Mixing Colors

Tertiary Colors

Analogous Colors

What are Analogous Colors?

These are three colors that are directly adjacent to each other on the color wheel. They relate to each other because they each contain one common color.

They are frequently used for a special feel in a painting and work very well together, but often give the feeling like something is missing.

To complete the feeling of balance in the painting, the complement of the dominant color can be used as just a small accent if desired.

If you don't want to use the complement, you can enrich the colors and add variety by

* Using white to lighten any of the colors, or

* By using the complements of each color to darken or gray them down.

This will add variety to the painting and still maintain the effect of restricting yourself to the analogous colors.

This is an example of green, blue-green, and blue being used together. They are next to each other on the color wheel with blue as the common primary color. It is blue because green is made from blue and yellow and blue-green is from the resulting green plus more blue.

To me, it gives the feeling of the sea.

This is the mixture of yellow, yellow-green and green. The common primary color is yellow.

The dominant color, however, is yellow-green since it has some of both colors in it, so your choice of a complementary color would be red-violet

This third example is of blue-violet, violet, and red-violet. In this case, the common color is a secondary color, violet. It is also the dominant color so the complement of choice would be yellow.

This last example is of red-orange, orange, and yellow-orange.

What do you think the common color is?

What is the dominant color?

What would be the complement?

For the answer, hover over the picture.

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What are Harmonious Colors?

Colors that are close to each other on the color wheel are call "Harmonious colors".

Starting with three analogous colors and one or two more colors immediately adjacent to them will give you a set of harmonious colors. They are made up in part, by some of the same colors and work very well together in a painting because they reflect the same light waves.

So, for instance. green, yellow-green, yellow, yellow-orange, and orange would be harmonious colors. They all contain some yellow. If you add the sixth color, red-orange, it would no longer be harmonious. The red in the red-orange is the complement to green and would reflect the opposite light thus taking it out of harmony.

Harmonious Colors. They can be quite beautiful.

Take some time now to use only Harmonious Colors to see how nicely they work together and give painting a completely different feel.

Complementary Colors

What are complementary colors?

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If you put only a little purple into a lot of yellow, you get Ochre, because you are essentially graying down the yellow.

The interesting thing about Complementary colors is that, they complement each other even though they are at the opposite sides of the color wheel.

In these three cases, the ratio was 3:1 to get a neutral gray. Generally, the 3:1 ratio or very close to it will be right for most mixtures, as long as they are truly complementary. You'll just have to experiment with the colors you have on your pallet.

Hue, Value, Intensity: Naming Colors

Now that you have an understanding of the outer ring of the color wheel, it is time to go into more specifics.

Every color is made up of three components or attributes: Hue, Value and Intensity. Once you can identify these components, you can mix the appropriate colors to create that color on your palette. First let's define what these terms mean.

Hue

The name of a color starts by identifying which of the twelve colors on the color wheel corresponds most closely to it, irregardless of how light or dark, or bright or dull it is.

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Value

This is determined by how dark or light the color is. You can establish this by comparing it to a gray scale. There is one on the front side of a standard color wheel. There are other sources of gray scale to use, also, or you can create your own from the computer.

The key is to use the same scale for each color so you don't get mixed readings. Some scales have #1 as white, while others have #1 as black.

Some other words you might find describing Value include:

• TINT which is the color plus white, or
• SHADE which is the color plus black
• LUMINANCE
• LUMINOSITY

Intensity

Intensity takes a look at how bright or dull a color is. The brightest intensity would be the pure color from the color wheel while the dullest would be where you can't even discern what the color is other then it looks like gray. Other words used to describr intensity are:

• SATURATION
• CHROMA
• CHROMATICITY

So now you have established the hue, value and intensity of a color you want to use. What do you do next?

• Select the color you identified from the color wheel.
• Add white to bring it to the value that you established.
• Dull it down with its complementary color to bring it to the intensity you are looking for.

Just remember, though, sometimes you won't add any white but only a complement or visa versa, because of the value and intensity you establish for the color you are making.

Now it is time for you to test out the theory explained here. It is only through actually doing it, that you will become more at ease with mixing colors.

Alter the Hue of the Secondary Color

By varying the amount of each primary color you use, you can alter the Hue of the secondary color.

On this color wheel, which I strongly suggest you get, you can see that if you use equal parts of blue and yellow, you get "pure" green.

If you put more blue than yellow in, you get a blue green.

If you put more yellow in than blue, you get yellow green. Sap green is an example of a yellow green.

Here is an example of mixing a little blue into red and some white to make permanent rose. This would change the hue to more of a red-violet on the red side and changes the value by adding white.

Make your Colors Darker or Lighter

If you look on the other side of the wheel, you will see how black or white added to the colors darken or lighten them. This is known as Changing it's Value.

Using black or white with the Primary or Secondary Colors gives you unlimited colors to choose from.

I personally do not like using black if I don't have too, because I feel that it deadens the color. What I prefer to use are complimentary colors.

So now you want to know How to make black paint that won't deaden your colors?

The answer is: Use ultramarine blue and burnt umber.

Usually it is about equal parts, but your can adjust to your liking.

Here is an example of mixing a little red into green to give you a darker shade of green. If I had added a small amount of green to the red, it would have darkened the red

Changing the Intensity of the Colors

When mixed in unequal parts, you can take advantage of them for creating a variety of darker intensities of the dominant color without using black.

The perfect example is when you have put down green for foliage. If you add some red to the green, it will darken the green and give the appearance of shadowed areas.

In my DVD, "Painting with Acrylics: Sombrero Peak", you can see how I added permanent rose to permanent sap green to get a darker green for the shadowing and background of the foreground foliage.

The key to using complementary colors is that different ratios have different effects.

The best thing for you to do is experiment with the colors you have on your pallet to see what colors you get.

You can also change the value by adding white to the color like we did when producing the grays.

This would be a good time to try mixing complementary colors to see how each react, and how you can alter their reaction by changing the ratio of the two colors.

Don't limit yourself to just the primary and secondary colors. Look at the color wheel. Blue-violet and yellow-orange, for example, are complementary. Just remember, any two colors opposite each other are complementary.

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