WATERCOLOR MIXING

 SOME HELPFUL TIPS FOR COLOR MIXING

I wanted to help students become more confident in their color mixing. It seems to be a problem even for more experienced painters. So today the emphasis was on color in watercolor, rather than technique.

WATERCOLOR has unique properties that other mediums do not. They include: transparency, flow, granulation (some), staining or lifting, and permanence. (some colors, such as opera, are notoriously "fugitive," meaning they fade with light and time). But for now, we are mostly dealing with their color(hue)  and how to make secondary and tertiary colors, how to neutralize color, and how to change its value.

I generally try to use 6 basic colors: a warm and a cool Red (warm=toward orange; cool = toward violet or pink); a warm and cool blue (warm=toward violet, like French ultramarine; cool=toward green, like Pthalo or cerulean); and a warm and a cool yellow (warm=toward orange, like new gamboge; cool = toward green like lemon or hansa light) PLUS trusty burnt sienna for texture. From these colors you can create almost any color you want.

We started with an exercise using just six colors. Make greens using mixes of your 2 yellows and 2 blues. You should end up with 4 color mixes: warm yellow+warm Blue; warm yellow +cool blue; cool yellow+cool blue; cool yellow + warm Blue. 

Make oranges using mixes of reds and yellows. Make Violets using mixes of your reds and blues.

I showed several methods of creating colors--in a journal, on a sheet of paper, mixing on palette or mixing on paper. Different students chose different ways, but all should be labeled as to what color was used.

In the method below, I taped off rectangles. I wet each rectangle and painted yellow on one side and a blue on the other side, allowing them to mingle to a green in the middle of the rectangle. On the sheet on the right, I used the same colors, but began mixing on the palette, the left color being the pure yellow, the right being the pure blue, with a little blue added to each stripe to get variations of green. And I labeled the colors (HYL= hansa yellow light: FUM is French ultramarine, etc.)

Note the bottom two are unusual: yellow with paynes gray and yellow with neutral tint make green!

In the method below I painted pure color at each end of the stripe and let them run together.

We used burnt sienna and French ultramarine blue to create grays.

Now, I don't really like the terms "warm" and "cool" when color mixing, but that is how the art world refers to them.  I prefer the term "leans toward". For example, if I want a "pretty" color of green, I want a yellow that "leans toward" green (doesn't have any orange in it) such as lemon or hansa light PLUS a blue that "leans toward" green, such a Pthalo or Cerulean or cyan. If I want a green that is more natural and earthy, I'll pick one primary that doesn't lean toward green, and one that does.

Below is my blog of Jan of 2025 that describes this split primary way of thinking.

A previous posting on how to make a split primary color wheel.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/5080489554816836458

Hue, Chroma, and Value defined

https://www.watercoloraffair.com/the-dimensions-of-color/

Above is a pdf that defines these terms and why it is helpful to understand them. Hue is basically the color name. Value is how dark that color is, and Chroma is how INTENSE that color is. You change or neutralize the hue, often by adding small amounts of its complement, to change the intensity or Chroma.

Practice taking a color and see what neutrals you can create by adding a little of the complement; then a little more; then a little more.

COLOR INFLUENCE (this is not the correct term, but I can't remember the exact word)

Some color have more influence on other colors and some have very little. Yellow has the least.

So if you are mixing a color with yellow in it, then start with a lot of yellow, then gradually add the blue or red (both of which have stronger influence). IF you tried it the opposite way, beginning with the stronger color, you might take a long time adding yellow, then adding more yellow....  Another reason to start with the weaker color is that yellow especially is easily contaminated. One speck of red and your yellow is no longer yellow, but orange. But if your clean brush pulls out yellow first, it's less likely to get contaminated.

Louise DeMasi: 13 essential tips for mixing watercolor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_KhI2auRZA&t=829s

I love her paintings, and she gives some helpful ideas and reasons why they help with color mixing. I think it's only about 20 minutes long. Some tips are simple, such as having 2 water cups and a clean palette and using thicker paints from the tubes for darker colors. 

Two I'd especially pay attention to are:

a. blot excess water from your brush so you don't accidentally dilute your paint more than you want. (so many times people keep trying to add paint to darken an object but the water from the brush keeps the paint light)

and 

b. Don't over-mix your paint....you are not baking a cake that needs to be evenly distributed, but a painting that can show the nuances of a mixed color.

painting and chocolate landscape wet into wet

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/35H-vH8qF_I