13 Tips For Colour Mixing
Artists & Illustrators|May 2019

Take control of your palette and paint better pictures in minutes with our handy guide to creative colour mixing

13 Tips For Colour Mixing

1 CHOOSE PIGMENTS OVER COLOURS

While there are countless named colours across the many paint brands, it is worth remembering that most of them are made from around 30 common pigments. It is far easier to predict how single-pigment paints will react in a mix as there are less variables.

2 BE STRATEGIC

Squeeze out colours at random all over your palette and you are in danger of it resembling an accidental Jackson Pollock. However, if your palette is organised, your painting will follow suit. Develop a strategy for laying out colours that suit you. Ideas to consider might be laying out pigments tonally or in “rainbow order”. Consider placing the white at the centre, as you will mix almost all other colours with it at some point.

3 IDENTIFYING COLOURS

Accurately isolating and identifying individual colours you want to recreate with your palette is key to good mixing and it helps to be aware of how lighting affects a colour. Plein air painters like Monet went to great lengths to observe shifts in colour on a single subject throughout the day, but similar shifts occur indoors. Indirect daylight can change the temperature and hue of a subject.

4 START OUT LIGHT

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