simple color question

[retro]

http://free.pages.at/retro002/still_001.jpg

i'm working on a simple stillife (maybe 3 l's?) here. just got a stupid question, i'm a bit worried about the contrast, not getting the dark parts dark enough.

i use only cerulian blue, vermillion, cad yellow and titanium white. is it possible to mix really dark colours with that palette? this may probably sound stupid to most of you, but i'm a real noob in the world of color.

thanks (and please dont kill me for the composition)

[geoffd]

i'm going way out on a limb here and i'm going to say that if you mix the blue, red and yellow you may get a nice muddy dark color, BUT i'm inept when it comes to color so don't quote me on that. and honestly what you have going on in that painting looks mighty fantastic as is. really a nice job... fantastic, especially with your limited palette. :clapping1:

[Elwell]

Originally posted by retro
i use only cerulian blue, vermillion, cad yellow and titanium white. is it possible to mix really dark colours with that palette?

No. First of all, are you using genuine vermillion (unlikely) and cerulian? If not, it's likely that the mixtures that have been used to simulate those pigments already have some white in them.

Now lets look at value. Cad yellow is about an eight or nine, depending on the shade. Vermillion is about a value five. Cerulian is usually about a three or four. Mixing the red and blue, even if there is some darkening due to color shift, it's unlikely you'll be able to get much darker than say a third value, and adding yellow to that will only lighten it.

Finally, vermillion and cerulian both have a yellow bias, the darkest mixture you can get with the two of them will range from brown to olive green. You won't be able to get a true nuetral.

Not that any of this means that you can't use these colors to make a succesful painting, and as a matter of fact what you have looks pretty good so far. It just means your options are going to be constrained. Making color charts like the ones in Richard Schmidt's book Alla Prima are a great way to learn about color mixing, and the process is much less intimidating when you're using a limited palette like this.

[retro]

thanks elwell, that's what i was looking for. can you recommend any book on the topic? the one mentioned seems a bit pricy to me http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966211715/bjrgallery-20/104-8855495-1200718