easier way to mix paint?

[aussiedeza]

when i am trying to make up my palette I make a huge mess and waste a lot of paint i generally use a palette knife when mixing via grabbing one color dabbing it down cleaning the knife grabbing another color and then mixing it in then I clean the knife again grab more of one of other colors and continue mix it in by the time I have reached the color I wanted I hardly have any paint left its all in my rag =(.

I know their must be an easier way to mix paint and would love to hear about others methods because as far as i can tell nobody ever talks about it and it is a thing that frustrates me too tears, I prefer picking colors on the PC but i enjoy learn more about color traditional just sucks that it is taking me hours to mix paint any help people??? if it helps I am currently practicing with the zorn palette.

[aussiedeza]

O and i don't add mediums while i am mixing could that be part of my problem?

[Elwell]

What shaped knife are you using? I prefer a diamond shaped blade, about 2" long, with a crank handle. Also, bring all your colors to the proper value first.

[aussiedeza]

Heh i hoped you might reply you are definetly a helpful one =). I use a diamond crank shaped knife and it's nose is rounded. Alot of the paint travels up the diamond tip and i try to get it back on the palette and just end up spreading it everywhere so i wipe it away in a rag or i end up tainting my other paints and all this is occurring at the start just when im am just trying to get all my values =). i figured it would be something i would get better at with time but i just keep making mess and lose patience and end up paint with the colors that our easiest to mix which leads to average paintings. so any help would be awesome.

sorry about spelling and stuff im trying to not get paint on the keyboard =).

[aussiedeza]

O and my palette knife is a cheapie and is really flexible could that be an issue i just figured they where all flexible.

[Seedling]

Are you using a flat palette? Those little plastic thingys with the cups are for watercolors, not acrylics or oils. Are you using the underside of the palette knife to squish the paint? Squish with the bottom, then scrape it into a pile, then squish off the excess. Do it right and none gets on top of the knife, and most is squished off of the underside.

[edit] the diamond-shaped knives with a bent rod are the right kind of palette knife for this. The palette knives that are shaped like butter knives should be thrown away. :P

[aussiedeza]

Are you using a flat palette? Those little plastic thingys with the cups are for watercolors, not acrylics or oils. Are you using the underside of the palette knife to squish the paint? Squish with the bottom, then scrape it into a pile, then squish off the excess. Do it right and none gets on top of the knife, and most is squished off of the underside.

[edit] the diamond-shaped knives with a bent rod are the right kind of palette knife for this. The palette knives that are shaped like butter knives should be thrown away. :P


cool thanks seedling yes i have used those stupid plastic cups when i first started, now days i just grab anything flat i can find as most of the time i dont bother cleaning it and throw it away =).
I do use the bottom to squish but i have never concentrated on only doing that so maybe thats the key wish me luck =) , and yes i do feel stupid asking this question but ya never know i thought there might be some pro secret that i am missing out on.

i guess it takes allot of squishing to mix it through thou?.

[Elwell]

You know, I'd never actually consciously thought about this until now, so I just mixed up some paint and observed myself.
Here's how I do it:
Cut off small amount of color "A" with tip of knife and put it in a clear area of the palette.
Cut off small amount of color "B" and put it next to "A".
Roughly stir a few times with the tip/side of the knife, alternating clockwise and counterclockwise.
Slide under the pile of paint with the knife, scoop up, flip over, smoosh down. Repeat several times, with the occasional stir as needed.
I get little to no buildup on the knife.

[Seedling]

Elwell, I'm still hearing Homer Simpson's voice when I read your words. It's rather amusing. :)

[Mr-Joe]

I had similar troubles with a pallet knife, the paint was a problem to mix, and it would end up all over the pallet knife and I'd just wipe it off with a rag, today I was painting, I took a medium to large sized brush, a crummy brush, and I did pretty much what elwell said but with a brush, If you sort of feel the paint on the brush, its easy to not clog the brush up with paint, you kinda use it like a spoon, snag some paint, ploop it down, then snag some other color, and give it a scrub together, then I just wiped the brush a couple times on a old phone book paper and snagged the next color to mix, and repeat.
I like the feel of how it mixed better than the pallet knife, the knife to me sort of smudges all the paint down really really flat and in a larger area and seems like i waste more paint with it. Also I was doing this on a wooden pallet, I hear that a piece of glass is really good for mixing paints because you can just wipe it off real easily.

[dbclemons]

Personally, I prefer to mix in rather small batches, and like to use the rubber-tipped shapers instead of a knife. Also, there is a difference between a palette knife and a painting knife. You could use a palette knife to apply paint, but their blades are typically less flexible.


Value, as Elwell said, is very important. It doesn't take much to darken a lighter shade, and correcting that to be lighter can be difficult. Make that value transition in gradual darker stages. Also, some pigments are rather weak and transparent, so adjustments to them are more dramatic than with more opaque pigments.

My mixing method is similar to what Elwell described. I mix up a couple pigments to get a base for whatever my targeted color is, and then add a lighter value on one end and a darker value on the other. Sometimes I branch that off into another hue family. It can become a rather large area of mixed paint, but it's separated by different properties.

As for medium, that's important in regards to the density of the paint you're applying, but not so much with color mixing. Get the color that you want first, and then adjust it with medium if necessary.

[dose]

I mix with the brush, and partially on the canvas. I find that the color I mix on the palette looks very different on the canvas. I tend to work something like this (all with the brush):

- Mix up my best guess and make a little touch on the canvas.
- Adjust and touch again
- Repeat

I find working in this way has some advantages. It forces you to constantly reconsider the color, and prevents you from carelessly laying down large areas of color without finding some kind of value or temperature shift (which there almost certainly will be). Also, you'll often end up with more complex colors than you could mix off the top of your head.

It's like when you're cooking- you can follow the recipe exactly or keep tasting it as you cook, thinking "oh, now it needs a bit of pepper". Either way is has its advantages and disadvantages, but I find the latter more enjoyable and it seems to be the one people are less aware of.

I use the palette knife mainly for cleanup or "special effects".