Ensuring that there is always good coverage with a coat of a pale colour is always difficult. I do try to get the blade base colour right in one coat if I can manage it.

Cambridge green blue is one of the more difficult colours I’ve been working with. A white undercoat can be too light. A grey undercoat can be too dark. Careful brushstrokes are needed to ensure even colour and that the undercoat doesn’t show through.

To help solve this, I asked my specialist paint supplier if they could make up a pale green undercoat for me. The primer/filler range was a little limited for tints, but they were certain that the green undercoat they mixed up for me would be perfect.

I admit that I was a little worried when these bright turquoise blades appeared.

However, now that I’ve applied the top coat of Cambridge blue I am very satisfied. It was very easy to see any areas I’d missed, but there is no show through of the underlying colour that was sometimes apparent with the white or grey undercoats.

It’s not cheap, but I think I’ll be doing more custom tints for undercoats in the future.

Sometimes you know that you’ll probably only ever paint one oar in a particular colour, despite now owning an expensive tin of the stuff.

I present one such example:

Wesley College in Melbourne, Australia is a very distinct colour. Unless there is a university college somewhere in the UK that needs purple I suspect that this paint tin might not get opened again for a long time!