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COLOUR

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Mediums - Tonal Value Scales - Colour Wheels - Colour Charts

Possible Class Structure - Materials and Approximate Costs

Downloadable PDF of Materials and costs

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Over the past decade or so, I have been really looking into COLOUR.

Actually, I have been looking at colour mixing and as my main mediums are oil and watercolour, my focus has centred on colour mixing with oils.  Why Oil Paints?

 

Mediums

The watercolour medium is a bit more difficult to work with as you use the white of the paper as your white paint. Because of its mostly transparent nature, light shining on watercolour paintings passes through the paint.  Some of the white light is absorbed by the paint, reflecting the colour of the paint back to the viewer. 

The rest of the white light passes through the paint, hits the white paper and reflects back through the paint again, reflecting a second spectrum of the colours back to the viewer.  It is the amount of pigment in the mix that dictates the intensity of the colour, the transparency of the paint and thus the amount of "second" colour reflected. 

That's difficult to gauge until you put the watercolour paint mix onto the paper.  Then, when the watercolour dries, it dries lighter than the colour/intensity you originally mixed.

Gouache is similar to watercolour.  Gouache is an opaque, water-mixable paint and covers the white of the paper so you don't get the reflected action of watercolour, so need to use white paint to adjust the colours. 

It also has a flat finish and lacks the reflected sheen of watercolour or the gloss of oil paints. Gouache also dries slightly darker than the original mixed colour. 

Acrylics are somewhat similar to oils however the colour you mix may dry quickly and about a value and a half darker than the colour and value (shade according to a tonal value scale) you have mixed when it is wet (referred to as "open").

Water-mixable or Water-soluble Oils are relatively new on the art scene.  The only difference between these paints and the traditional oil paints is the addition of an emulsifier.  They still use the same pigments and a binder, like Linseed oil, as traditional oil paint but the emulsifier breaks the oil molecules up so they can be dispersed with water instead of Turpentine or mineral spirits.

The easiest way to think of this is washing greasy or oily dishes.  To make the oil on the dishes break up in with water, you add a dishwashing detergent.  In this instance, the dishwashing detergent is the "emulsifier".

Pastels are basically watercolour pigments with a different binder in them to make them into a stick form.  Mixing colours with pastel, you are relying on the blending of different coloured pigment particles to create a new mix. 

This is more of an optical mix, where you eye doesn't really see the different minute particles of pigment but "blends" them within the eye.  It is possible to achieve good colour mixes with different coloured pastels but most pastel painters tend to just reach for colours that are close to the one they want.  That's why pastel painter have such a wide range of pastel sticks.

Generally, with these small issues, it is still possible to mix great colours, you just have to a aware of the limitations of the medium you are using 

 

Tonal Value Scales

I have looked at the colour mixing theories of a large number of Artists through online instructions and books, as well as a undertaking a number of their "Colour Wheel" courses.

The one thing every Artist stresses is the importance of "Tonal Value".  When I started to learn painting in the late 1970s, the first thing I had to do was paint a set of Tonal Values or Scales. 

Back then, they were referred to as "Venetians" because the grey colour produced with each step, when placed between the lighter grey on one side and the darker grey on the other side, give a visual appearance of that single solid colour being lighter against the darker grey and darker against the lighter grey.   Like the slats of a Venetian blind.

In fact, that how I was told to check each step of a nine (9) value tonal scale.  To start, you would paint the black and white ends of the tonal value scale.  Then place a brush mark of white down and a brush mark of black, leaving a space of one brush width between them. 

You would then start mixing the "Mid-Tone" grey, checking your mix by putting it between the black and white colours, squinting (eyes half closed) to see if you mix appeared to "curve" and that the "curve" was uniform.

During the early years us Aussies referred to the scale of nine greys from white to black as "Tones".  When I started learning form American Artists, they referred to the scale as "Values".  So, to avoid confusion, I will try to refer to them a "Tonal Values". 

 

Colour Wheels

Colour Wheels in art circles have been developed over the centuries, ever since Sir Isaac Newton realised white light from the sun, streaming a narrow opening and shining on a glass prism, refracted and broke into a spectrum of coloured light similar to the colours of a rainbow.  Basically, Newton was able to separate what is now known as the visible light spectrum or the coloured light we can see with the naked eye. 

Those colours are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.  This gave rise to the acronym ROY G. BIV being the initial of each of the colours of the rainbow and an easy way to remember them.  Since then, Artists have been trying to understand the nature of colour.

There is invisible light on wither side of this spectrum with infrared light extending out from red end of the spectrum and ultraviolet light extending out from the violet end of the spectrum.

Trying to keep track of what colour is what, Artists have been developing colour charts since the 1600s.  As well as trying to understand the nature of paints, artisans used colour charts to keep a consistency in fabric dyes, then printing inks, then bird colour names, then soil type colours, and a host of other spin-offs, relating to colour.

In some cases, science got involved and it became even more complicated.  If that wasn't enough, Psychologists put their two-bob's worth in and connected emotional and psychological reactions to different colours.  

Some have tried to "bend" the colour spectrum around to form a circle of colour to gain some form of relationship with one colour to the next.  This kind of works, and a colour wheel can create an even flow of "prismatic" colours that tend to flow neatly and evenly from one colour to the next.  There have been countless colour wheels developed over the centuries since the 1600s, some simple, some highly complex. 

The one thing most Artist did settle on was defining a "Primary Colour".  They decided a Primary Colour was one that could not be mixed using other colours.  They settled on three Primary Colours being Yellow, Blue and Red.

Of course, science got involved and there was some disagreement as to what a Primary Colour was.  Some decided there were four Primary Colours, some said five and so on.

With all this confusion, our class will settle on one simple colour wheel,..

As previously mentioned the colours in a rainbow, or colour spectrum gave rise to the seven letter acronym
ROY G. BIV but the colour wheel we will be looking at will only use six of those colours.  Because Indigo and Violet are very close colour-wise, we will just use six colours, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Violet.

That will give us the three Primary Colours, Yellow, Blue and Red and three Secondary Colours (a mix of two primary colours) being Green, Orange, and Violet. 

Once we mix a Primary and a Secondary Colour together, we get a Tertiary Colour.  The Tertiary Colours are Yellow-Green, Blue-Green, Blue-Violet, Red-Violet, Red-Orange and Yellow-Orange. 

This then completes a "Colour Wheel" with twelve (12) colours, similar to the hours of a clock. 

It doesn't matter what colour you place at the twelve (12) O'clock point, but we will be placing the Primary Yellow there, just for the sake of consistency.  Then Primary Blue will be placed at the four (4) O'clock point and the Primary Red at the eight (8) O'clock point .  Secondary colours, once mixed, will be place evenly between the two primaries used to create that colour.  The Tertiary Colours will then fill the gaps between the Primary Colours and the Secondary Colours. 

To create new colour wheels, we will just change one or two Primary Colours, giving a completely new range of secondary and tertiary colours.   The possibilities here are only limited by your imagination, 

This can become a very interesting journey,... 

 

Colour Charts

Once we paint our first colour wheels, we will move onto painting colour charts.  This are done by taking two Primary Colours and mixing them together in an organised fashion to create a chart of Secondary Colours

Using one Primary Colour paint, say Cobalt Blue, we mix that one colour with different shades of a colour in a second primary colour, like a range of different Yellows colours to get a chart of greens or mix that one blue with a range of different Reds to get a chart of Violets.

To make a chart, say of all the greens you can mix with the colours you have, you would make a new chart for each blue in your paint box.  Using the first blue, add all the yellows to columns across the chart.  Then progressively mix the blue with the first yellow and tint it down the column with white using the Tonal Value Scales as a guide to the degree of light/dark of the tint. 

These charts create a quick reference where you can select a secondary colour close to what you need, look at the single primary colour you used to get that colour and go up the column to see what the other primary colour is in the mix.

As we buy new paint colours, we will also keep a chart of the colours as they come from the tube.  On this chart we will paint some colour straight from the tube and gradually tint it down with white.  Then we record the manufacturer's name, the paint colour name, the pigment code/number (Colour Index Number (CIN)), the opacity of the paint, the lightfastness, etc..  This will give us a quick reference to what the colour is and what it will do in a painting.  

 

Class Structure

To the point where, at the start of 2023, I will be attempting to pass my acquired knowledge onto an Art Class I have been tutoring over the past few years with the Art, Craft & Activities Group (ACAG) that meet at the Mirambeena Community Centre in Lavington, NSW.

If you have tried painting before and struggled to mix the colours you wanted, or if are interested in learning exciting ways to mix colour, this may be the class for you !   Below was an idea of what we could be looking at during this term,...

To help the class understand the complexity of colour mixing, I have been thinking about creating a set of video instructions they can refer to after attending the class each week.

At this point (late January 2023), the first Term of 2023 has started and most of the students went straight to painting colour wheels with some using acrylics and some using watercolour.

Naturally, the watercolourists had trouble mixing clean, clear, colours and the Acrylic painters struggled with their paints drying quickly.  

I guess it shows that the best way to learn is to start with the traditional methods (Oil paint) first.,

So, the Art Class structure will be a generic structure with no dates and will wait until I find people interested in doing the colour mixing class with oil paints:-

Week Date Lesson Details
1   9 Step Black & White Tonal Value Scales.

Using a Black and a White paint, we will mix a set of greys that move from white to black in 9 steps

These steps give us a range of tonal values that set the foundation of ALL good paintings

This first week may be the most difficult and boring class of the whole term. 

2   Painting a Colour Wheel
Introduction

We will paint our first colour wheel using three (3) Primary colours - Yellow, Blue and Red. 

Using these primary colours, we will then mix the secondary colours for the wheel, then move onto mixing the tertiary colours, tinting each with a white. 

This will give us our first quick reference guide to a wide range of colours where we can simply look for a colour we want to mix and see what colours we need to achieve that target colour. 

Initially, we will be using Art Spectrum (AS) oil paints and using their Spectrum Yellow, Spectrum Blue and Spectrum Red. 

If you already have oil paints, bring them into class and we can select a yellow, blue and red from your paints. 
It's not imperative that we use Art Spectrum
"Spectrum" colours.

3   Painting a Colour Wheel
Part 2

During this week we will paint a second colour wheel, changing either one, two or all three primary colours to give us a HUGE range of colours.

Just changing one primary colour will give us six (6) new secondary/tertiary colours.  Changing two (2) primaries expands the whole colour wheel range leading to nine (9) new secondary/tertiary colours,...
See the magic here,...??
  

4   Making Colour Reference Charts

We will take our tubes of colour and look at the information we can get from the label on a tube of paint.

By placing some pure paint on our chart, we will record information like:-

  • The maker's name,
  • The colour name,
  • The pigment number or Colour Index Number (CIN),
  • The opacity of the paint and
  • Its lightfastness,
  • Plus the binders used (linseed oil etc..) 
5   Making Colour Mixing Reference Charts

By this stage, we should have a range of primary colours to play with.

Using the primary colours, we will start our first quick reference colour charts of secondary colours and tint them down with white. 

We may also add extra columns to the colour charts to accommodate the tertiary colours on either side of the sets of secondary colours.

For example:  If we mix a yellow and a blue primary colour, we will get the secondary colour of GREEN that will sit evenly between the yellow & blue. 
But, if we add more yellow to this mix, we will get a "Yellow-Green".  Adding more blue to the mix will give us a "Blue-Green".
 

6   Making Colour Mixing Reference Charts
Part 2

Making a second (or third) set of quick reference colour charts using different primary and secondary colours

7   Tinting, Toning and Shading Exercises

During this week we will look at how to change a colour without changing the colour family.

  • Firstly we will "Tint" a colour using white.

  • "Toning" a colour by de-saturating it by adding a mid-tone grey (1/2 between black & white) and/or, De-saturating a colour by adding its compliment.

  • Shading a colour by adding black.

8   Mixing Colour Strings

Identify the "Local Colour" of an object and mix a set of nine (9) colours from dark to light using the tonal value scales to assess the value of each colour.

9   Simple Paintings to produce three dimensional paintings

Paint a simple painting of a piece of fruit (or a single vegetable) in a basic still life setup.

We will look at:-

  • Setting it up in a position to paint it,

  • How to light it,

  • How to identify the direction of the light source,

  • How to work out where the "Light Most Facing Plane" is

  • How to see & understand the highlight area,

  • Finding the "Terminator Line" (start of the shadow),

  • Seeing the parts of the shadows,

  • Seeing the reflected lights.

  • Identify its local colour and,

  • How to mix a colour string to match it.

10   Simple Paintings to produce three dimensional paintings
Part 2

As this is the final week, we'll review everything and try another painting similar to Week 9.

  

Materials and Approximate Costs

The first three weeks of this class will probably be the most expensive, so I'll list the materials you will need to get started for those weeks.  There may be other materials you will need later in the term, like extra paint colours, but that will be an individual preference.  

If you don't already have a supply of oil paints (or acrylic or water soluble oils) or  an easel, you will need to buy the items needed to get started.  You won't need the easel for this term, but if you wish to continue with your painting experience, you may need one later on.

Remember that while this may be a costly outlay at the beginning, the materials you buy will last a long time. 
I have tubes of paint I bought 40 years ago that are still useable.

Buying a lot of items all at once, like the paints for example will be a bit costly, but they will last way beyond the ten weeks of this term.  In fact, you may still be using the same tubes of paint at the end of the year. 

The other thing to keep in mind is, you will use the paints at different rates, so you will only have to replace paints as required, not all in one go again.

Although we won't need an easel to prop your painting up on during this term, the cost of easels can vary considerably, depending on what you want to use.  And they come in a wide range of styles and shapes.

Your easel could be as cheap as $20.00 up to $200.00 and even as high as $500.  The same principle applies though.  An easel can last you many years.  I have field easels that are 40+ years old. 

The easels I'm using now are a French box style field easel, made by J. Burrows and available from OfficeWorks. This has a box with a drawer, the lid opens to hold a painting and the legs are adjustable and fold away on the side of the box.  The cost was about $120 10 years ago.  A check of the OfficeWorks website show a similar one (a Born Brand) for $114.

I also use a Studio easel I bought from the Riot art store about 7 years ago for about $100.  I think they are still about that price now,..?

If you're not going to be painting outside, you could just buy a basic Table Easel for about $35, or up to $70 for one with a box/drawer/easel combo.   Your other option is to check places like eBay where you could pick up a second hand one.

Try to buy the better quality paints, like Art Spectrum (or better) and painting pads or canvas, but you can source cheaper options of the other equipment like brushes, a palette, the solvents (Turps etc.) and, if you like, an easel.  the cheaper     

OK, so here is a list of items you will need, week by week and their approximate costs.  It will be up to you to shop around to find the best deals.

Buying Sets etc., before class starts

Item Approx. Costs

PAINTS

Set of Six (6) 40ml Art Spectrum Oil Paints $80 (+ shipping ?)
Additional colours to the set - Ivory Black & Burnt Umber for week 1 -
Individual price each = $14.75
$30
Additional colours for week 3, say 3 colours at $15 each $45

BRUSHES - Sets

Royal & Langnickel Medium White Paintbrush Set 12 Piece Synthetic (Taklon)

$20 (ex OfficeWorks)

Royal & Langnickel Round/Flat Paintbrush Set 12 Pieces Synthetic (Taklon) suited to oil paints,...

$20 (ex OfficeWorks)

PAINTING SURFACES

Derwent Academy A3 Oil Paint Pad Landscape 15 Sheet

$16 (ex OfficeWorks)
Art Spectrum Oil Paint Pad A3 300gsm $35
(ex artshedonline.com.au)
Stretched Canvas - various sizes - 2 Pack of 12 x 16 inch canvas $5.50 (ex OfficeWorks)

PALETTES

Wooden Kidney shape or rectangle Don't buy the plastic ones $10 to $30
(ex artshedonline.com.au)

OTHER STUFF

Low Odour Turps $10 (ex Bunnings)
Paper Towel or Rags $7 (ex Woolies)
Refined Linseed oil - optional $12 (ex Art Shops, OfficeWorks, Spotlight etc.)
 
Approx TOTAL About $245
depending on what you buy,..

 

 


Buying Individually

Week Item Approx. Cost
1 Art Spectrum Ivory Black & Titanium White (40ml tubes) at $15 each $30.00
Brush Set $20.00
Oil Painting Pad  Price total based on about $25,... $16 to $35 depending on what you buy,...
Palette - Don't buy the plastic ones $20
Turps, rags, linseed oil (optional) $25
Week 1 approx. TOTAL $120
 
Week Item Approx. Cost
2 Art Spectrum Paints 40ml tubes at $15 each
Spectrum Yellow, Spectrum Blue, Spectrum Red & Burnt Umber
$60
Week 2 Approx. TOTAL $60
 
Week Item Cost
3 Additional Art Spectrum colours for week 3, say 3 colours at $15 each $45
Week 3 Approx TOTAL $45
 
  TOTAL COST buying individually $225
But you won't have the additional Spectrum Viridian or Yellow Ochre you would get buying the 6 tube set.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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