without making it pink was, "buy lots of different colors of red."

Helpful answer, that. But probably the most pragmatic.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really help with purple. There are only a few (half dozen at most) colors of purple out there (pigment-wise). Most colors have a dozen or more variations on a hue, but not purple. There's permanent violet, dioxazine purple, red violet deep, brilliant violet, medium violet and "purple".

All of them become sickly when tinted.

I have achieved a saturated purple before, but that was with glazing. I have neither the time, patience or supplies to glaze on this project.

So I guess that leaves the whole tromp l'oeil thing, in the pointillist's manner. Which is a bit of a bother, if you ask me. Surely some chemist somewhere can come up with a nice, light, saturated purple? For me? Please?