The Lightfastness of Black Pudding

A day of distractions. The underpainting of the sky and floor of a new painting called Urban Escape was done this evening. The picture is yellow and lilac, normally difficult colours because violets are very transparent and so not suitable for underpainting. Normally I would either use grey, cobalt turquoise or a red earth and in this case used mars violet, which is actually not violet but a deep blood red, exactly like the maroon parts of black pudding which is coloured by the very same pigment! You could do far worse than paint with black pudding itself. It is one of the most lightfast foods you can paint with!