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Message
Posted
Fiona, just found my tube of Emerald Green in the bottom of stuff I don't use too often. It's Talens Rembrandt and I've mixed it with Naples Yellow (Michael Harding) and I've made some interesting shades from these two. Also tried mixing it with Ceruleum Blue Hue (Jackson's Artist Oil) and that has produced some gorgeous greens, both remind me of the work of Cezanne, worth experimenting with it.
Edited
by alanbickley
Posted
You're into a complex field of analysis here - into which I do not really wish to enter because I don't have the technical knowledge to do so; you might enjoy a discussion with Michael Willcox, whose grasp of the science is considerable but with whom I suspect you would find some disagreements. In practical terms, you've shown us two magnifications, one of Pthalo Green, which is an intense and metallic green of no conceivable use on its own (over-statement) and the other of Cobalt Blue and Lemon Yellow, which will produce a muted green which is likely to be more useful if you're trying to produce a natural colour in a figurative painting. I'm assuming incidentally that your Cobalt Blue is the real thing, the metallic pigment, and not a Hue. Don't know what the Lemon Yellow consists of, but they're of a muchness generally. If only Pthalo Green actually LOOKED like your sample when applied to canvas, we wouldn't need many other greens - sadly, it doesn't. Whether you can really produce a new colour from mixing - well, no; you can't; but it looks like a new colour to the human eye (it wouldn't have looked like that to my dog, because her eyes didn't pick up the range of colours - to put it crudely - available to ours).
Now then, I am a practical man, of the Gradgrind school (another over-statement) and ask you this: while this is interesting, what actual conclusions do you draw from it in artistic practice? This is not a hostile question by the way, I'm just wondering where you're going with it.
Posted
Hmm, interesting thread. I don't have much to add to the investigative aspect but I hope you don't mind me adding my own likes/dislikes. Still finding my feet here and getting used to everyone's different views and personalities :)
I use a basic intermediary palette of six colours plus a black and a white, and sometimes an umber for fun. Its based on using a cool and warm version of the primaries so I don't have to add in secondaries like violet, green etc because I can mix them from my primaries. I use -
cadmium yellow pale (cool)
cadmium yellow/cad yellow deep (warm)
cadmium red (warm)
alizarin crimson (cool)
ultramarine blue (warm barely :))
pthalo blue (cool)
titanium white
ivory black
I sometimes like mixing a black from alizarin crimson and viridian which gives either a cool or a warm black with wonderful depth that you don't get from a tube black. I mostly use the tube black as a mixer to tone down brighter values. I also sometimes mix a bit of cad yellow deep to the alizarin/viridian mix to get a dirtier black that still reads better as its own colour than the tube version.
I havent bothered much yet with violets, magentas, greens or oranges because I mix those from my palette so I cant say which ones are good or not. And I just use Winsor Newton oils because I'm not very adventurous lol.
Posted
Seamas - I see what you're saying, particularly when I re-read your earlier post on the question generally; I do use Pthalo Green, by the way, though prefer Viridian, as a mixer. What I haven't yet done is mix it with a violet - I'm going to try this and see where I get with it.
Ms Pict - try Quinacridone Violet, sometimes known as Permanent Rose, or even Rose Madder (Hue) in place of Alizarin Crimson and see what you get; also Winsor Red, which I find very useful because it's a clean bright red with a slightly cool bias - makes great blacks when mixed with viridian or Pthalo Green. Many painters use Ivory Black, but I don't - or very rarely, anyway. I had a disastrous experience with it in a painting when it just 'crawled' - slipped from where it had been laid and wouldn't dry properly; horrible stuff when it does that... I still don't really know why it did, either, but I threw that tube out. It's a very oily paint - Mars Black is said to be easier to control. You can darken colours by adding their complementaries rather than black, which is broadly what I prefer to do. But - your method seems to be working for you!
Posted
MsP - there are several Quinacridone hues, and Permanent Rose might be Quin Violet, or even Quin magenta, depending on who makes it; they're all good, and lightfast - which real Alizarin Crimson isn't; introduced as a replacement for the fugitive Rose Madder Genuine, it's actually less lightfast than the Rose Madder was..... It's particularly vulnerable to fading in thin glazes, or when used with white; I wouldn't worry about it so much in other mixes. Of course, you may be using Permanent Alizarin, which is OK - quite how lightfast even that is, I'm not sure; but it has a good rating.
Yes, I suspect I had a faulty tube of Ivory Black, I remember it as being extremely oily (mind you, this was nearly 50 years ago! I've reached the age at which distant memories are clearer than recent ones) - you'll find, and probably HAVE found, that artists are divided down the middle on using black; and always have been, it seems. I used to use it, but very rarely do now: but of course, a lot depends on what you're actually painting - a touch of black can crispen things to just the right extent: but on the whole, I'm with Syd.
Posted
In general - and there's not necessarily a huge scientific justification for this, but there is a practical one - the primary hues are red, yellow, and blue; defined as such because you can't (in theory) mix red, yellow or blue from other colours; but you can mix just about any other colour with those three, plus white in opaque paint. In practice, and as Seamas has indicated, this theory requires a lot of adjustment - which it received to a considerable extent with the 'split-primary' argument. The split-primary theory works in practice - a warm and cool version of red, yellow, and blue will help with colour-mixing. When you start to really delve into the science of how colour is actually 'made', you enter into a whole world of elaboration and complication - Seamas has stepped into that world and made some interesting discoveries; and in actual fact, while the split primary system does work, very few of us, I would think, find it entirely satisfactory.
I shall have to leave it there for the moment, because I'm called away - but wouldn't want anyone to get too worried about the split primary system, or to start worrying too much about what a primary is or isn't.... investigation and experiment are interesting, but practicalities remain.
Posted
Here's one for Seamas though - on Facebook, an artist who is trying out the Zorn palette is asking what's the best black to make a blue - someone suggested that Zorn, being a crafty old devil, probably used Cerulean Blue rather than try to mix his Ivory Black to make an optical blue, but if anyone out there might know how to, t'will be Seamas.
Posted
Robert Jones, carbon black is the coolest black I've used. Mix that with a hint of cool yellow like a lemon, and some white and you'll have a blue.
Re this argument that there's a primary, or non-primary colour, and split systems and secondary primaries etc. Personally, I don't buy into any of it in particular. There are just colours and how to use them. James Gurney is great for digging around in limited palettes and getting great results - he has a set of videos called Painting in the Wild I think where he works with various colour combinations to create different effects. I have both his books, Colour and Light and Imaginative Realism which go into lots of lovely detail about different ways of looking at colour and colour wheels.
The way I see it, colour is a rainbow of light and if you look at the colour wheel as a circular rainbow, arguments about primaries etc go out the window because all the colour bleed into and affect each other in different ways. The best way I found to get good use out of colours and mixes is to just mix them and see what you get. Granted, I read and studied a lot of books, videos, blogs etc, and went to college a few times, so I didnt just come at this cold. But I do feel that people get bogged down in academic baggage trying to appear knowledgeable, which gets in the way of practical application.
Anyway, just my two bob's worth. I'm keeping out of technical discussions from now on. They tend to get a bit egocentric and I don't really have much time for that :)
Posted
They do: we had a lengthy argument about Zinc white in oil paint - the poster made a perfectly reasonable original point, but then got rather prescriptive; don't know if it was 'ego' or not, but people can become rather over-identified with a particular point of view.
I don't have much of a problem with yours, by the way, but insofar as I do have problems with it, they're theoretical - there are places for that (the Painting Best Practices forum, or the Traditional Oil Painting forum on Facebook, for instance) but I'm conscious that people looking for practical advice about actually applying colour can get turned-off by too much micro-analysis. And anyway, don't you find (I think you do, from what you've said) that when we actually get down to painting, yes of course we refer to knowledge tucked away at the back of our heads but so much of it gets translated into instinct, so you don't stop to analyse every blessed thing? I certainly don't have the split primary method in mind when I put my colours out... Or any other.
I don't want to discourage Seamas from his exploration of colour, that's the only thing keeping me coming back on this - a few of us who find this interesting can natter away, but I know most won't want to: and if their eyes glaze over, well - there are other threads....
Posted
Oh poo ..... I thought this might happen.....
Look, Seamas me old duck .... I don't think the 'ego' comment was directed at you; and what might have been of concern was that this is a site in which amateur and professional meet, including a fair number of beginners: so if any of them feel that these subjects are so confusing they give up at the first hurdle, well this is to be avoided.
But the other side of that is just as important - those of us who ARE interested in these issues are going to get very bored if all the forum does is repeat pre-digested wisdom all the time and never seeks to branch out: yes, some eyes glaze over, but others snap open. I said earlier, 'there are other threads' - no one HAS to read this one, nor is it reasonable to get annoyed with it for existing. I'm going to email you privately anyway, but I hope you stay here and bear in mind that arty types tend to be temperamental types too: there is a core of contributors, you're right about that, but if no one from 'outside' ever breaks in and stirs things up, it'll stay a core and start to rot from within.