It's A Quinacridone Kind Of Day

In order to explain what I mean about true purples, I put together a test palette. Below, circled in yellow, are the colors I used to mix the purples I need for Tuesday: Quinacridone Magenta and Ultramarine Blue. The mix is lively and bold. There's also a pastel version of the mix, to which I added plain old Titanium White.

In the green circled areas, you can see how muddy and dark the mix of Ultramarine and Alizarin Crimson looks; it's a standard for mixing violets on the palette but it's ugly and dull. (It's the one at the top.) Adding white to anything will make the color opaque, but in this instance it's a cheerless purple. At the lower right is a mixture of Ultramarine Blue and Winsor Red Deep, also pretty nasty. Of course, these are all transparent colors with a blue bias; if I used anything with a yellow bias, like Cadmium Red or Cerulean Blue, it would be a true disaster.