YUPO AGAIN & AGAIN

This painting looks incredibly dark to me now, but it was one of the very first "I-finally-got-the-paint-to-go-almost-where-I-wanted" YUPO paintings that I did. I've mentioned before that it took me about two years of trying and failing before I figured out how to manage painting on this slick surface. Now I absolutely love painting on it.

The strong blue in the dark shape on the far right is an example of a pushy color. That pigment was not as finely ground as the others around it, and when added to finely ground wet pigments, it 'swam' underneath them and pushed them out of the way, creating either a fantastic or irritating shape. Now I've figured out when to use the pushy colors and when to steer clear of them. Most sedimentary colors are 'pushy.'

For those of you trying YUPO, I've printed a list below that I hand out in my classes regarding the colors that are pushy. The ones with an *asterisk are extra pushy, and I'm sure there are more than what I've listed. Most of what I use are Daniel Smith brand, but the same pigment in another brand should react the same way.

YELLOWS = *Bismuth Yellow, all Cadmiums, Naples Yellow, Nickel Azo Yellow, Nickel Titanate Yellow

EARTH COLORS & NEUTRALS = Indian Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Mars Yellow, Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber, *Lunar Earth, *Lunar Red Rock, Burnt Sienna, Brown Madder, Raw Umber, Graphite Gray, *Lunar Black, *Minnesota Pipestone, *Burnt Tiger's Eye, and most all the other *Prima Tek colors by Daniel Smith, (since they're made from earth pigments and not finely ground)

ORANGES = Permanent Orange, Cadmium Orange, Perinone Orange
REDS & PINKS = Indian Red, Venetian Red, all Red Cadmiums, Pyrrol Scarlet, Pyrrol Red, *Potter's Pink

VIOLETS, PURPLES, LAVENDARS = Raw Umber Violet, Côte d' Azur Violet, Mars Violet, Rose of Ultramarine, Ultramarine Red, Manganese Violet, Cobalt Violet, *Cobalt Violet Deep, Ultramarine Violet, Cobalt Blue Violet
BLUES = French Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue, *Cerulean, *Manganese Blue (true Maganese,) *Cobalt Teal Blue, *Blue Ochre Vivianite, *Lunar Blue, *Genuine Lapis Lazuli

GREENS = Prussian Green, Cobalt Turquoise, Cobalt Green Pale, Cobalt Green, Terre Verte, Chromium Green Oxide, Bohemian Green Earth, Undersea Green, Olive Green, Rich Green Gold, *dGreen Gold, *Malachite, *Serpentine Green

I discovered that if I used only the 'pushy' colors together in an area on YUPO, the colors behaved since they had a similar weight or size of particle. If we asked Bruce MacEvoy (see HANDPRINT on side bar) why the paints behave differently on YUPO, he would be able to give us an accurate, well documented, and scientific reason for the movement of the paints. But I just guessed what was happening according to the way they behaved and what properties I knew they had in common. The metal pigments like cobalts and cadmiums I figured were heavier, too.

It was so weird at first to watch a normally quiet color like a cobalt charge into and actually take over a normally bossy color like a phthalo. How the paints behaved was so opposite to how they acted on regular paper, and it drove me nuts at first. Once I figured out to keep similarly ground pigments together unless I wanted some action, I loved working on YUPO.

George James' videos from Creative Catalyst Productions also give wonderful info about handling YUPO. He is THE Master, and I admire him and his work immensely!
FYI - The name YUPO was derived from the names of the parent companies, formerly Mitsubishi Petrochemical (Yuka in Japanese) Co., Ltd (presently Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation) and Oji Paper Co., Ltd, thus forming a "paper bridge" between the two. 'YUPO' is always capitalized, too. Cheap Joe says it's pronounce like 'You Poor' without the 'r' on the end. Painting on YUPO is a blast!

"THE LINE UP" Transparent Watercolor on YUPO 16 x 12" SOLD