Impasto Painting and Colour Mixing

Impasto painting -
Impasto is a painting technique which uses thick layers of paint to add texture and tone to a piece of work. Artists examples of impasto painting can include Lucien Freud and Rembrandt. Mostly using opaque paints such as oils and acrylics impasto painting has a very sculptural 3-dimensional effect to it meaning it can take years of work to apply the correct amount of layers.
I created my own impasto painting using a sharp tipped knife. For this I had to apply layers of paint to a sheet of canvas fabric to create a textured effect. I started by drawing out my image, I decided to do an observational study of a pepper as it has many different raised areas that I felt would work well with the impasto effect. I then began by mixing the darkest areas and shadows with acrylic paint and applied them to the appropriate areas I then worked my was up through the shades insuring I was mixing my colours as accurate as possible, till I eventually got to the highlighted areas which I added with white. 

I also added a shadow to give my piece a sense of purpose and give a more three dimensional feel, for this I mixed an exquisite amount of red and yellow and a slightly larger amount of blue to create a blue/grey tone which I applied lightly and scraped with a scalpel to remove the harsh edges.
I had to take care when mixing the colours for my painted pepper to ensure the pepper could look as realistic as possible. All colours can be mixed from the primary colours red, blue and yellow as well as white. For example to create a darker shade of red to use in my red pepper painting I could add small amount of blue and yellow to darken the colour slightly. Dark colours such as black can be made with continuous work by adding equal amounts of each colour until it becomes dark enough to be classed as black. When mixing my own colour I used the palette knife to thoroughly mix the different colours together this would ensure there would be no streaks of colour throughout the paint as it is applied to the piece.
To create neutral colours the primary colours can be mixed to create greys and Browns, more blue can be added to create a grey and more yellow to create a brown. Whites could be added to make neutral pastel colours.