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COLOR
Part VI - Methods & Procedures

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Contents 

Under The Limit: optimum number of colors in a mixture

Under The Microscope: functions of colors in a mixture

Under The Knife: color mixing tools

Under Way: first steps

Under Stocked: basic approaches

Under Construction: strategies

Under A Cloud: optical color mixing

Under Other Circumstances: mixing color on the painting

Under The Gun: conclusion 

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Under The Limit

The Color Recipes given in Part IV, for everything from roses to rust, should have provided at least a little insight into what it takes to effectively mix color. Most of the formulas cited list color mixtures for various objects and substances that call for only 2 or 3 colors plus white, and none requires more than five colors. Minimalism is an asset in color mixing. The more complex the mixture, the greater is the danger of producing muddy, dead tones.

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Besides white paint, rarely is anything more than a red, a yellow, and a blue needed to achieve the desired result. On occasion, it may be necessary to call upon touches of one or two additional pigments as modifiers to meet a specific need.

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Under The Microscope

For many of the recipes, one or two colors predominate to establish hue: cerulean blue plus lemon yellow, for instance, to make a bright, sparkling green. Other pigments might be added in small amounts to adjust the initial mixture. A tiny bit of cadmium yellow deep might be added to the bright green, say, to achieve greater depth and warmth. In addition, a touch of burnt sienna may be introduced to darken the mixture, increase its earthiness, and to make it more neutral.

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Each color in a mixture, as you can see, serves a specific function. The proportion of a color in a mixture determines how much it influences the outcome.

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Under The Knife

Either a brush or palette knife may be used to mix colors, but oil and acrylic painters will find that a knife provides more control and precision.

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Under Way

Whenever possible, color mixing begins with a tube color that is similar to the target color. The tube color is then modified to make a mixture that is even more like the target.

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If white paint is needed in the mixture, that is generally where to begin, with other colors being added to the white. The reason for laying out white first is that white paint makes the mixture paler, and pale colors are easier to evaluate than dark ones.

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Judging very dark mixtures can be quite difficult. During the process of creating a dark mixture, it is helpful to test the mixture by separating out a small portion with a palette knife and adding a little white paint to the separated portion to make it paler. Then it is possible to determine whether the mixture has the desired qualities, or if it requires adjusting. If a modification is needed, go back to the original mixture, adjust it, and test it again by adding a small amount of white paint to a sample of it.

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Under Stocked

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Delicacy is preferable to brute force when mixing colors, particularly when making adjustments to an initial mixture. Tiny amounts of pigment are added to the mixture at a time, in effect, sneaking up on the goal. When large gobs of color are stirred in, it is likely that the target will be overshot or that the results will be totally unexpected and undesirable. The series of diagrams at left provides one possible scenario.

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The picture above shows that the process often begins in a "hit and miss" way, particularly for less experienced students. The top row in the illustration shows the initial step. Working broadly, some white was laid out, with a fairly large quantity of yellow ochre and burnt sienna added to it to arrive quickly at a "base color." The base color in this case is just an approximation of what is ultimately wanted; the artist knew it would need some "tweaking." At this point, it may be necessary to experiment with different red and yellow pigments before arriving at a satisfactory solution. The second row in the diagram illustrates one such experiment in which tiny amounts of cadmium red and cadmium yellow were added to adjust the base color.

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Under Construction

In many cases, not a single mixture is needed, but several that are similar. In depicting a purple ball, for example, it may be convenient to prepare a range of violets rather than just one. The various shades may represent deep shadow, modest shadow, modest light, and strong light, or it may be some other useful series.

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A simple approach in such situations is to prepare a goodly quantity of a base color, separate out a portion of it to be modified into a different shade, divide the new shade into separate heaps, and adjust one of the piles into yet a third tone, and so on. Such a procedure is outlined here for a group of colors with which to paint a purple ball.

Base Color:
Combine some titanium white, French ultramarine blue, cadmium red, plus a small amount of burnt sienna. The resulting violet will be on the dark side, dull-ish, and rather cool in character. It will serve for areas in modest shadow.

Deep Shadows:
Use a palette knife to pull some of the base color aside. Add a fair amount of French ultramarine blue, plus a lesser amount of burnt sienna to make the mixture darker. Touch in a little yellow ochre for grayness or dullness. This mixture will be for deep shadows.

Modest Lights:
Separate out another blob of the base color. Put additional white paint in it, add some cobalt blue, alizarin crimson, and maybe a little cadmium red light. This will yield a color that is paler, warmer, cleaner and more sparkling than the base color.

Stronger Lights:
Begin with a portion of the “modest lights” mixture. Mix in a little white, along with more alizarin crimson and a good helping of cadmium red light. The result will be a strongly reddish violet that is brighter and cleaner yet than the “modest lights” color.

Strongest Lights:
This final mixture must be the cleanest, purest, and most brilliant of all. A little of the “stronger lights” mixture is set aside and modified with additional white paint and cadmium red light to make a “strongest lights” color. In some cases, better results may derive from beginning fresh, with an entirely new mixture that is similar to the “strongest lights” color, but which has no burnt sienna or cadmium red to muddy it up.

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This is a rather simplified description of the process, for much experimentation and adjusting may be needed at each stage to achieve successful results. Nonetheless, it (hopefully) gives some insight into one method for mixing color.

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Also, keep in mind that different artists work differently. While the example above begins with a base color that is a modest-shadow tone, another person may start with the strongest lights, the deep shadows, or some other color.

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Under a Cloud

Not all mixing of color takes place on the palette. Much of it can occur in the painting.

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Let’s take a brief side trip for a moment, and look at a few optical color mixing methods before we return to physical color mixing.

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There is the technique of the Impressionists, Georges Seurat especially. Impressionists like Seurat placed tiny spots of colors next to one another so that, when viewed from a distance, they seem to mix together. Dots of pale blue intermingled with dots of pale pink give forth a delicate violet when seen from far away, for instance. Newspaper comic strips function in exactly this way. Look at the Sunday cartoons closely and you will see the tiny dots of colors.

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Since the birth of oil painting in the early 1400s, and even before, artists took advantage of the transparency of some colors by layering them atop other colors or over a grisaille (tonal underpainting). A thin veneer of French ultramarine blue laid over a light coating of alizarin crimson applied to a white surface produces a sense of purpleness. Light penetrates each layer of color, strikes the white canvas, and is then reflected back through the layers of paint. During its reflected journey, red and blue wavelengths of light are transmitted back to us, becoming violet light in the process.

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Scumbling was introduced to oil painters by the Italians; Leonardo da Vinci was instrumental in the development of the idea. Scumbling is a bit like the Impressionist approach. Patches of opaque - and usually pale - paint are scrubbed over an underlying layer of dry color. A scumble is generally applied in a “broken” manner, in other words, its coverage is spotty. Further, scumbling is often done with a half-dry brush (the paint is stiff, with little or no liquid added to it) so that a stroke of paint breaks up of its own accord, thus leaving tiny gaps in the new layer for some of the underlying color to show through. Finally, scumbled paint is generally put down thinly so that even highly opaque paint doesn’t fully obscure what is beneath. Depending upon the scumbling approach, bits of different colors sit side-by-side and are mixed by the eye, or color underneath shows through the color on top and is mixed with it by reflecting light.

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Under Other Circumstances

Now, to return to physical color mixing of the paint itself.

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There are many circumstances in which it is advantageous to mix or modify color directly on the canvas. This is particularly so of the alla prima oil painter. (It should be noted that acrylic painters are limited in mixing color in the painting by the rapidity with which acrylic paints dry.) Alla prima pictures are made swiftly, often in a single day, working wet-in-wet (painting onto a wet, instead of onto a dried surface).

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In such paintings, an initial or base color may be compiled on the palette, applied to the picture, and then be modified by working small amounts of additional pigments into the wet paint on the canvas. In some cases, modifications are so extreme that the original base color evolves into some completely different color. For example, an artist may begin with a large area covered in a mix of white, cadmium yellow, and cadmium red paints (producing pale orange), and through the radical addition of other hues end up with an earthy green.

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Even for the artist who prefers to do all mixing on the palette, there are situations in which it becomes necessary to do at least some of it in the painting. A color that was satisfactory when applied to the picture may later look “out of synch” as the areas around it are developed further. In other words, the context has changed, which in turn has changed the perception of that first color. The artist might then go back into the first color and alter it by in-painting or over-painting.

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Artist Steven Assael has explained his unusual way of using the picture as palette. He squeezes his paints directly onto the canvas at the periphery of the area he plans to work on that day, then mixes his colors with a knife or brush right on the palette-area of his canvas. His approach has the distinct advantage that he can directly compare the color he has mixed with the colors of the picture. At the end of the day, any leftover blobs of color are scraped away. The little bit of tube paint still remaining on the canvas is left there to become part of the fabric of the picture, an effect that Assael likes.

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Under The Gun

Color mixing is an enigma to many students. There are always questions about what pigments to select, in what proportions to use them, and how to avoid turning a mixture into mud.

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Color mixing is a skill acquired by doing. Learn through observation and exercise how colors act upon one another in mixtures, as well as side-by-side in your pictures. Experiment with various groupings of pigments, and be bold enough to try what seem to be strange combinations. Practice methods for making a color warmer and darker at the same time, as well as cooler and paler. Find out how to make a color duller and muddier while still giving it spark. Learn how to make reddish greens (yes, it can be done) and blue-oranges.

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In the end, the best teacher is you…and experience.

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