Questions regarding color mixing

[Sepulverture]

Hey there everyone

I'm working on a painting at the moment but having troubles mixing up the colors I want.

I'm working in acrylics and the colors on my palette are;

Titanium White
Ultramarine
Green Mid
Rose Grey
Vermilion
Orange Red
Burnt Sienna
Raw Sienna
Yellow Ocher
Yellow Mid
Ivory Black

The problem is that I'm trying to mix some brighter colors, but I don't know if it's just lack of experience or my palette that's making it hard to mix the colors I want.

How can I increase the value of a hue without loosing intensity of the hue. Obviously if I just mix in titanium white with a hue then that color will become brighter, but will become more and more desaturated the more I mix the white into it. So the question is how can I take for example my ultramarine and mix it into a brighter shade of blue without suffering too much loss in hue intensity?

Also with these colors on my palette how can I mix a brighter purple or violet? As it is every time I try to mix it the colors come out somewhat muddy, or as the wrong hue, and usually not brighter in value like I wanted to vegin with

[dbclemons]

I don't know how you're painting, but brightness is often a result of the value of the surface you're painting on, rather than the mix on your palette. Since most of the brighter value pigments are somewhat transparent, if you're painting on top of a dark opaque layer or toned ground then it tends to make your new layer dark as well. Ultramarine although fairly dark also tends to be somewhat transparent. It only takes a small amount to make a color change.

[Noah Bradley]

I would recommend having a warm and cool version of each of your primaries. A cobalt or cerulean blue would go well with your ultramarine. Purples are tricky things, but having an alizarin crimson on your palette could help. It's good to get pigments as close to your goal color as possible to begin mixing with. Trying to mix, say, a purple using cad. red and cobalt blue would be sheer insanity. Mixing alizarin and ultramarine is going to give you a better shot at it.

And now prepare yourself as someone who really knows something about color tells you the complete opposite advice. :)

[bjoern3000]

I would do the following:

mix the blue and white to a lighter value than desired. After it has dried, glaze with your pure blue.

[bjoern3000]

I would do the following:

mix the blue and white to a lighter value than desired. After it has dried, glaze with your pure blue.

[Zazerzs]

I suggest taking a look at my color link and giving it a read, its only 80 pages and should shed an immense amount of light on the subject.

[kikindaface]

Hey dude,have the same issue, i was also trying to know how to change the saturation, without changing the value, you know, going from a saturated green, to a desaturated green, with always the same value ! Well found these vids, didn't watch them tho : http://www.ehow.com/video_4954100_color-theory-tints-tones.html ! Maybe my answer is inside :p

[Zazerzs]

just watched em, she's hard to understand.

Mixing colors isn't about adding a little of this or a little of that and seeing what happens, its about knowing what to mix to get the exact color you want.

Fletcher gives you this information.

[kikindaface]

Ok thanks for posting the book ! I quickly look at it, seems interesting ! I'll read it during my free time ! I just hope that it's not hard to understand, like english isn't my native language .

[Zazerzs]

Ok thanks for posting the book ! I quickly look at it, seems interesting ! I'll read it during my free time ! I just hope that it's not hard to understand, like english isn't my native language .

if you have any questions please just post them in the thread and I will try to clear up any that you have.

its funny the exercises she shows in her vid from her past are nicely done, so it seems she knows what shes talking about, but her videos don't go into enough depth to help out anyone beyond the very basics and listening to her is sort of a chore.

[dose]

Regarding Ultramarine- When you add titanium white to ultramarine blue you go up in value, lose chroma, and probably have only a very small shift in hue. To get a higher chroma blue at the lighter values, here are a few possibilities:

1) Use Zinc white instead of Titanium. Zinc is more transparent and generally allows for higher chroma mixtures than Titanium.

2) Use Phthalo blue, which has a higher chroma than ultramarine. It's slightly greener than ultramarine, so you may need to add some kind of purple or purple-red to pull it back towards purple-blue if you want the hue to match. Note that if you replace Ultramarine with phthalo blue, you will have more trouble mixing purples. It will also be much higher chroma than anything else on your palette, which may make it hard to manage.

3) Use cerulean blue, which is generally higher chroma at medium value than ultramarine + titanium. Note that it's also greener than ultramarine.

As for your question about mixing purple- I believe you are lacking a red-purple on your palette and won't be able to mix a high chroma purple. I'm not familiar with Rose Gray, but even if the hue is red-purple the 'gray' implies it's low chroma. I would add Alizarin Crimson (get a permanent version), or Quinacridone Magenta. Quinacridone is higher chroma than Alizarin, but like Phthalo blue will be much higher chroma than anything else on your palette (though it is very transparent and thus easier to manage). Note that, like the blues and blue-purples, Zinc white will produce higher chroma mixtures for purple compared to titanium.

You could also add a purple pigment to your palette.

[Sepulverture]

Hey everyone thanks a lot for the speedy replies. This problem has been driving me nuts for the past few days.

With regard to the colors on my palette I felt that it was somewhat an incomplete palette but I'm in the position where these are mostly the only hues that are offered at the art stores where I live. I think that they have a cobalt blue, and one or two of the cadmium color (it may have been cerulean blue, I can't remember now I'll have to check). So I'm working with a somewhat restricted palette. I could order the colors, but that would be outrageously expensive to ship to where I live.

Stupid as it is (also kind of understandable though) they have these colors in oils, but the acrylic selection is dreadful to say the least.

Zazerzs - I already began reading the Fletcher link when you made the suggestion in my acrylic painting thread in the downloadables section. I am a somewhat slow reader (why I prefer hands on learning from "academic" book learning, as it were) and it's been tremendously helpful in filling in some of the blank spots. Thanks again for posting this up on these boards, I am chugging through it.

Walid D - I will watch the videos if I can. Streaming video SUCKS here unless it's from domestic servers, but I will try to wait it out and get what information there is to be had from it for a total beginner.

Does anyone else have any suggestions for videos (preferably ones I can choose to download instead of simply streaming)? Of course any videos related to color mixing would be helpful regardless if they are acrylic or oil. I'm sure that the two media react slightly differently when mixing your palette with them, and the techniques will vary just because of the drying times, but color knowledge is still color knowledge I guess

Thanks again guys.

[Zazerzs]

awesome, sorry to double post, I thought i had suggested Fletcher to ya but wasn't sure and it's kinda my quick answer to any questions on color mixing,pallet layout, color keying ect.

[Sepulverture]

No worries Zazerzs. Thanks for taking the time :)