Colour mixing – clarity or mud?
Picture the scene. We need to mix a Colour. Too often the process goes something like this:
Choose two Colours that look like they might combine to make the desired colour. Mix. Hmmm, that didn’t work. Add a bit more of one of them. That didn’t work either, so add a bit of something new into the mix. Better, but still not right. Add something else. Eeek! That’s awful. Wish I had Ctrl-Z for paints.
Result: mud.
Start again, but use some of the first mix so as not to waste paint. Create more mud. Repeat earlier steps with different colours until something usable is achieved, even though it may not be ideal.
Maybe that resonates with you?
Let’s be honest, we’ve all used this process of guesswork at some stage in our painting careers. How much better to use a system where we can predict the results of colour mixes.
Before I get into the system that I use, here are a few points to keep in mind:
- Avoid buying a massive set of paints. You’ll pick a colour that approximates to what you want, never learning to mix colours. Instead, choose a few colours, learn how they behave together and add others later as necessary.
- When choosing paints, you may notice the word hue. This refers to a blend of pigments that resemble another, usually being an alternative to a more expensive pigment.
- You may also have heard of tints, tones and shades. I’ll tell you more about those in a minute.
- Colours may vary between brands even if they have the same name, so one brand’s Ultramarine will probably not exactly match another’s. Some names are different though the paint is similar in colour e.g. Yellow Oxide is a close match to Yellow Ochre.
- Winsor and Newton’s Lemon Yellow is more muted than that of other brands. If you want a their equivalent to other brands’ Lemon Yellow, choose Winsor Lemon.
- Colours can be mixed (irrespective of brand) either by physically mixing the paint, or optically by laying down a colour and then painting another (transparent) colour over it once it is dry.
Recommended system
I first discovered the system I currently use when reading an art magazine, way back in the 1980s. The article was part of a series by Michael Wilcox (see his website), and he delved deeply into colour theory. A lot of what he said was particularly interesting, as he went right back to the physics of light and how the eye perceives colour.
I appreciate that not everyone wants to delve into physics. Fortunately, we can still benefit from his simplified system, without knowing anything about physics at all. Since that first reading I’ve read various articles promoting similar theories, so what follows is an amalgamation of research and experience.
First things first:
Let’s start with the absolute basics and build up from there.
The three primary colours in painting are red, blue and yellow, which can be mixed to form any other colour. Mix two primaries together and you’ll create another colour, which is known as the secondary colour.
Mix all three primaries and you’ll (theoretically) make black. You’re actually more likely to make a dark colour that depends on which three pigments you chose and how much of each is in the mix. Combinations of all three primaries are called tertiary colours.
A colour’s complementary colour is formed by mixing the other two primaries and is found on the opposite side of the colour wheel. So red’s complementary is green; a mix of blue with yellow. The other complementary pairs are blue-orange and yellow-purple.
These concepts hold true, irrespective of which medium you use: acrylics, oils, watercolour or gouache. The only difference is that white is not used with watercolours, whereas the other media rely on white paint to lighten the mixes.
Which white?
So if using oils or acrylics you’ll need White. But which white – Titanium White or Zinc White?
Nip into your local art shop (if you’re lucky enough to have one) for Titanium White, and you may find that it has sold out. There’s plenty of Zinc White left, so should you buy that one instead? They’re interchangeable, right?
NO! Don’t do it. Titanium White is opaque, bright and even covers dark colours, though you may need a couple of coats. Zinc White (also known as Mixing White) is a transparent white, so it won’t cover underlying colours. If you want to lighten transparent colours while retaining transparency, choose Zinc White. They have different purposes, so don’t mix them up.
Top tip: buy best quality Titanium White (I suggest Liquitex or Golden), even if your other paints are student grade. Cheaper whites contain less pigment and may include filler, so they aren’t as bright or opaque as top quality versions.
Another way to use white is to lay white over the chosen area first, then apply a colour glaze over the top when the white is dry. This results in more luminosity than if a colour is lightened by mixing with white, which can cause a chalky appearance.
Beyond the basics
Now for the primaries. We’ve already discovered that red mixed with yellow makes orange, red with blue makes purple and blue with yellow makes green.
That’s OK as far as it goes, but it doesn’t tell us how to make the specific shade of orange, purple or green we need. What if we want a bright, zingy green? Or a softer, muted green? Why does this red with that blue make mud, instead of the beautiful purple we desired?
The answer is that results depend on which yellow we mixed with which blue. Or which red with which blue. So clearly we need a system that allows us to predict the result of our two initial colours mixed together.
Let’s start our colour wheel afresh. This time I want you to imagine that primary colours are never perfectly pure. Instead, every primary colour has a tiny trace of one of the other primaries in it.
So red either contains a tiny part of yellow, making it an orangey-red (e.g. Cadmium Red), or a tiny part of blue, making it a purplish-red (e.g. Primary Red or Alizarin Crimson).
Similarly yellow will contain a hint of red, making it an orangey-yellow (Cadmium Yellow) or a little blue, making a greeny-yellow (Lemon Yellow). Blue will contain a trace of yellow to give a greeny-blue (Cerulean or Phthalo) or a trace of red giving a purplish-blue (Ultramarine).
So if we want a bright, zingy green we choose the greeny-blue and the greeny-yellow. Both lean towards green, so we can predict they’ll give the beautiful green we wanted.
Suppose we’d chosen the purplish-blue with the orangey-yellow? Both contain hints of red, which is the complementary of green. Complementary colours darken each other, so we can predict that they’ll give duller shades.
Need a green that’s neither particularly bright nor dull? Try a yellow that’s biased towards green with a blue that’s biased towards red. Or a blue that’s biased towards green with an orangey yellow.
So two reds, two blues and two yellows will give myriad combinations of bright or muted shades, even more if we lighten or darken them.
Try these combinations:
Green
Lemon Yellow + greeny blue = bright vibrant green
Orangey yellow +Ultramarine = dull green
Any other combinations of blues and yellows = subtle greens.
Orange
Orangey red + orangey yellow = bright vibrant orange
Crimson red + lemon yellow = duller, subtle orange
Purple
Ultramarine + crimson = bright purple (Ultramarine always gives better purples than other blues.)
Greeny blue + crimson = duller purple
Greeny blue + orangey red = greyish purple, useful for shadows
Once you know which two colours will give you a vibrant or a dull mix, try varying the amount of each in the mix. You should be able to create quite a variety of colours from just an initial two.
Another interesting combination is Alizarin Crimson with Viridian. These two give a soft greeny-grey, which is another excellent shadow colour. Viridian contains greeny-yellow with greeny-blue. Mix in some crimson, and you’ve used all three primaries, which unsurprisingly gives grey.
Tertiary colours
Tertiary colours allow us to mix a variety of browns, from honey colours through greenish shades to richer red or purple based browns.
These were all mixed from Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow and Ultramarine.
Lightening a colour
When we add white to a colour, we create a tint. Another way to lighten warm colours is to use a warm buff colour (called Unbleached Titanium, Titan Buff or Buff Titanium, depending on the brand). See my post on Unbleached Titanium.
These colours lighten while retaining the warmth of the original colour. White lightens a colour, but it will also make it cooler, which is not always our desired outcome. So a warm buff instead of white is great for lightening colours, especially browns.
Black – hero or villain?
Adding black to darken a colour produces a shade; adding grey makes a tone.
Black can be warm, brown-based (Ivory or Mars Black) or cool, blue-based (Carbon or Lamp Black).
Black divides opinion among artists. Some say it should never be used, others are enthusiastic proponents. Those that dislike it deem it too harsh in a painting, mixing other colours to achieve their darks instead.
Personally I usually mix my darks, but sometimes use pure black for emphasis. Make it a choice, not the default.
Ultramarine mixed with Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna gives a dark colour similar to black.
A range of dark blues or browns can be achieved, depending on the quantities of each that are used.
The resulting mixes are not as harsh as black, and are harmonious when the initial colours are used elsewhere in the painting.
Colours can also be darkened by adding their complementary colour. Adding black may change the colour too much e.g. adding blue-based black to yellow produces green, but adding purple (the complementary colour) darkens the original while retaining its integrity.
Other colours
Later, when you’re familiar with your paints, you may with to introduce other colours. Colours that are useful in their own right are Unbleached Titanium, Burnt Sienna and either Yellow Ochre or Raw Sienna. They’ll also create interesting new colours when mixed with primaries.
Alternatively, splurge on a vibrant colour that you wouldn’t normally use. See how it mixes with your current paints, as well as using it neat. I’m currently enamoured with Liquitex’s Turquoise Deep. It’s an intense, glorious colour, and I’m loving exploring its potential.
Explore and experiment
Don’t feel every painting session must produce a finished painting. An occasional session exploring colour is both fun and hugely beneficial for your future art. Try creating reference sheets of tints, shades and colour mixes.. Or mix a range of secondary and tertiary colours. Always record which colours you used for future reference. Here’s one of my sketchbook pages.
Understanding colour gives us options in our art. Colours convey emotion, so being able to select appropriate colours helps us create mood in our paintings. Knowledge is never wasted, so it’s well worth spending time exploring your paintbox. Enjoy!
Related Posts
- Unbleached Titanium – Possibly the Most Underrated Colour
- For a round-up of posts on this blog: Don’t Miss Out
