Experiment in Pink

Is there a way to make pink a little less feminine?  I think so and here is how I do it.  I choose a piece with......... Read More

Pretty in Pink

I love it when I have an opportunity to paint something pink, even when it is something small like this bench. With three boys, pink is rarely a requested color in my house.   It also gives me a chance to show how easy it is to expand the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint® range of pinks with a little mixing.

For this project, I used three colors, Scandinavian Pink, Antoinette, and Pure White. The first coat was Scandinavian Pink. Next I mixed a little Scandinavian Pink with Antoinette and lightly painted a second layer (lightly means not a solid coat). The last coat was a mix of Antoinette and Pure White.

The reason I paint layers instead of custom mixing a color and painting it on in one coat, is that it adds depth, texture, shadows and highlights. 

Here are a few more custom pinks that can be made with Chalk Paint. By varying the amounts of each, you can have an unlimited range of colors. Adding a little white will make even more. There is no reason to feel limited color-wise when using Chalk Paint.

 

Mixing for Pink

This is the first of several posts about expanding the range of colors of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint®. Scandinavian Pink, Antoinette, and Henrietta are three stock colors available for purchase at your local stockist. 

This may seem very limited if you are looking for a color in the pink range. Of course you can always ask your stockist to help you mix a custom color. But if you are feeling adventurous, try mixing your own. With a little practice your range of colors will be limitless. It is important that you measure carefully and keep a record of your formulas if want to be able to duplicate or match a custom color. Believe me, it is worth it to take the time to jot down your recipe and paint a little swatch of the color you just mixed.  Its is also a good idea not to mix large quantities until you are sure you have the color you want.

If you are feeling uneasy and more tentative about this mixing thing, don't worry because I'm going to give you a head start by sharing some of the colors I have already mixed from the basic Chalk Paint® colors. I have posted before about mixing for the secondary colors, green, orange, and purple, and adding white to make tints, and black to make shades. (The best way to actually deepen a paint color is to add its opposite on the color wheel. It results in a far more complicated, richer shade, but technically shades are made by mixing any color with black.)

Emperor's Silk is Annie's purest red and it is  wonderful, deep and rich. It is so highly pigmented, a rarity in today's world, that you can actually use it to dye fabric. For mixing purposes, a little goes a long way. One way to make pink is to add Pure White to Emperor's Silk. The color card below shows some of the progressive tints that result from the mix.

Another way to expand your range of pinks is to mix the reds and pinks together. 

These are not the only combinations and I will be exploring more pinks in future posts posts. But with any custom mixing, it is helpful to compare the possibilities side by side.

Mixing standard colors in different amounts and combinations is a great way to create a diverse and unique color palette. To see some the custom colors you can make from Annie Sloan Chalk Paint®, see my posts, Mixing for Green, Mixing for Purple, and Mixing for Orange.