This is a continuation of sorts, from my last For the Artist post, “too many tubes of paint”, which was on November 26th. Today’s info will still make all kinds of sense if you don’t read the first one, but you will be oh so much smarter if you do.
So, now that you have a palette of 10 or so tubes of paint that can be used to make zillions of beautiful colors, how do you actually do that? well, the tough-love answer is that you just have to practice a lot. However, I have some ideas here that will jump you forward a few steps. Niceness.
The colors listed in the, uh… list, are all super vibrant. I just realized that I can make this list and stick it permanently on one of my columns. Ok. done that. Now you can just looksie over there to the left and scroll until you see this resource on every single page.
Back to VIBRANCY. It is great for having the ability to mix the most amount of colors possible. It gives you the most versatility. But! (always a but), there is one slight downside that can trip you up if you’re not aware of it.
These colors are kind of stinky right out of the tube.
They are super vibrant, and also super concentrated. They are raw. For that reason, they do NOT LOOK GOOD all on their own. Pthalo green is the worst of these, as it is the most intense, and chemical-looking color available. It will look much better if mixed with even a tiny bit of blue, yellow, and/or white, just to get it away from it’s own raw self. I know of one company that has actually discontinued this green in their student-grade paints because no one wants to buy it. It’s just plain u-g-l-y. This is the most versatile green though, and can be used with other colors to make every kind of green imaginable. I once read that it can easily make over 200 distinct greens easily. I’d say even more than that, like, oh… 2,000! And since you need more variations of green than any other color (thinking landscapes here), then this green gives you 200 tubes of green in one.
Dioxazine Purple is so dark and concentrated, that it can be mistaken for Black or Burnt Umber on your palette. That’s a little too dark, believe me.
One of the biggest mistakes that a beginner will make, and that you have to be on the watch for even if you’ve painted a while, is not mixing enough. Especially when using a mixing palette instead of using 100 tubes of juicy, lovely pre-mixed colors.
And now it is time for your cooking lesson. I’ll be brief.
Think of these tubes of paint as ingredients. You would not eat ground pepper by itself. Or salt, or vinegar, or oil. Mix them all together and shake vigorously, though, and it is delicious when poured over a salad.
The tubes of paint are your ingredients. The colors that you create with them are your sauces and dishes. The canvas is your banquette.
It is highly helpful to think of these 3 stages when approaching your work. You have to have a place for the ingredients – to be OUT of the tubes where you can get to them, such as a row of little dabs along the edge of your palette. Then you need a place to invent your colors. This is like your laboratory (say, la-bore-ah-tory, it’s more fun), where you will make colors that you love, as well as colors that quite frankly should not be allowed to exist. (make peace with that inevitability). That is the large area of your palette.
Then you move the good colors over to your painting where the fun happens. Yay!
TIPS & RULE-BREAKERS:
Bright red, such as Cadmium Hue, Pyrrole or Napthol is used right smack out of the tube when you need that crazy bright red, and you will.
White is used right smack out of the tube when you need … white. yeah.
White is used in almost all of your mixes, because they are usually too dark.
White is usually something you will need a little bit more than you think in almost all of your mixes.
Did I say to use a lot of white?
Most natural happy greens are 9 tenths Yellow and one tenth Pthalo Green. Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Make it 8 tenths Yellow. I can’t really get into all the green variations, but the point is, that Pthalo Green is super strong, and Yellow is super weak. You can’t have too much yellow but you can easily have too much green.
Stay away from mixing up a green by using blue and yellow. It’s ok, but you’ll make better colors by beginning with the Pthalo Green.
White is blueish, so when adding it to a green, you must also add some more yellow.