Greys

I don't know anyone who uses pre-mixed greys but you are right in saying that value, or tone, is the first requirement for a successful painting, I have heard it said that 'tone does all the work and colour gets all the credit', or something like that. Mixing greys from primaries is a matter of practice, never ending in my case, as there is an infinite variety of different hues and temperatures of greys. To answer your last point, it matters very much and needs a lot of practice to get it right unless you have a natural talent for colour mixing.

I've never really considered grey or ever had need to mix it. Are there any true greys in the real world? I can't recall seeing them. Certainly shadows are a darker shade of the same colour when it's not in sunlight - unless you paint them purple of course. Why does anyone want to mix grey? Unless, of course, you are painting man made things like material etc and then grey is simply a mix of black and white. Mixing grey from primaries? But the result isn't grey - or am I colour blind? Can I remove my tongue from my cheek now - it's a tad uncomfortable.

Hallo again David - I've been enjoying using Cremnitz White over the last few days - will speak to you privately on that subject soon! I have heard of the Munsell system, and I even have a greys chart, for want of a better word, somewhere. But I'm not sure I understand the former, and never use the latter; my eyesight isn't good, even after I've had the cataract out, but I rely on it exclusively for determining colour and tone; and sometimes of course I get it wrong, but I just don't think that a scientific approach would help me because my mind and vision just don't work that way - I can get very boring on pigment identification, given half a chance, but half-closing the eyes works for me to establish tone and a chart would just annoy me (which isn't hard to do). Making a neutral grey for painting doesn't bother me either - the nearest I can get to it, without using black and white, is a cold green plus a crimson, with white; but it's very rare for me to want to mix a neutral grey - most of my stuff is landscape, and I don't see neutral greys in landscape: there's always a bias towards something, blue, or red, or green, or orange, commonly; and often touches of purple; having seen landscape paintings and portraiture in which Titanium White has been mixed with either Payne's Grey or Ivory Black, rather obviously, I am not at all keen on employing them, but this does depend on how naturalistic you want to be: there are fine painters who make good use of blacks and browns, with just a splash of brightness perhaps. If I painted like that, I'd have more use for a value-finder. We have a member named Seamas who is a bit busy just now but who has wide interests in these fields - I'd like to tempt him back to respond to you. Perhaps he will. As you'll have discovered, quite a few painters get very impatient with too much theory; Syd, for example, takes the view I think that too much of it just trips you up and gets in the way generally; but then, Syd's been painting a long time, and really doesn't need it. I've been painting a long time too, but when I was a lot younger I might have valued theory more, and made faster progress - the more I've read, I've reached a mid-way point: it's essential to know the basics; it may be interesting, and even helpful, to delve deeper into the theory; but when you've got a method of working things out, even if it's actually a touch on the wrong side, it's probably wise to take what you know and apply it - read the theory at night before going to sleep: don't let it cut into your painting time! I'll have another look at the Munsell system, I expect - but from what little I know of it, I don't really find it useful in practice - I agree entirely about the importance of tone, but I'm not sure about artificial aids to identify it if the eyes alone won't do it for you.

I appreciate many are interested in theory and this as good a place as any to discuss it but, as a simple practising artist, I am baffled by it all - I'm with you on this Syd.

Thanks for the clarification David - it's not that you want to mix a neutral grey for use in its own right, as it were, but you find it a more sure method of adjusting colour and tone than using complementaries; I think I've got it now! And of course you're talking primarily about oil paint, because that's your medium: your approach would also work in acrylic - in watercolour, however ... would it? You'd find it difficult to mix a neutral grey in watercolour, and would probably rely instead on Neutral Tint, much beloved of Rowland Hilder - and I begin to see why, because he wasn't a great one for complementaries either (in part because he tended to use a very limited palette). Which causes me to wonder, Michael, if you use a grey to (say) darken a primary colour, or whether you'd do what I do, generally speaking anyway, and use a complementary? I can't remember now what I used to do when I started painting in oil - it was so long ago: I was 15 at the time, if quite that, so 52 years ago.... I began painting in acrylic slightly more recently, and remember that I used mixes of not very neutral greys, or just darker tones of the same hue - so to darken green, I'd use a dark green. Which is another way of doing it, and in many ways a very sound one. I've never aimed for complete accuracy, either in drawing (though I try!) or colour and tone - so the degree of control you (David) are looking for probably matters rather less to me.... the risk I always run by using complementaries is that they're fairly approximate and the danger is getting dirty colour, of course; but then - there are virtues in that if you're painting the English landscape, because a lot of it is pretty dirty (or brown and grey anyway) enlivened and lifted by glorious foliage, and wild flowers, and shafts of bright light. Because I work slowly, and prefer a lead white (which dries quickly) that method works for me - it would drive others mad; waiting for paint to dry is not for some - but as I can only work in short bursts, it's ideal, really... I do a bit, come back to it the next day, and the paint is either surface-dry or at least tacky; and you could use alkyds which would probably give the same effect and minimize mud-mixing. I don't think Alan Bickley would like to use my method, for one - and (in case anyone was wondering) this does have an impact on how one mixes or adjusts colour - e.g. I don't do a lot of optical mixing, achieving an effect by laying one colour against an other without mixing them. Your method, speed customarily used, and so many other things affect the way you achieve tone.

Robert, I don't always paint alla prima, I do of course when painting on the spot but not generally these days when working in my studio. All my latest work, as in the IOW series and currently my 'View from a Window' series (not posted any of these yet) are worked on over at least a couple of days, sometimes many more. Perhaps I've reached the point of having to slow down a bit, anyway, that's how things have progressed for me and I am enjoying my work and getting some great response from my colleagues on this site. David, I do have to agree with Syd and the others regarding getting too tied up in all this technical stuff, it is just complicating the art of painting. I learnt nothing like this at college, we learnt about colour mixing in general but more on a practical level rather than text book stuff. I'll be honest, you have left me totally confused. Unlike Michael, I do actually use greys in my paintings (small amounts) but of course I mix my own, never from black and white of course, that would kill off anything. All my work has been painted without complicated formula and I don't expect to start reading up on them any time soon.

I do hope you're not going to be another one who bites the dust - there's a divide between those who like discussing technicalities and those who don't, of which others have fallen foul: but it'd be a pity if you let yourself be put off: I'm interested in the technical side, even if I'm in a minority - but I'll be in even more of a minority if the like-minded get, for whatever reason, disheartened.

I can't see why "unnecessary". Surely if you post to the forum you expect to generate conversation? And this is an interesting discussion, even for someone who tends to "get out the paints and brushes and paint", hopefully getting the basics right (some of the time, anyway).