77. Colour Mixing - Five More Sheets

Magenta (PR122)

Call me crazy, but... I am loving doing these colour charts.  The colours are so delicious, I think I can taste them! If only the camera could capture the sumptuous colour, transparency and vibrancy of some of these mixes, especially on the Magenta and the Ultramarine Blue sheets! The colours are pretty close but the tints below were much more subtle than shown here.

As I mentioned previously, I'm also discovering many other popular colours/mixes whilst doing them such as Burnt Sienna, Cobalt Violet(!!) and Flesh Tint - my flesh is a different tint though, LOL! A big surprise to me was the Magenta/Atrament Black mix to the far right; maybe I didn't use enough AB but I chose not to change it as it produced a column of super violets which are different to all the others on the sheet.

All the tints so far have been created with the very opaque Titanium White No.2 (PW6/PW4) but I'm curious to try them with something more transparent like pure Zinc White (PW4), particularly for these two sheets.

Ultramarine Blue (PB29) - Yummy!

I dropped the Unbleached Titanium, Permanent Orange, Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green for Napthol Red, Cadmium Red, Transparent Oxide Yellow and Raw Umber as that's what I'm  more likely to mix with UB. It also meant that I didn't need to have 20+ columns. 

 

Unbleached Titanium Dioxide (PW6.1)

Such an initially boring colour but the range of tints produced are just wonderful. I'm so glad I did this sheet as it produced lovely, velvety, dusty hues, again more subtle than shown but distinct colours nonetheless.

Lemon Yellow (PW31) - Dig out your blue gloves!

This has a really low tinting strength so it is perfect for warming and lightening colours when straight white would deaden them. You can easily see the stronger pigments; however, note that Magenta is much stronger than Manganese Violet - I had to use only a smidgeon of Magenta as otherwise its mighty strength would have murdered the Lemon Yellow.

Bright Yellow Lake (PY3)

Looks acidic but it's really a beautifully yellow yellow.  Can I say that? :D  Now I've added Old Holland Caribbean Blue (a favourite of Dreama Tolle Perry) as I use it an awful lot in my Caribbean scenes; not that you'd know as the tube is hardly dented - another powerful pigment.

Please do comment on whether or not you are finding these helpful. I have lumped these five together so that anyone interested can compare them more easily.  I will replace the photographs when we have better weather... and I'll post some real paintings soon.  

Thank you so much for visiting; I'm off to work now. Happy painting!

76. Colour Mixing: RT Rembrandt - Ultramarine Blue

Oil on paper, 9" x 12"

I could have done with using a smidge more of the red in the second column as it looks very similar to the fourth column. In the third column, I discovered Turmeline Green (I was given this in a pack of three free samples a year or so ago; it's by Schminke Mussini). In the fourth column, I got lovely soft greys, a bit like Payne's Grey.

The mixes on the top row are pure Ultramarine Blue, UB with a touch of Permanent Red Medium, UB with a touch of Permanent Yellow Light and UB with a touch of both PRM and PYL; in all of the mixes that particular 'primary' is dominant.  Going down each column, I've used increasing amounts of white to create tints.  I used the same tiny palette knife.

75. Colour Mixing: RT Rembrandt - Permanent Red Medium

Oil on paper, 9" x 12"

Again, I discovered some great mixes, useful for flesh tones, amongst other things. In the third column, I got very good Indian and Venetian Reds and in the fourth column, I discovered taupe, which took me back to the early '80s when I worked for a textile company who regularly used that colour in their fabric dyes.

The mixes on the top row are pure Permanent Red Medium, Permanent Red Medium with a touch of Permanent Yellow Light, PRM with a touch of Ultramarine Blue and PRM with a touch of both PYL and UB; on each chart that particular 'primary' is dominant in each of the mixes.  Going down each column, I've used increasing amounts of white to create tints.  I used the same tiny palette knife.

74. Colour Mixing: RT Rembrandt - Permanent Yellow Light

Oil on paper, 9" x 12"

I've been creating colour mixing charts in oil (as per Monsieur Schmid, even though I don't own his wonderful-looking book); it is feeding my methodical side (nerdy? OCD? :D :D :D). Seriously though, I do these every few years to remind myself how many mixes can be obtained from just a few key colours. This time, I used my bargain pack of RT Rembrandt primaries plus white.

The mixes on the top row are pure Permanent Yellow Light, Permanent Yellow Light with a touch of Permanent Red Medium, PYL with a touch of Ultramarine Blue and PYL with a touch of both PRM and UB; on each chart that particular 'primary' is dominant in each of the mixes.  Going down each column, I've used increasing amounts of white to create tints.

I used a tiny palette (painting) knife to mix and apply the paint swatches. The number of possible variations never ceases to amaze me.  (I will also post the red and blue palettes.)

73. Still Life - WIP

Work in progress, still life, acrylic paint on acrylic paper, 20" x 16"

Hi Everyone, this is what I worked on at Christine's workshop last Saturday. I cropped the last photograph as the background cloth is only partly done and, with the patterns unfinished, is a bit of a distraction. I enjoyed doing it but have had to abandon it and return to a commission I'm doing.

Initial stage - drawing with very watery Burnt Siena and Phthalocyanine Blue.

Second stage - adding watered-down Quinacridone Magenta and Ultramarine Blue.

Third stage - thicker paint (temporarily cropped photograph).

There is a lot more to be done such as correcting and softening the edges of the vase and the background cloth, warming the colour of the vase, defining the cloth around the base of the foremost glass bottle so it is clear, adding a starfish in front of the shell, etc. However, I'm happy with the rendering of the glass bottles so will try to leave that part alone!

72. Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone! xx