STOP PRESS: THE “AUSTRALIAN ARTIST” MAGAZINE FEB.2009 EDITION FEATURES A 6 PAGE ARTICLE BY JULIE “FREE & EASY COLOUR” page 22/27.
Hello everyone!
Welcome and thank you for visiting this post. In all my years of art teaching the subject I’ve been most asked to repeat and demonstrate is colour mixing with paint pigments… acrylic, oil or goauche (poster paint).
Before we start to mix colours, I just want to point out the importance of TONE in painting. TONE MEANS DEGREES OF LIGHT TO DARK and is by far strongest means of creating good compositions. We have 3 main ways of contrasting in painting:
1. TONE (LIGHT AGAINST DARK)
2. COLOUR (WARM AGAINST COOL)
3. TEXTURE (TEXTURE AGAINST SMOOTH)
THESE ARE OUR MAGIC WANDS TO USE IN CREATING ILLUSIONS ON A FLAT SURFACE.
Here is what I mean by tone below. You can see it clearly goes from light to dark when you look at the black and white range but it takes a practised eye to see degrees of tone when you look at colour…
Now to COLOUR MIXING….
To begin, in response to an enquiry, here is a simple fun way to lead small children in the discovery of primary and secondary colours:
Set up outdoors a circle of 6 clear plastic containers of water and have on hand some strong non toxic dyes or inks in primary colours in small bottles with eye droppers attached + some kidsafe bubble soap and a packet of straws.
Have the children stand in a circle around the containers. Invite 3 to come forward, giving them an eyedropper each of a primary colour which they then drop into the water of every alternate container. If the dye is not strong enough you may need to get them to put more than one eyedropper full. You now have a red, yellow and blue with containers of clear water between them.
Then use those wonderful words that must pop into the mind of every inventor on the planet -”Hey! What if?” and encourage them to find out what happens when the red and the blue are dropped into the clear water between those primaries…then the blue and yellow and finally the yellow and red – to make the secondary colours of purple, green and orange.
Just be aware that 2 or 3 times as much yellow will be needed in relation to the darker colours of red and blue to achieve good secondaries – also that the red used should be a crimson and not one that has any yellow already in it or the purple will end up brown. Be as surprised as they should be at the results – ask “What have you made?” “Wow”. Let them feel in charge of their own discovery!
To finish up, everyone is given a straw and you drop a little bubble soap into each container. They all have a turn at blowing into the water through their staws to make bubbles, which turn out pastel shades of the water hue. Maybe you could have on hand some fruit in all of those colours, so that they can relate the colours they have made to objects they know to further reinforce their learning. Also you could add in the written name of the colour next to the fruit so that they begin to familiarise with that too. We saw this being carried out in a N.Z. playcentre and it was wonderful!
NEXT…
Here are some demonstration charts for you to check out… all mixed from the 3 primary colours RED, YELLOW & BLUE (+ WHITE, WHICH WE DON’T CALL A COLOUR). These three primary colours cannot be mixed and are needed to create all the other colours. I never cease to marvel at the magic of that! All these colours from only three to start with and of course there are infinitely more!
I would like to begin with a very basic colour wheel mixed by my Grand-daughter, Julia for you, showing primary and secondary colours..she used a painting knife to mix, wiping it clean with a paper towel in between each colour mix. (Mixing with a brush is messier and it is harder to keep a clean mix).
Next, we made together another wheel, this time mixing some in-between TERTIARY colours…
The next chart shows each of the opposite pairs on the above wheels mixed gradually one into the other, then lightened with white for lighter tints. This shows more possibilities than just the single range in the outside ring above right. Remember all these are still from just the three primaries RED, YELLOW & BLUE + white. Isn’t it wonderful? What a beautiful range of colours and tints they give!
Of course the end result varies depending on which red, yellow & blue you started with.
The trick to getting a good purple range is to use a red and a blue that have no yellow content within them. If a hint of yellow is in there the result will be more browns.
If you are starting out in painting and wish to develop a feel for colour harmony, delicate mixing and tonal values (darks to lights) it is a good idea to try a few paintings using just one row from the above chart. Here are some examples…(the first, red-orange to blue-green, which is the range most used in landscapes). You will need a good sized palette and a mixing knife (the ones with the raised handles are best to keep your knuckles out of the paint!)
The cityscape below I based on a RED TO GREEN mix - but instead of lightening with just white, each was lightened with lemon yellow plus white for a golden look. This is a great way to avoid “chalkiness” in a painting. This painting is executed with a painting knife rather than a brush, for texture. I just love the buttery texture of the paint used undiluted this way!
Now a complete change of colour scheme…beautiful and unusual for evening landscapes or seascapes…
Last year, Tony and I were lucky enough to enjoy a trip to the UK and Europe. We travelled most of it by train, armed with sketch books but this little painting below was of the picturesque lane in Venice where our apartment was…
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IF YOU JUST WANT TO GET SOME SUBTLE COLOURS OUT OF YOUR RED, YELLOW AND BLUE WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT THE EXACTING MIXING PROCESSES ABOVE, THERE IS A SYSTEM CALLED USING THE “MOTHER COLOUR” (A MIXTURE OF ALL 3 PRIMARIES), THEN WARMING & COOLING IT ETC. YOU MAY NEED A TINY AMOUNT OF ADDED BLACK AS PER THE LEFT HAND COLUMN, OR TO GREY ANY COLOUR THAT IS TOO BRIGHT – BUT USE VERY LITTLE OR IT WILL DEADEN THE COLOURS.
ABOUT DRYING TIME:
If you choose water-based paint such as acrylic or poster colour, you may find that your colours will begin to dry on the palette before you can use them. To avoid this, mix in a shallow plastic lidded box (I use a file case) and spray your palette with a little water occasionally to keep the paint from drying. Whenever you aren’t using the paint, close the lid to keep moist. There are also commercial liquid retarders which slow the drying of acrylics. With oil paints you won’t have that problem as they are slow drying.
Hints: Be generous with your initial amounts of the primary colours – remember they have to go a long way to create all the others - and you will need on average twice as much of the yellow as the other two.
ABOUT PAINTS:
Over the past 40 years I have fallen in love with the qualities of one colour after another and they are like old friends - in particular the oil colours, which have special qualities like “earth colours”, “transparent colours”, “opaque colours” and rich browns, purples, crimsons and golds that are enhanced by the Linseed Oil they are mixed with in the tube. Oil paints hardly alter their colour once they dry, whereas waterbased paints tend to dry either lighter or darker than the original mixed tint. Still the quick drying can be a great advantage, especially if you are needing to carry work to a venue or on site to work, like the artists in this painting – working on an old property near Nundle, N.S.W…
Artists at Nundle NSW – oil over acrylic by Julie Duell. 1980s
Tony and I often begin by establishing an “underpainting” in acrylics and then finish in oils – giving us “the best of both mediums”. Remember you can put oil over acrylic but not the other way around. Most canvas boards and stretched canvases are already undercoated in acrylic, so you may be doing it anyway if you work in oils.
There is a range of paint called Alkyd, which are quick drying oils and they provide a happy medium between the traditional oil paints which can stay sticky for several days and water based paints which dry within an hour, depending on the thickness and amount of water added. Alkyd oils contain a dryer (in the form of a resin I believe) which will assist your paintings to dry within a day (longer if the paint is applied very thickly.)
Good luck and happy mixing!!! I hope you have found this post helpful.
Julie
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