Watercolour  Class 1

 Mixing Greys and Darks

 Greys can be mixed by using the colours compliment ie Compliment of yellow is purple, by adding a TINY amount you will kill the brilliance of the yellow. 

Therefore if you mix the three primary colours together in equal amounts you will also mix greys, the beauty of this method is that you can increase one of the colours to create cool , warm ,pink , green greys. If you allow the colours to merge together in the wash you will create luminous fresh greys. 

Using earth colours you can also create a range of greys from only two colours, use Raw Umber, Burnt sienna, Burnt Umber and any Blue or Permanent Violet.

Mix any blue in turn with Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna or Burnt Umber adding more of one colour to head toward blue or alternately “red”

Do this with all your various blues to achieve different shades of blue greys.

If you use opaque colours eg Cerulean  Blue the wash will granulate.  

Using less water and more pigment will give you stronger darks with these mixes.

Mixing luscious darks requires transparent colours, use Alizarin and Sap Green, French Ultra and Alizarin, Phthalo Blue and Burnt Umber, Permanent Violet and Burnt Umber Phthalo Blue and Permanent Violet. To achieve really dark colours use less water more pigment. 

Paint an entire painting from 2 colours then paint an  entire painting using three primary colours.  

EXPERIMENT AND ENJOY

Cheers Lyn Fraser - Roberts