Tutorials Painting Tutorials Watercolour Primaries
Watercolour Primaries
Monday, 02 March 2009 20:23 Joan
Posted in Painting Tutorials
Many people who have a strong desire to paint start off buying many different colours which is not only confusing but also expensive and completely unnecessary! Only the paint manufacturers end up smiling!
A good exercise is to take a look at the colour wheel’s 3 primaries’ Red, Yellow and Blue, which, as many of you must know, cannot be mixed from any other colours. However, one must also bear in mind that these are by no means pure colours and it is very easy to mix ‘mud’ which is then discarded in dismay and is so wasteful! There are, obviously, different reds, blues and yellows so which ones must you choose?!
The following colours can be mixed successfully and in fact a painting can be happily completed with these 3 primary colours and it is a good and worthwhile exercise.
Crimson Alizarin + Cadmium Yellow = Orange
Cadmium Yellow + French Ultramarine Blue = Green
Crimson Alizarin + French Ultramarine Blue = Purple
Then the Orange and Green mixed will give you Raw Sienna
Purple and the Green mixed will give you Burnt Umber
Orange and Purple will give you Burnt Sienna.
Try Painting a colour wheel and instead of one red, one blue and one yellow, split each into two
i.e. orangy red and purply red
orangy yellow and greenish yellow
greenish blue and purply blue
From these colours you can select a basic palette of colours which will work together to give you a great range of colours to choose from without all that expense of buying the ready made ones!
Here are my suggestions -
ROSE MADDER GENUINE (OR QUINACRIDONE VIOLET) (purply reds)
CADMIUM RED (LIGHT) (orangy red)
ULTRAMARINE BLUE (purply blue)
CERULEAN BLUE (slightly green) (Also COBALT which is a good balance between the two)
CADMIUM YELLOW (warm orangy yellow)
LEMON YELLOW (greeny yellow) (Also AUREOLIN a balance between the two)
So one needs to use one’s brain when colour mixing as much thought is required! Coloured illustrations are required to clarify this subject of Colour Mixing so this can be shown, hopefully, in a future article. Just keep practising and learn as much as you can about the amazing world of colour!
