Creating a split color wheel
Below is the first color wheel I created in Sandy Maudlin's class. It took weeks for me to complete. Since we didn't have time for that I chose a simpler color wheel. This puppy takes an entire 22 x 30 sheet of watercolor paper. Good thing I marked all my color choices with codes on the bottom left.
This lesson was all about creating colors from just 6 primaries. A "split" color wheel uses a warm and a cool of each primary. I prefer the term "leaning toward" to warm or cool. If you want very pure and clean looking secondaries (orange/green/violet) you choose primaries that "lean" toward those colors. Therefore, the "cool" yellow, which has no orange in it (like lemon) faces the "cool" blue, which leans toward green.
The warm yellow (that leans toward orange) faces the warm red (that leans toward orange). The Cool Red, such as magenta or quin rose, leans toward violet, so it faces the warm red (French ultramarine) which leans to violet.
The students downloaded this color wheel and drew it on watercolor paper. Then they combined the primaries that faced each other to make the secondary colors. My suggestion was to make the secondary color first. Example: To make a good secondary green, mix the cool yellow and the cool blue (cerulean) on the palette until you get a good green. Then add yellow to the mix to make a yellow green; then add blue to the mix until you get a bluer (more teal) green. Then move on to the other secondaries.
I would suggest labeling the colors you use so you don't get confused.
The little half circles on the outer wheel that look gray are filled with the complement (opposite) of each primary mixed with that primary to create gray or brown.
After the color wheel, we made a chart at the bottom to show what would happen if you mix colors that do not lean toward each other. There is a final column to see if you can figure out what that color's complement is. (Hint: a WARM yellow has a COOL--bluer-- violet; a COOL yellow has a WARM-redder- violet)
For those who want to do a more complex color wheel, here is one that allows you to mix colors that lean toward each other; then colors that do not lean toward each other; and the inner circle uses only colors in your printer: cyan, yellow, and magenta.
Here is a color wheel I made for myself on a larger piece of paper (11 x 14) I liked having larger spaces to color so I could see what a color looked like dark or watered down. When I was done, I went through some of my tube paints and tried to match them to where they would show up on this color wheel. It's a good way of discovering which paints you might want, which ones you don't need. The piece in the middle helps identify color schemes (triad, complementary, analogous, etc.) but there is another lesson on that on a different blog.
After the color wheel, we talked about complementary colors. Complement means "to complete." So the complement of a color is across the color wheel/opposite. If you want the complement of red, what colors are missing from the primaries? Yellow and Blue, which make green. Green is the complement of red. Violet is made of blue and red...what is missing? Yellow. That is the complement of violet. And Blue and orange are complements.
Below is a link to my blog with the exercise we did with complementary colors.
We also discussed the advisability of using tube color when you want to create dark brown, black, or grays. It is very hard to get your primaries in pans to get thick enough to make a dark black, so I take a little directly from a tube and mix the colors with a little water. That takes away from the struggle of getting enough thickness in a pan paint.
A very popular way to make blacks and grays is with French ultramarine and Burnt sienna, which is a very orange brown. You make it grayer by adding more blue; browner by adding more burnt sienna. Mixing Alizarin/Pthalo/and burnt umber also produces a nice black. You can experiment with combinations.
I was asked about my favorite colors to use. That changes from time to time, subject, and things I learned.
For example, cadmium is toxic, and many companies are gradually switching over to non-toxic cadmium "hues," which duplicate the color without the toxic cadmium.
So what I am most likely to use are:(bold ones are in my palette)
Yellows
warm: new gamboge (very orange) or hansa deep (less orange)
cool: hansa yellow light or lemon yellow
neutral: primary yellow (good for combining with anything)
Reds
warm: Pyrrol red or Pyrrol scarlet
cools: magenta, quin rose or permanent rose, Alizarin for darks
Blues
warm: (lean to violet) French ultramarine, cobalt (I use cobalt for glazing)
cools: Pthalo, cerulean, cyan
Other necessary: Burnt sienna
My favorite convenience colors: (chosen for different reasons)
Transparent Pyrrol orange (for flowers)
Quin burnt scarlet (for skin tones)
quin coral (flowers & skin tones)
quin gold (for shading yellow flowers)
raw sienna or ochre (skin tones)
burnt umber
lunar earth (for granulation)
green apatite genuine (because I love it)
Carbazole violet
Some people like a basic green like sap (warmer), Hookers (bluer)
But if you get a true green, you can make anything just by adding blue or yellow, red or violet.
Personally, I don't put green in my pallet; I just carry little contact lens carriers in my pallet to hold greens or other odd colors I want for a painting.
My Blog on split color wheel simplified
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/4240977623940030232
Split color wheel cards--If you want some homework!
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/6322867704138753851
creating a split primary wheel (16 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BlD6ijheyk
No comments:
Post a Comment