COLOUR MIXING

ESSENTIALS
By Peter Keegan

Tutor
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LESSON 1 - THE COLOUR
WHEEL
There are an infinite number of colours in the world, which can be
overwhelming to an artist.

However, all the colours you’ll ever need, regardless of subject

matter or medium, can be made from a simplified colour spectrum
or colour wheel.

There are lots of different variations of the colour wheel but they are
all essentially very similar. They are made up of:

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Primary Colours

RED BLUE YELLOW

Primary colours cannot be mixed or made by combining other

colours.

Secondary Colours

VIOLET GREEN ORANGE

(RED + BLUE) (YELLOW + BLUE) (RED + YELLOW)

Secondary colours are made by mixing two of the primary colours

together.

Tertiary Colours

These are made by mixing a primary colour and its neighbouring

secondary colour on the colour wheel.

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 PRIMARY

TERTIARY TERTIARY

SECONDARY SECONDARY

TERTIARY TERTIARY

PRIMARY PRIMARY

TERTIARY TERTIARY

SECONDARY

OTHER TERMS TO NOTE

Tint
A tint is any colour with white added to it. Adding white will make a
colour lighter and also neutralise the natural bright hue.

Shade
A shade is any colour with black added to it. Adding black will make a
colour darker and also neutralise the natural bright hue.

Tone
A tone is any colour with both black and white (grey) added to it. A
colour with grey added is said to be ‘toned down’.

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LESSON 2 - COLOUR RELATIVITY
Look at the following image of a Rubik's cube by Beau Lotto:

Rubiks Cube image by Beau Lotto.

The orange and brown squares above are identical in colour. The
reason they appear different is because of the colours surrounding
them.

This phenomenon is known as colour relativity or comparative

colour. The human eye can only see colours in the context of the
colours around them.

Here’s another example:

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It appears as though there are red and pink squares in the image on
the left. In actual fact, they are the same colour, which you can see
when the green squares are removed in the image on the right.

The ‘pink’ squares are surrounded by white and the ‘red’ squares are
surrounded by green, and it’s that neighbouring colour that makes all
the difference to how you perceive things.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ARTISTS?

You see an object and you expect it to be a certain colour I.e. a New
York cab is yellow and an English post box is red - and this is their
native or local colour.

But when you observe closely, within those objects will be all kinds of
colours quite different to their local colour. There might be greys,
browns, purples and so on.

If you don’t closely observe and just go from what you think the
object’s colour should be, you’ll make poor colour mixing choices.

Paint what you see, not what you think you see.

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LESSON 3 - REFLECTED LIGHT
Light that falls onto any object you are painting can be divided into
two types:

• Direct light
• Reflected light

Direct Light
This comes from a main light source, such as the sun or an artificial
lamp. Direct light creates the lightest areas on an object.

Reflected Light
This is light that bounces off other objects, such as a wall, floor or
other objects close by. Reflected light is the most apparent in areas
that are in shadow.

DIRECT LIGHT

REFLECTED LIGHT

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Reflected light, and the colours it can cast into areas where you least
expect them, can be tricky to see at first. But adding them to your
work can both enhance the sense of form and add extra interest to
your subject.

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 LESSON 4 - COLOUR
TEMPERATURE
Generally speaking, colours can be divided into one of two
temperature categories:

• Warm colours
• Cool colours

Warm Colours
Warm colours are typically those found in the red, orange and
yellow side of the colour wheel. Warmer cooler typically
advance subjects towards the foreground.

Cool Colours
Cool colours are those found in the blue, purple and green
side of the colour wheel. White is technically the coolest
colour so adding white make it cooler. Cooler colours typically
recede subjects into the background.

A colour’s temperature isn’t set in stone and is relative to other

colours it’s compared to. Look at these examples:

Here, the green card is However, when placed And even the cool blue
cooler than the yellow next to this cool blue, the can be classed as warm
green becomes warm if placed next to an even
cooler blue

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While some colours are obviously very warm (a bright, fiery red or
orange), and some are very clearly cool (a pale, mint green), some
colours are difficult to identify as warm or cool.

Neutral and pastel colours can be particularly difficult to class as

warm or cool, even when placed alongside each other. But don’t
worry about that now, at this stage you just need to have an
awareness of what colour temperature is.

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LESSON 5 - COLOUR VALUE
A colour’s value is how light or dark that colour is.

It’s one of the most important qualities to recreate when mixing your
colours.

You can easily identify a colour’s value, or how light/dark it is by

converting it to black and white. In the example below, it’s obvious
that the green is darker and so has greater value than the yellow:

However, very different colours can all have exactly the same value.
In other words, they can be as light or as dark as each other:

Value is what creates form in your paintings. When you paint an

object with form, you give the illusion that it is three-dimensional -

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that the viewer can reach in and grab it - rather than it just being a
series of marks on a flat, two-dimensional painting surface.

If you paint a simple object with different colours but pay no

attention to value, the viewer may be able distinguish the various
shapes within that object, but it won’t look solid. It will lack form:

In the left hand cube no regard has been made to value, with all the
colours the same strength of value. In the right hand cube,
appropriate value has been applied to each face.

Now look at the difference when the cubes are reduced to greyscale
values as below.

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HOW TO JUDGE VALUE
Use a Camera Phone
Any reasonably modern phone with a camera will allow you to edit a
photo and convert it to black and white.

This means you can take photos of your painting, reference material
and even palette as you’re progressing.

Squint Your Eyes

Squinting and defocusing your eyes has the effect of dulling down
colour and slowing you to judge values more easily.

Look at the coloured disc on the next page. Which colour is darker
(has greater value) - the green segment or the pink segment?

If you squint your eyes you should see all of the colours start to
merge into one value. The green and pink have the same amount of
value - as do all the other colours!

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EXERCISE
1. On the page below you’ll find a grey scale split into two strips.
Print the page, cut out the strips and lay them end-to-end
(lightest to darkest) on a hard, flat surface.

2. On page 16 you’ll find a series of 15 coloured squares. Print this

page and cut them out.

3. Give yourself one to two minutes to lay the coloured squares

underneath the value scale in what you believe to be the correct
position.

4. Once complete, take an overhead photo with your camera phone

and convert to black and white to see how you’ve done.

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LESSON 6 - MIXING MUDDY
COLOURS
There are no pure colours. Every colour in your paint box will lean
slightly towards another colour - even the primary colours of red,
blue and yellow.

This is known as colour’s bias.

For example, a lemon yellow contains a hint of blue, making it cooler

and more acidic. A cadmium yellow on the other hand, contains a
hint of red, making it warmer.

Lemon yellow has a blue Cadmium yellow has a

bias, making it cooler red bias, making it
warmer

In a later lesson, being able to identify the colour bias of the colours
on your palette will help you mix more accurate colours, in less time.

EMBRACE ‘MUDDY’ COLOURS

The vast majority of colours you’ll need for a painting will be wide
variation of muted colours or tones.

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A muted tone in this case is simply some mixture of all three
primaries (red, plus blue, plus yellow) and white.

It’s very unlikely that any subject matter you paint will comprise
completely of bright, saturated hues. If it did, it would look garish
and detract from any sense of realism or artistic design.

Instead, the majority of your painting should comprise of more

muted tones, with small amounts of vibrant colour where you want
the viewer’s attention to be drawn.

Hold My Hand - Peter Keegan, 2017

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AVOIDING TOO MANY MUDDY
COLOURS
If you find yourself mixing a lot of muddy colours, that look
overworked and are too brown or too grey, try the following rule of
thumb:

Avoid using more than three colours on your

palette to mix a new colour

Also, avoid over-blending your colours on either the palette or

painting surface.

Remember, the colour you see will almost always be less

saturated than you think. In other words, it will have less vibrancy,
less intense colour than you appear to be observing. For example:

The colour your brain The actual colour that

thinks it’s observing you need to mix

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LESSON 7 - MIXING ACCURATE
COLOURS: PART 1
Watch the video demonstration of this lesson, then complete the
exercise below.

EXERCISE
On your palette, lay out three primary colours and white. Peter uses
cadmium red, cadmium yellow and ultramarine blue.

Print out the coloured squares on the following page and mix them
as closely as possible using just your three primaries and white.

Tips
• Focus first and foremost on matching the value (lightness or
darkness) of each coloured square.

• As you mix your colour, think about whether it needs to be darker

or lighter. Ask what colours you could add to make it lighter (i.e.
yellow or white) and what colours you could add to make it darker
(i.e. red or blue).

• Add more of a darker or lighter colour to adjust the value as you

need - but only add it to half your initial mix. This way you have a
bit of the original mix to experiment further with.

• As you add that darker or lighter colour to adjust the value, ask
yourself whether the temperature of the colour is becoming too
warm or too cool.

• If it’s becoming too warm or too cool, try adding one of the other
colours on your palette to address that (but don’t lose the value!).

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Watercolourists
If you’re following this exercise with watercolours, you can obviously
forgo the white. To lighten the value of a colour mix, you can add
more water to it. To darken the value, use a stronger mix of paint
with less water.

With watercolour, you may have to paint more than one layer
(allowing the previous one to dry) to get a very accurate colour
match. Don’t worry about that at this stage - mix the closest colour
you can in value and temperature.

Remember: watercolours will dry up to 50% lighter than when you

first add them to the paper. Mix darker, stronger colours than you
think and judge the result when it dries.

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LESSON 8 - MIXING ACCURATE
COLOURS: PART 2
Watch the video demonstration of this lesson, then complete the
exercise below.

EXERCISE
Using the colours from the last exercise and the reference photo on
the following page, mix an area of flesh colour from the middle of the
girl’s cheek.

Try first and foremost to match the value (darkness or lightness of

colour).

Next, choose an area of dark brown from her hair and repeat the
process.

Finally, choose an area of shadow on her cheek and mix that.

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LESSON 9 - TRICKY COLOURS
Some colours will be tricky to mix from just three primaries on your
palette. It’s probably less than you think so give yourself plenty of
opportunity to mix a colour from just three primaries and white.

However, when you come across a colour that you just can’t seem to
mix, it’s time to add an additional colour to your palette.

A good rule of thumb is to add another primary colour that is

opposite in temperate to the primary you have already selected.

Here are some examples:

Cool Yellows Cool Blues Cool Reds

• Lemon yellow • Cerulean blue • Permanent rose

• Hanza yellow light • Pthalo blue • Alizarin crimson
• Cadmium yellow • Prussian blue • Rose madder
light

Warm Yellows Warm Blues Warm Reds

• Yellow ochre • Ultramarine blue • Cadmium red

• New gamboge • Cobalt blue • Vermillion
• Cadmium yellow • Indrathene blue • Light red
medium & deep

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LESSON 10 - THE POWER OF
COMPLEMENTARIES
Colours that are immediately opposite each other on the colour
wheel are called complementary colours.

So the complementary colour of red is green. The complementary

colour of yellow is violet. The complementary colour of blue is
orange.

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Complementary colours placed next to each other can enhance the
effect of one another, making them appear even more vibrant and
dazzling.

Impression, Sunrise - Claude Monet, 1872

In the above painting by Claude Monet, he has used the

complementary colour of blue (orange) to achieve a buzzing and an
atmospheric effect.

A painting that consists of predominantly one colour or colour string

(i.e. mostly greens) with some vibrant spots of complementary colour
(i.e. red) can become a very strong visual design.

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The following painting is made up mainly of green tones:

The addition of some complementary colour, in this case red, can

really add extra interest and becomes more engaging to the viewer:

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Here’s a another example where a complementary colour has been
used to draw attention to the focal point of the painting:

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LESSON 11 - MIXING
COMPLEMENTARIES
Mixing complementary colours together has the opposite effect of
placing them next to each other - it creates a duller, toned down
colour.

This is because you are effectively mixing all three primaries of red,
yellow and blue when you mix any two complementaries together.

Mixing all three primaries in various proportions is a great way to mix

‘mud’ - browns, greys and even blacks - and very often you want
those colours.

PURPOSEFULLY MIXING ‘MUD’

We’ve seen from an earlier lesson, that toned down and more
neutral colours should usually make up the bulk of a painting.

However, ‘toned down’ does not necessarily mean brown or grey. If

your painting consists of too many muddy browns and greys, instead
of ‘coloured’ tones, it can negatively impact the entire look the image.

Muddy tones Coloured tones

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To avoid mixing mud (unless you want it), avoid mixing colours in
equal quantities, where no single colour is more dominant.

Instead, have a dominant colour with small proportions of its

complementary mixed into it.

In the following example, lemon yellow has been toned down with its
complementary, purple. Equal measures of yellow and purple create
a muddy brown in the centre.

The left hand side of the colour string is where the yellow dominates
but is toned down with the addition of the complementary.

And here’s another example of red being toned down with green (or
vice versa):

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LESSON 12 - OPTICAL
BLENDING
A different approach to mixing colours on your palette is to either
place them side-by-side or on top of one another (after the previous
layer has dried).

This type of colour mixing is called optical blending and it’s your eye
(or brain) that does the mixing. It was developed by Pointillists such
as Georges Seurat.

In the close up below of Claude Monet’s The Japanese Footbridge, a

layer of wet paint is dragged across a layer of dry paint. The texture
of the dry brush strokes underneath break up the freshly applied
brushstrokes on top of them, revealing both sets of colours:

The Japanese Footbridge, Sunrise - Claude Monet, 1920-1922

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Placing Colours Side-By-Side & On Top of Each
Other

Here’s a series of blues dabbed next to and on top of each other.

They aren’t mixed at any stage - instead your eye is left to interpret
an overall blue colour:

Using Washes or Glazes

The example below starts with a light wash of yellow, which is

allowed to dry.

A thin wash of blue is then glazed over the top.

Even though the yellow and blue are not mixed together, the yellow
underlay showing through the thin wash of blue is read by the eye as
a green.

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Scumbling

A green base is applied first and allowed to dry or almost dry. This
might represent a large area within a landscape painting.

A broken or hit and miss line of dusty red is then dragged over the
top. From a typical viewing distance, this will give the impression of
brown tones, as your eye optically mixes the red with the green.

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LESSON 13 - ANALOGOUS &
TERTIARY COLOURS
Colours that are from the same area on the colour wheel are known
as harmonies.

Using harmonies in a painting can create a calm and tranquil

atmosphere that has a real unity to it. The unity comes from fewer
colours and therefore less opportunity for colour clashes.

Paintings made up of harmonies can lack drama. To make up for this,

you can use bold values (very strong darks and very light lights) or
add a few vibrant spot colours in places.

The two most common ranges of harmonious colours are:

• Tertiary colours
• Analogous colours

TERTIARY COLOURS
A tertiary colour is made by mixing a primary and one of its
neighbouring secondary colours on the colour wheel.

For example, blue (primary) mixed with violet (secondary) will give
you a blue-violet tertiary colour.

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 TERTIARY
COLOURS

ANALOGOUS COLOURS
Analogous colours are groups of three or four colours that are next
to each other on the colour wheel.

They usually match well and create serene and comfortable designs.
You’ll often find them in nature.

Select any colour on the colour wheel as your dominant colour, and
then using the two or three colours surrounding it, add those to your
palette. You can of course use white and black to create tints, shades
and tones.

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 ANALOGOUS
COLOURS

NOTE: while the above image shows sets of colours divided neatly around the wheel,
you could select any three or four colours next to each other (i.e. mix of blues and
greens, or reds and oranges for example.

Again, you can conservatively add accents of the complementary

colour to your dominant colour, around the focal point.

Here’s an example analogous colour palette, where the left-most

blue is the dominant colour and the orange is the accent
complementary:

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LESSON 14 - PALETTE
MANAGEMENT
How do you lay out your colours on your palette?

There is no right and wrong answer but whatever system you

choose, it pays to be consistent.

By doing this, you’ll get to know where each colour is, picking them
up automatically. It can really speed up your mixing and decision
making.

Here are three palette management choices:

Option 1: Warm to Cool

Arrange your colours from warmest at one end to coolest at the

other end, with black and white at far ends.

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Option 2: Light to Dark

Arrange your colours from lightest to darkest (white through to

black) or vice versa.

Option 3: Spectrum

Arrange your palette according to the colour spectrum (red, orange,

yellow, green, blue / indigo, violet). Earth tones at the end.

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LESSON 15 - COLOUR PALETTES
The colours yo choose to layout on your palette will ultimately
determine the look and feel of your painting.

A palette of earthy browns and dark values will look quite traditional
due to the limited colours available hundreds of years ago.

A palette with brighter, vivid colours will result in a more modern

contemporary feel.

Here are some examples of palettes from famous artists:

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