How do you make colour Purple?
This question has been asked a million times over! let us start by saying don’t panic, there are many shades of purple paint on the market already premixed, and at the end of this article we will list all the options available to buy from our website if you need a quick fix.
However, knowing how to make the perfect shade of purple paint which complements your palette is invaluable, especially if you already own a number of Blue and Red pigments. But contrary to common belief, not every Blue and Red pigment will work together to create a vibrant Purple colour! Nor would you want to make the same vibrant Purple every time. There are different shades of purple, for many different functions within a painting, bright purples for floral scenes in bright sunlight, muted purple and dark shades of purple for cast shadow or deep shadows and so on. Various shades of purple bring interesting conversations and transitions of colours to a painting and can make their complimentary colours sing!
In our last two blogs we talked about warm Red paint colours with a yellow/orange bias and cool Red paints with a Blue Bias and identified many of the common Red paint names on the market. In this article, we will expand on choosing the correct Blue pigments and why. Using the correct warm or cool Red and Blue paint will inevitably save you time and money.
How to determine a colour bias in your Blue and Red paints/pigments.
Firstly what does colour bias mean? When you buy paint, not all of them contain a single pure pigment, actually most paints are a mix of pigments, especially if it has the word ‘Hue’on the label. The word Hue describes a mix of alternative synthetic pigments which are used to create either, a historical colour which is no longer manufactured for reasons of toxicity or the ‘Hue pigment’ replaces a more expensive natural mineral ingredient pigment. For example traditionally made Ultramarine is made by crushing Lapis Lazuli, a semi precious stone which is very expensive, whilst French Ultramarine pigment was developed as a cheaper alternative.
This results in pigments having a colour bias and the way to find this out is by mixing the pigment with a small amount of white paint. If a Red paint has a blue bias it will naturally look cooler than a Red paint that has a yellow/orange bias. A Blue pigment with a greener appearance will have a warm Bias, again once mixed with a white pigment will allow you to distinguish the pigment’s characteristic. A cool Blue pigment would have a Red bias.
There are naturally two schools of thought to this ‘Temperature’ of a colour debate! And for those who are searching for answers on the World Wide Web it can get rather confusing, so because this subject is not black and white we suggest you use your own subjective judgment and your own perception of the colours, as no two people will see colour the same. The thing to remember is that there are no absolutes in colour; everything is relative to what it is next to on the canvas, so we have to see colour in context when making colour choices in painting.
Colours that are muted and cooler usually recede in a painting, creating atmospheric perspective, or distant horizons, mountains, trees etc. Whilst colours that are bright and warm are usually painted in the foreground and advance. Our lists below are suggestions of warm and cool colours to be tested!
Warm Reds;
with a Yellow/Orange bias; (Different Brands may provide a slightly different shades)
- Cadmium Red, Cadmium Red light, Cadmium Red deep, Indian Red, Orange Red, Primary Red, Perylene Red, Pyrrole Red, Red Oxide, Spectrum Red, Winsor Red, Vermillion, Venetian Red, Vivid Red Orange, PR 9 – Naphthol Red.
Natural mineral earth pigment Violet Ocher
The Natural earth mineral color pigments for oil paint are also available individually.
This violet earth hails from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. It is a beautiful earthy reddish, brownish violet. If you would like a more true color spectrum purple, try our new “True Purple”. Natural Iron Oxide.
With every loose color you can make around 85 ml paint depending on how thick/thin you want the paint to be. This amount is bigger than the packets in the oil paint set.
Every color needs to be prepared with walnutoil or linseedoil.
Each packet makes the equivalent of one medium-sized tube of professional oil paint when mixed with walnut or linseed oil.
The colors we sell individually are:
- Terre Verte
- Brilliant Yellow*
- Black Ochre
- Ultramarine Blue
- Ultramarine Violet
- Venetian Red
- Burnt Umber
- Yellow Ochre
- Titanium White
- Orange Ochre
- Emerald Green*
- Burnt Sienna
- Violet Ocher*
- Mayan Turquoise*
- Mummy Red*
- Mayan Red*
- Raw Umber*
- Raw Sienna*
- Gold Mica *
*Brilliant Yellow, Emerald Green, Violet Ocher, Mayan Turquoise, Mummy Red, Mayan Red, Raw Umber, Raw Sienna and Gold Mica are new colors not included in the oil paint kit!
