Color Mixing Guide For Oil Painting [PDF]

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COLOR MIXING GUIDE FOR OIL PAINTING TL

IN DEPTH GUIDE Practical guide to color mixing Actionable lessons you can put into practice today

A Practical Guide To Color Mixing One of the most important things to learn in painting is how to mix colors. There is more to painting than just applying paint to canvas. After all, it is color that makes up your painting. It can seem a little daunting at first dealing with so many colors. With patience, practice and constant experimentation you will get a feel for it. Learning to mix will save you money on not needing to buy unnecessary paint colors as you will know how to mix them yourself! Also, you will get greater richness in your painting if you work on creating subtle color transitions. Just using colors straight from the tube will result in work that is oversaturated and unnatural looking.

First of all lets take a look at the color wheel (above) and learn some basic color theory before delving into mixing oil paints. Use the color wheel for reference as you go through this article.

Complementary Colors At the top of the color wheel you will notice red – directly below it at the bottom is green. Green and red are both complementary colors. Now, lets look at the third color to the right of the red – orange. Opposite of orange is blue as blue is the complementary of orange and vise versa. Another complementary color would be purple and yellow. Whatever color is opposite of another color on the color wheel is its complementary color.

Analogous Colors that are beside one another on the color wheel. For example blue, light blue.

Triadic Three colors that form a perfect triangle on the wheel. An example would be red – blue, yellow.

The Practical Application - How to Mix Colors First off, the primary colors yellow, blue and red are important because all other colors stem from just these three. These colors cannot be made from other colors – thus they are considered ‘parent’ colors.

Secondary colors – those mixed from the primary colors – are green, orange and purple. They are mixed from the following primary colors: Yellow + Blue = Green Yellow + Red = Orange Blue + Red = Purple

Tertiary Colors When a primary and secondary color are mixed together a tertiary color is created. As with secondary colors you must use equal parts of each to successfully mix a tertiary color. You can always notice a tertiary color by name as it is listed with its primary color first: Blue Green Blue Violent Yellow Green Red violet Red Orange Yellow Orange

Mixing Brown If you wish to mix a brown you will need to mix a tertiary color with a primary color. However, it is important that you mix the tertiary color with the primary color that is not already a part of the tertiary color’s mix. So, for example if you made a red orange, red is the primary color so you need to choose either blue or yellow.

Complementary Colors Learning complementary colors is one of the most important things when it comes to color mixing. We already touched on them briefly but will bring them up again. These are the colors that are opposite from each other on the color wheel. So, for example, when looking at the wheel you notice that red is at the top – opposite the red is green at the bottom of the wheel. Thus, green is the complementary color of red and vise versa. The same holds true for blue and orange and purple and yellow (as well as all other colors in between!).

What are complementary colors good for? When you pour your orange out of the tube it is a very saturated color and will not do you much good when you are trying to get a hue that is more ‘true to life’. So, what do you do? This is where complementary colors come in. As blue is the opposite of orange, when you add some blue to orange it will make the orange less orange – therefore creating a more muted color. Or, if you would rather have a more muted blue you would just add some orange to the blue. The same of course holds true for all the other complementary colors - green/red, and yellow/ purple and all the others in between. You could technically add a brown (burnt umber) to these colors to mute them, but this creates very uninteresting colors and will not help you in the long run. Working on mixing the opposites to colors helps you create beautiful and dynamic colors. You will grow exponentially more in your color mixing than if you would just add brown to colors.

Mixing Black

Nearly any combination of two deep, dark colors will produce a black as long as one is cool and the other warm. For example, ultramarine blue and burnt umber is a good mixture for a black – blue being the cool and burnt umber the warm. As well, pthalo green and alizarin crimson makes a strong black. I use these two colors for black the most often as it is such a deep and rich color. Pthalo green is an extremely strong color – you just need to make sure that the green does not overpower. You could also get a blue black by mixing pthalo blue with cadmium red light – it will depend on you how cool or warm you will want your black to be.

All the rest of the colors

So far, we have barely skimmed the surface! I believe most of what one learns comes from mixing comes from experience. The best thing you can do for yourself in the process of learning to paint is simply to mix a LOT. All the time. Be experimental with color and mix combinations that you would not ordinarily think of – the results may surprise you.

Think of color mixing in terms of cooking and adding spices – a little bit of this, then a little bit of that… What I find accelerates the learning process is to watch an experienced painter work and see how they mix colors. For myself, this helped me to get outside of my own head and think of more unusual color combinations. The result was that my ability to make compelling color combinations on the canvas increased exponentially. Most importantly, be patient with yourself as you learn.

Thank You! For taking the time to read this color mixing guide. I hope you were able to learn from it! I will be continually adding more painting tutorials and advice at ArtStudioLife.com. Keep your eyes open on your inbox for upcoming valuable painting lessons coming your way!