The Colour Purple

I should say, before I go anywhere at all with this, that I am no expert in enamel and its various properties. I could have done my homework on the net and filled you in on the technical stuff, but I had a bubble bath instead. Doubtless there will soon be a waterproof laptop and then you'll be better informed.

I am working with enamel in a liquid paint form. It comes in various types for spraying, silk screen printing and painting. Most of my colours I apply to the panels with a roller and for this the enamel is mixed to emulsion paint consistency. (I was going to refer to cream here, but cream seems to get thicker and thicker these days. M&S 'not just' double cream being more like clotted cream and their clotted cream presumably solid as a house brick).

I chose the colours for this project sat under a borrowed street light with a newly bought and heart stoppingly expensive pantone chart. Great Western Street is to be lit with elegant white light from liquid halide lamps and I decided on the colours to work accordingly. The lighting company then took back the light, which I quite fancied for my studio, which was a pity. Even more of a pity is that nobody will take back the pantone chart - it would have almost funded a weekend in Paris.

Printer Lucy mixed the twenty chosen from an engaging mix of stock London Underground colours and pantone bases. I can tell you now that all the rape fields are pure Circle Line yellow and as the artist, concede that this is a subtle but considered interplay on the urban and rural within my work (or perhaps not). The colours go on one colour, dry to another, fire to a third and cool to a fourth. This kind of painting is not for the faint-hearted: there is no confirmation, other than the pantone number on the roller tray, that I have it right until the fired panel cools from a shimmering purple haze (as was the case when I happened to pass the furnaces last week) to a down to earth ploughed brown. Greens are red, pink and orange at heat. I have yet to see what red or orange do, but I'm sure it'll be worth watching.