NOTES ON COLOR


One of the things that, as a painting teacher, I'm often asked, is how do you know how to mix the colors you want to apply to a painting so easily. Even though I show them how to mix the colors they want and provide them with written material and demonstrate, they still seem at a loss at my facility to get the colors I want. It isn't a mystery, but lots of studying, hard work and doing, doing, doing and doing some more. The ease with which I mix colors is not just something that happened. Often artists, especially new painters, think they have to buy every pigment in the store in order to obtain what they want. This is a very big and costly mistake, that only leads to the dreaded "muddy" colors all artists strive to avoid. 


In my classes I use a very basic color palette of strong pigments, that when used alone are not optimum, but when mixed with each other in varying degrees, and applying white, will obtain brilliant hues that do not frustrate. I use only high quality pigments in any medium I chose to work in, be it oil, acrylic, watercolor, or pastel.  You will get better results with "Artist Quality" paints, as the cheaper ones are loaded with fillers and have a watery consistency. This will reflect in your finished work. It is the same for canvas and/or paper, and brushes.


This is my palette for acrylic: Napthol Crimson Red Medium, Cadmium Orange Medium, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Yellow Ochre, Ultramarine Blue, Phthalo Blue, Phthalo Green, Hookers Green, Quinacridone Violet, Red Iron Oxide, and Titanium White. I do not buy gray, black or ready-mixed brown in any shade. When I want these colors, I can mix them easily with the basic palette above to get what I want, and rarely, if ever, do I get "mud. "