– Developing skills in mixing observed colour
– Colour theory and the science of seeing
– Mixing colour and understanding the colour wheel
– Relating theory to practice for painters.
Basic Rules of Mixing Oil Paints
There are some practical recommendations for mixing Colors that can help you during the painting process. It takes experience to realize what kind of small tricks can help you in mixing. But why should we reinvent the wheel? These small tips listed below could be very efficient for us; and eventually, there will be less frustration while paining and less paint will be wasted.
- If you need to mix a Dark Color with a Light one – for example, let’s say you want to get a light Blue by mixing White and Ultramarine. Take White in a quantity you find will be enough to cover the area you want, and add a bit of Blue to it. If you do it the other way round – add White to Ultramarine – you will be forced to bring in a significantly larger amount of White till you make the Blue light enough. So, add Dark Colors to Lights – you will be in charge of the amount of Paint and manipulating the changing Hue more efficiently.
- The Opacity of Paint also plays a significant role in the effective mixing process. We add Opaque Colors to Transparent Colors. Opaque Colors have much bigger covering power, and they require a very large amount of Transparent Color to influence them. However, it’s enough to add just a bit of Opaque Color to influence the Transparent Color.
- The more Colors there are in the Paint mix, the less stable that mix is, chemically. This can negatively affect the preservation of the painting Coloring in the long perspective. And another downside of mixing too many Colors together is that the resulting Color loses the freshness of the Color and can become muddy and dirty. Ideally, there should be just two or three different colors in the mix. More than that can pollute the end-result Color. If your Color mix isn’t coming out the way you want, you should start again.
- While you try to mix the desired Color, you should test it on the canvas by applying a small stroke to see how close the mix is to the result you expect. The paint that appears to be the right Color mix on the Palette can look not as perfect on the Canvas. The test stroke helps you to evaluate what should be added to the mix.
- The use of the right Palette also plays a significant role in effective mixing. There are two diffident Palettes we should have at our disposal – one is White and the other is Dark. Imagine you start the painting process and want to block in the White Canvas. For that reason, you should mix Colors on the White Palette – the Color mixes will look the same on a Palette as on the Canvas. The same Paint mixes on a Dark Palette will look lighter than they actually are. There is a danger that paint that appeared appropriately light on the Dark Palette will actually be very dark when applied on the White Canvas. And vice versa – all Colors seem darker than they are on a White Palette; so, when trying to mix the Color for a painting that is already blocked in Dark Colors, use a Dark Palette.
- To intensify the Color – use Glazes. Nothing else can brighten the Color better than Glazings. And never add White to the Color you want to be bright and Intensive – it reduces the Intensity, making the Color milky. White makes any transparent Color Opaque.
- Tinting the Color mix by adding White into it could be perfectly fine and even advisable at the stage of Underglazing, as the Underglazing should be Opaque and Colder before we finish it in Glazings.
- When you want make the Color mix darker, shade it – you should add its opposite, a complementary Color; for example, if you want to make a Green Color darker, you should add a bit of Red into the Green in order to neutralize it a bit, without causing an obvious shift in its Hue. If you darken the Green Color by adding Black, you just have a chance to make your Green dreggy.
And at the end, I want to repeat: Tinting the Color mix with White or Shading it with Black is an oversimplification that can’t bring out the beauty in the Colors we see in the Old Masters’ paintings. But it can and must be used in Underglazing layers that will later be over-painted with Glazings and Velaturas that bring vividness and richness to the painting. That’s exactly what the Old Masters did, and we will borrow their process methods to our advantage.
Color Mixing Paints and Supplies:
~ Blick Student Grade Tempera Paint (16oz blue, red, yellow, orange, magenta, violet, green, black, and 32oz white)
~ RAS Tempera Paint – I use this brand in the video but I can’t find it online. I got it at my local art supply store.
~ Crayola Tempera Paint – set of 8 basic colors in 16oz bottles (I used Crayola all the time and it works just as well as RAS)
~ Jam jars (we buy Bonne Maman with the gingham lid – they are the perfect size)
~ Plastic knives for stirring and mixing
~ Muffin top pan (for storing jars of paints) or a cardboard box that is no taller than the height of the jars
Watch the Color Mixing Video!
In this video (above) I show you all my tricks. I begin by showing you the color wheel and talk a little about primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. I show you how to get more opaque colors, and how to mute a color using it’s complementary color on the color wheel. Mixing paints sounds intimidating until you see how easy and foolproof it really is. Start collecting those jam jars!
Here is a quick color theory and color mixing overview with a few photos from the video.
Color Mixing for Art Class
1. Let’s start with the color wheel. You have your primaries: red, yellow and blue. Then you have your secondaries (the colors that are made by mixing two primaries): orange, purple and green. Lastly, you have your tertiaries. These are the hundreds of colors that are made by mixing one primary and one secondary, which are by far the most beautiful and interesting colors with the best names.
For example: blue + green = teal, red + orange = coral, purple + red = mauve, yellow + green = lime. And on and on. I spend most of my time mixing tertiary colors since the primaries and secondaries come right out of the bottle. You can buy tertiaries out of the bottle, too, but where’s the fun in that? It’s good to learn the theory behind color mixing. You can buy as many colors of paint as you want, but to know how to mix them yourself with just the basics is really satisfying.
2. Here I have mixed the 3 primaries and 3 secondaries. (I actually mixed two different blues, one was cooler and one was warmer.) By “mixed” I mean I added white to all of them. Adding a little white makes them more opaque, which is important when painting on cardboard. We paint on a LOT of cardboard.
3. Now comes the fun part, which is mixing all the tertiary colors. In the video I make teal (blue + green + white), mauve (purple + pink + white), chartreuse (yellow + green + white), coral (orange + red + white), periwinkle (blue + purple + white), pumpkin (orange + drop of blue + white), mustard (yellow + drop of purple + white), and a few more.
The theory behind mixing a “drop of blue” with orange, or a “drop of purple” with yellow has to do with complimentary colors. On the color wheel above, yellow and purple are opposite each other on the color wheel. As are red and green, and blue and orange. The theory is that if you mixed the complementary colors in equal amounts (this term is actually misleading in that normally the word complementary means getting along, but in this case the colors cancel each other out, so I often use the word contrasting instead) — they would make brown. (This is in fact how I make the skin tones in my PART 2 video.) But if you use just a drop of the complementary color, then it mutes the color in a way that you wouldn’t be able to do by adding gray or black.
So adding a drop of purple to yellow makes it mustard, and adding a drop of blue to orange makes it a pumpkin spice, and adding a drop of red to green would make it an olive. This is in fact how I mix my most favorite colors. It’s so fabulous to have a table full of color options for children that aren’t just the usuals. They notice the difference between a bright and a muted orange, and they appreciate learning new vocabulary.
4. Lastly, let’s talk about color families. I like to put out color families for certain projects. If we are printmaking for example, or if I have some very young children who I know will just plop their brush in every color. Putting out a color family prevents paintings from turning greyish and mucky. There is definitely value in letting toddlers mix all the colors, and they do not care at all – it’s all about the process for them. But if you want their paintings to stay brighter, then put out a color family. This means choosing colors on the color wheel that are next to each other, from one primary to the next and everything in between.
So all the colors in between red and yellow are a family (oranges, peach, pinks, mustard). And all the colors in between blue and red are a family (purples, periwinkle, mauve). And so on.
Mixing colors is SO FUN!! And you really can’t go wrong. Just add white and any color becomes beautiful.
And here are some sample of painting on cardboard from art class. You can see how adding white to colors really helps with opacity and coverage.
One last tip: I also always put out a jar of white or off-white and a jar of hot pink (linked up top under the supplies, and yes I mix a little white into the hot pink, too).
Be sure to watch my color mixing PART 2 video where I show you how to mix skin tones from primary colors.
What will I achieve?By the end of this course you should be able to.
– Understand the basics of colour theory and colour perception
– Relate colour theories to practice and improve painting
– Mix acrylic paint (some oil use)
– Take away a painted colour wheel for future reference
– Present a small painting based on observed colour mixing.
Suitable for beginners and intermediates with some painting experience.
How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?
– Colour mixing exercises
– Group discussions-theories and practice
– Individual tuition and feedback
– Slide-selection of current and traditional examples by painters and colour theorists.
All basic materials for the course are provided.
.
When I’ve finished, what course can I do next?
You may wish to continue working with colour in one of our painting modules, such as Painting,1 or Painting 2. if you would like to pursue your own painting projects, our Drawing and painting studio: intermediate to advanced is ideal.
Chris Hough
Chris has taught at City Lit for over 25 years and is a former co-ordinator of the CityLit Fine Art Course , stepping down to concentrate on his painting practice and to teach more on the short course programme. He studied painting at Central St Martins and the Royal College of Art and has post graduate qualifications in art history and a teaching qualification from the Institute of Education and from University of Surrey. He has understaken fellowships, residencies and travelling scholarships in Chicago, Paris, Moscow Region and West of England and has an established art practice which encompasses, drawing, painting, projection and small scale model, making. Instagram c.hough89
Please note: We reserve the right to change our tutors from those advertised. This happens rarely, but if it does, we are unable to refund fees due to this. Our tutors may have different teaching styles; however we guarantee a consistent quality of teaching in all our courses.
