How to Master Colour Mixing (For Beginners)

If you've ever painted before, you've probably found yourself in a situation where you couldn't quite make that certain colour you needed. 

Fear not!

Today, I shall be attempting to teach you how to mix (almost) any natural colour.

Materials:

• A Paintbrush (preferably - for your own sake, not a very expensive one.)
• A cup of water
• Red, yellow, blue and white acrylic paint
• Paper 
• Something to mix the paint on (plate, palette etc.)

Part 1:
Know your basics.


 

http://www.cemca.org/maldives/coloursmag.html

• red + yellow = orange
• yellow + blue = green
• blue + red = purple

You may scoff at the simplicity of this, but trust me - it's vital.
When two primary colours are mixed, they create a secondary colour.

Part 2: 
Advancing on that.

Say the colour you wanted to make was green - but it wasn't as green as your result when you mixed blue and yellow; it was sort of grey-ish. How do you change the green - or as my teacher says, how do you kill the green? Simple, you add a tiny bit of red until it's grey enough - red was the missing primary colour from the mixture. To "kill" a secondary colour you add the only primary colour you didn't use to make that colour.

• To kill purple - you add yellow.
• To kill green - you add red.
• To kill orange - you add blue.

Part 3:
Adding tones

For this you'll need your fourth colour - white.
It's simple really, if the colour is light, add white. The more you add, the lighter it becomes.

Then comes the more complicated part, making a colour darker.

 If you wanted to, you could take the shortcut and just add black. But that can often give a colour a muddy, unchangeable effect. What I do is create a dark, near black.

To make it is sort of like chasing a colour, which in a way is what colour mixing is all about. 

First create a secondary colour, for this example I'll use orange.
To that colour add the killing colour - in this case blue. 
Is the colour looking slightly green? Add red.
Is the colour looking a bit orange? Add blue.
Is colour looking  a tinge purple? Add yellow.

Basically, you do this until you create a dark brown-ish colour.

Now, to put it into practice.

Here's an exercise you can use to practice your newly-acquired colour mixing skills.

1. Get a sheet of paper - less than a quarter of an A4 piece of paper.
2. Make a tiny hole in the centre of the paper.
3. Get a picture of some sort and cover it with the paper so that there is a particular colour in the hole.
4. Keep the paper in place with blutack or sellotape.
5. Try and get that colour using your newly acquired knowledge! Mix it on a plate but when you think it's close, test it on the paper near the hole.

 I hope you found this helpful, feel free to leave any queries or comments bellow!

A special shoutout to the wonderful Jane Hilliard who taught me everything I know about colour mixing. She's a wonderfully talented artist and a great person!

Also, if you're interested in participating in our exhibition in Tralee this month, email us at teenartexhibitions@yahoo.ie!

-Czara.

I will be uploading a tutorial video later this evening!