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colour mixing
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Message
Posted
I have had an hour reading a thread on wet canvas about burnt sienna , they seem like academics ,and often drop a little hint of being one ,in fact,,this way of studying the number and content of each colour, making spectrums and reading handprint seems to be the big thing , I feel I cant join in the technical jargon ,and bull they use , am I inadequate because I just sit down now and again and enjoy, playing mixing colours,
are you like me and feel that you can mix a colour near enough to what you want ,with out all the PR this and PR pretentiousness
,
Posted
I'm with you here Alan. But we are all different and some are very interested in the technical side. It's not for me, the eyes tend to glaze over. I'm a bit more impulsive all round and just like to get stuck in. That's not to say I don't think and plan to a certain extent but overall I'm more "emotional" about it. As long as we all enjoy creating art in our own way then I suppose the approach is not so important.
Posted
Two things here, Alan - one, I am interested in the paint numbers and in the make-up, chemical (which I don't really understand) or otherwise of the paint, and the history, and all the rest. But the other thing is - you don't need to know all that! You just don't. You, in particular, have 60 plus years of experience in colour mixing - you taught me about using burnt umber, and showed me how delicate and useful it could be, in your YouTube videos. I wouldn't have got that from any in-depth discussion about the constituent parts of the paint.
If you want to learn about the refractive index of paint, you can. And it's very interesting (no doubt). But it doesn't really have the first thing in the known world to do with painting. I don't despise the academic stuff at all - it does interest me - it is important to learn as much as you can; I do believe that. But there's so much more to painting than the science: I don't dismiss the science at all; and I do find it of interest. But you know your colours through experience, and so do I - because when we were learning how to paint, frankly all this information just wasn't available. I've found some of it helpful, yes. But what's much more helpful is using the materials and getting to know them - like you, I learned about all that from experience, 50 years in my case, longer in yours.
I don't think one should despise the information now available to us, but do we have painters today who are better than the painters of yesterday because they know more about their raw materials? I think I know what your answer to that would be, and it'd be the same as mine. I DO want that information - it IS useful: but it's not the whole answer, and maybe it's not even a very big part of the whole answer. And anyway - I've watched your demos on YouTube: you're not careless in your choice of colours - you know what you're doing and you don't recommend fugitive or unsatisfactory pigments. You know what works and you know what you can rely on (and what you can't). You don't need a doctorate in the chemical composition of paint to tell you that, either.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
Edited
by RobertJones
Posted
I do agree with you Alan - I just want to paint and leave the study of esoterica to others. I'm the same with cars - love driving them and change mine regularly but the idea of finding out how that dirty noisy engine works and, worse still, putting my hands in it- yuk!
But then there are many issues with art with which I feel disconnected - for example, trying to read into what was in the artists mind - whenever I see this type of discussion raised I want to shout 'nothing and what does it matter anyway'. Just enjoy art for what it is.
Edited
by MichaelEdwards
Posted
Splosh, do you have any specific colour-mixing problem in acrylic? If so, I might be able to help - I've been using the stuff for long enough...
Good quality acrylic paint - of which there's a lot now available - shouldn't be any more difficult to mix than watercolour. Fifty years ago, colours were brash and limited, but now there's a huge range - some people don't mix colour much at all, but use it straight from the tube (Phil Kendall for instance: he likes to use all the colours he can lay his hands on, I think); others use few colours, and mix them as we would oil paint. Acrylic can tempt you into buying so many exciting colours, and some of the more exotic ones aren't really intended to be mixed at all, but to stand alone in their brilliance. I do tend to avoid these, and go for desaturated colour - which means I have to mix a lot. I was going to write another e-book, this time on acrylic, to follow up my tome on oil painting: but the eyesight has got in the way, plus a hefty dose of indolence. I'm still intending to do it though, and it would be very helpful to me if I were able to be helpful to you - in other words, tell me your problems (just the paint-mixing ones.... I can't do much for your private life!) and I might be able to resolve them and also inform myself of the principal difficulties people have with acrylic.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
Posted
I find the technical side of colour mixing interesting...to a point, but agree it is not necessary to learning how to mix colour and enjoy painting. The best advice I was ever given was to use a restricted palette and mix colours from that, some disasters followed but by and large I learned what worked and what didn't, although I can still cock it up (to use a technical term), These days I supplement the restricted palette with 'special' colours for particular paintings or for specific effects but the basic premise still holds good for me. I also have a dangerous tendency to add a 'new' colour on recommendation from others which all adds to the interest and the scope for more cock-ups!
Posted
Very true Alan and it's one reason I rarely visit wet canvas a lot of the members just want to hear themselves and it's all about inflated egos .
During the week an American lady sent me a message about her wonderful watercolour palette which had a total of 64 colours in it ( I kid you not ) she asked how many colours I used I said 6 a warm and a cool of each of the primaries ; I told her I wouldn't know where to begin if I had 64 colours 😊 Why do some artists try and make the painting process so difficult for themselves ?
Posted
When I came back to painting last year after not painting for many years I bought a whole lot of paints. Having had no formal training at all I thought I must get this and I must get that, now however, I've found that I do use much less of a variety as I've learned to mix colours of my own choice and I seem to get by ok, I like to do 'my own thing'. I have seen many tips on this forum which I try and find they work, the more I use colours the more confident I become. All the technical jargon sounds like gibberish to me so I will carry on doing what I'm doing and hope for the best as it's not as if I'm making a living from this hobby of mine, it's just pure pleasure in putting paint to paper.
Posted
Sixty-four colours??? Woof!
I bet Dermot's watercolourist is a devotee of the Daniel Smith or Old Holland ranges, which are huge - too huge; I feel sorry for anyone new to painting confronted with that lot - how are they supposed to know what's useful, and what's just a luxury colour?
Man thing, eh? Might be - but having read a book on colour-mixing years ago by an American woman, forgotten her name, which blithely recommended colours which weren't even marginally lightfast, I felt that particular woman could have done with a bit more basic research. These days, I do run on instinct more than anything else - because I have trouble remembering the chemical composition of different colours, but I know in general terms what makes a sound pigment: and that's all you really need to know. I couldn't tell you if an earth red was a PB7, and it doesn't matter because all earth reds are lightfast. When you get to some of the primary reds and yellows, though - it helps to know. Because they're often not. Stick to the cadmiums, and earth colours; perylene, quinacridone, pyrroles, cobalts - and you won't go far wrong.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk
Posted
alanowen (11/12/2016)Bull, I feel, is the right word. You can cut and paste anything from the inter net and maybe this is what these so-called academics are doing (plonkers) I think many of us have been painting long enough to mix a colour we want and enjoy doing so.
I have had an hour reading a thread on wet canvas about burnt sienna , they seem like academics. I feel I cant join in the technical jargon ,and bull they use , am I inadequate because I just sit down now and again and enjoy, playing mixing colours, are you like me and feel that you can mix a colour near enough to what you want ,with out all the PR this and PR pretentiousness ,
Posted
Thank you for your offer of assistance Robert re Acrylic.
Here are my most common problems.
1 Most acrylic dries darker than the wet colour.
2 I thought that if you mix Red with blue, you should get some form of purple, but not so - you could get grey. the colours do not seem to blend in the same way as watercolour or oil.
3 The colours do not seem to want to mix - it takes a lot of stirring.
4 How to achieve dark greens, without becoming too blue (of the viridian kind) or too brown (with umber mixes).
5 Blending on the paper is rarely an option.
6 Some of the more exotic colours are very transparent - more like a glaze, and so do not add much impact when used in a mix.
Hope this gives you a flavour of my frustration. Thanks, Linda
PS I've posted a WIP on the gallery for comment. So if you could add any tips for this one, particularly regarding the greens it would help - It called tiger on the prowl.
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