Mix It Up: Learn to Mix Any Color With Acrylic Paint

2. Preparing the painting surface: - time court McCracken, - and this is my skill share class. - Mix it up. - How to mix any color. - You like an acrylic paint in this class. - We're going to go over the materials that you need to get started. - Basic properties of paint and the three principles of color. - You're going to get to know how to mix it up so that you don't get that murky, - frustrated feeling that most people get when they start trying to paint. - That is usually what keeps people from pursuing their ideas or dreams of painting is. - It's very simple steps. - So we'll go over and you'll get to know exactly what it is, - and it will help you move forward all your future painting adventures. - The very first stop is we're going to prepare our painting service. - Okay, - so Reeves GfK because it's a cotton rab paper. - It's very common in the printmaking world. - It has these really nice feathered, - feathery soft edges that are called a knuckle edge, - Okay, - and the reason that this paper has this type of edge is because it's poured into a frame - and in handmade, - and so what I like to do is for the for this painting is you buy these in really large - sheets is that I'll actually go ahead and show you how to rip the paper. - And so the first thing I'm gonna do is I'll go ahead and measure about halfway across the - paper, - and then I'm gonna line my ruler up. - After I made a point on this side and a point on this side. - I'm gonna hold it firmly down. - And instead of cutting or using Exacto knife for this, - I'm going to hold the ruler down with quite a lot of pressure on my hand. - I'm slowly going toe cool the paper up just a little bit at a time, - okay? - I don't want to do too much. - And I just kind of rock back and forth to get a more consistent look so that when I'm - tearing this paper down, - the look is more soft and consistent with the other edges of the paper that show the - handmade tray dried paper. - Okay, - so I'll divide my paper up until I get some small rectangles. - The next step is I'm going to attach it to my Masonite board, - which will be my surface of painting. - And I like it. - It's nice it doesn't work. - It's really amazing. - Super easy. - And then you can have a stock full of these working on different paintings at the same time - . - The first thing I'll dio here was Go ahead and take down the corners of my paper On the - next step, - IHS, - I'll go ahead and use about half the distance of the tape to cut in on edge. - Now some people are super meticulous and they want to get out there. - Ruler. - And they want to measure exactly the line. - Um, - that the tape is going on and you can feel free to do that. - I am not so hung up on that. - The most important thing about doing the tape and you want to use small pieces of tape, - not one long piece of tape. - And I'll tell you why later, - when we go ahead to take, - are feeding off of the board. - The most important aspect of this is that you really want to get the paper sealed down on - Teoh, - the Masonite board that just makes it easier for you to work on. - You can see the one on the left here have already done the next step is I'm going to use - Jess. - Oh, - this is essentially a fine art Painters primer for your surface, - So it's kind of the same thing as using a primer on your wall before you paint the color. - My sister likes to call it G Zo, - but it's g e s S o and with Jess. - Oh, - what you need to dio is you want a mix it with just a little bit of water, - and that's going to be our secret ingredient when we're working with our mixes with acrylic - paint. - So I always dad my brush and just a little bit of water don't need it to the super thick. - Some justice can be very, - very thick. - And when you're painting on paper, - it's not necessary to use a super super that dress. - Oh, - you always want to pin it down just a little bit of water and you want to go lightly. - Cover the surface. - If we were prime ing canvas with dress so we might do two or three layers, - each with a step of sanding with sandpaper in between my own needs sandpaper. - But with this, - since we're just working on paper for this project, - will only need to do one layer, - and you just want to make sure that it's really nicely, - evenly coated and that will help the paper hold the paint that we're going to put on it. - So after I kind of smooth it out and make sure it's coated in all four corners A. - Let it dry already over on this, - let it dry. - So the next step is I'll take a sheet of sandpaper and it doesn't have to be super firm. - It can be really thin grade. - If you're doing campus a gun, - you'd want a heavier grade of sandpaper and you just want to go in light. - Circular Miss Theo over the top of the paper and you can see that the paper has has bubbled - just a little bit from the moisture of the jest. - So and water that is totally fine and normal, - it really doesn't matter. - The next thing we're going to dio is we're gonna go ahead and start marking out some areas - on our painting surface and again, - some people are very meticulous. - Some people really, - really like for this to be like a chart and very formulaic. - I like it to be a little more fun than that. - I feel like when sometimes for certain personalities, - when we make things too hard on ourselves, - it's, - um It trips us up, - and we don't end up making any artwork. - And so the whole point of this is to get your painting to get you going and to not be stuck - . - You don't want to be stuck in something that doesn't matter. - So I say if it's going to keep you from painting, - don't get hung up on it. - Keep moving forward. - Okay? - That's why I like to make it as simple as possible so you can focus. - All right. - So I'm gonna divide up my painting surface into four squares and then inside each of those - squares, - I'm gonna divide them up again, - okay? 3. How to mix acrylic paint: - so the next part of our product now that we've got our surface prepared, - we've given ourselves some guidelines. - Gonna talk a little bit about color and how color works. - And that's what this project is all about. - It's about getting you comfortable with color and mixing color. - Okay, - so here's our color wheel, - and you'll notice all of the colors on it. - Um, - when things are opposite of each other on the color wheel, - there are known as complementary colors. - Okay, - blue and orange or complementary colors. - Red and green are complementary colors, - and yellow and purple or violet are complementary colors. - When you mix complementary colors, - they always bring what's called a true gray. - Many people think that gray is a mature a black and white, - but a true great is really a mixture of compliments. - And they do. - It's called mixing down, - so they'll dull each other out. - If you take blue and you mix it up, - a little bit of orange will kind of dull it down and give you that really dark, - stormy blue like a cloud in the sky. - Okay. - Conversely, - if you also put complementary colors and next to each other, - they make each other. - Pop. - You probably noticed a lot of complementary colors are used. - Some of your favorite teams logos or from your favorite restaurants, - colors things like that because they tell our brain that they're exciting because they work - to get their lights up. - Complementary colors are always made up of a primary and a secondary color primary color is - going to be red, - yellow. - I'm blue, - and that's all we're gonna use along with some weight to help work on our mixes. - Okay, - Secondary color is made out to primaries, - so red is a primary. - And then the second dairy is made out of blue and yellow. - All right, - and then blue is a primary and the secondary, - the complement of it would be made out of yellow and red. - That's orange. - Same thing for purple. - So you've got yellow is your primary and then your secondary is made out of blue and red - dots purple. - All right, - so in this we're gonna explore kind of the subtleties and first will probably start with - something really symbolic blue. - And this is how I said at my palate, - I always put my colors along the outside edge of the palace that I can mix in the middle, - okay. - And the first mix we're gonna start with, - we'll start with blue in the upper left hand corner. - And I want to show you just what the blue looks like. - A tip about working with acrylic paint. - And this is something that's so, - so, - so important. - And many people don't know this is that pain is always giving you a clue about how to help - it slow. - Okay, - when you hear people say, - what's your medium or what's your medium? - Acrylic paint is a water based medium, - which means that it needs water to flow. - So without that water, - you're gonna get a lot of that like chalky and drag. - And you're not gonna be able to really mix the two colors together to get like subtleties. - It's a lot of people. - I find that when the first starting out that is their main frustration is that they don't - know to use water to help them next. - So I always did my brush just a little bit of water to start off with, - and you'll notice that some pigments are also really, - really, - really translucent, - so kind of see that here is it. - Go ahead and put it down just quickly. - Pain in the square. - And as I go down, - I'm going to add just a little tiny bit of white every time. - And when you add weight to paint it, - a pacify zit makes it more opaque. - And as I go down, - you can see that I'm calling the brush in the direction that the brush hairs air going. - That's another really important tip. - A lot of people will push the brush in or scrub it back and forth. - The brush hairs tell you what direction to hold a brush. - And as I go down from a little painting chart here, - I'm gonna continue to increase the percentage of white paint that I'm putting in. - And sometimes I go back and I touched my brush back into a little bit of the water, - and you can see that with this, - just two colors blue and white. - I'm already getting worlds apart. - This is where the subtlety and painting comes from and where a lot of people get caught up - They want to do just one thing, - . - but there's so many infinite choices in between. - You can see kind of the consistency of the paint. - It's not talkie. - It's got a nice like flow to it. - Pools across the surface really nicely. - I love pain. - It's kind of delicious to me. - Looks like frosting sometimes, - Um, - and something you also want to remember about acrylic cane? - Is that it always dry about 10 to 15% darker than what it looks like on your palates. - Okay, - so now I've taken my one color blue have slowly added some white. - Okay? - And this is really important because this is one of the properties of color. - Color has three main properties to it. - That's you. - Intensity and value. - U means what color is it? - Just the local color. - It's blue. - Okay, - Intensity needs. - How much blue is in its electric Blue is a really dull blue, - and value means the lightness or darkness of that blue. - Some we add white, - obviously making it lighter and value. - Andi, - if you were to add a compliment to it, - it would make it more adult, - less intense and darker, - which the complement of blue would be orange. - In this project, - we're not going to use black because I want you to explore color and black, - adding black paint is kind of like turning the dimmer switch on the color. - So it's like turning the dimmer switch in your dining room. - You have one of those little flip but things. - Alright, - Somebody get another. - Get this fresh out like you swear brushes. - And as I go across this way, - I'm gonna add another color to my blue. - So called impulse and blue also a little bit And the yellow don't go ahead and mix my green - . - You can see this is true for translucent cry and this brings us into properties of paint - translucent. - Okay, - those were some of the properties that we need to consider when we're working with We've - got the properties of colored properties of art medium what we're working with as I go - across in this, - but I'm gonna add more and more yellow each time. - And the reason I'm doing this is because I want Eunice Patrick to see how just little tiny - changes and not formula. - How much of each pigment use. - I will give you adept a deeper understanding of color, - more variety of color and will ultimately make your paintings more interesting to look at. - They also become very interesting to look at start adding layers of those which are - probably trying to one another. - First, - let's get just to get that next time. - So this you can see I didn't fully makes the two pigments very well, - but that's okay. - I'm sort of fine with that. - Still in meat color. - Okay, - Coming down when I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna take this green, - and I'm gonna add a little bit of light to it. - So I'm gonna get again another brush and do it again. 4. Keep painting & completing your painting: - So this is the completion of my first quadrant of my abstract painted color chart here. - And so I started with just the basic, - blew up here in the upper left hand corner on. - As I went down, - I just increase my level of white again. - It came back up here with me basic blue, - and as they went across, - I increased my yellow in that formula. - You can see that at first with just very little yellow. - It's a darker green, - and as I added more yellow, - it became more of a lighter grass screen. - I think continued my idea of my formula, - kind of making my recipe varying the levels of blue, - yellow and white Sit down here. - Each of these is a mixture of blue, - yellow and white. - You can see I have very clearly 12 different types of green, - and all I was using was just blue, - yellow and white on. - The truth is, - is in between these greens, - I could have created even more these air about 10 to 15% jumps and color. - I could have done even more subtle shifts, - So in each of the next, - quadrants go ahead and complete by exploring other colors, - probably in the next one. - I'll come over here and do something with orange. - It's just my palate. - So far, - you can see I've got a lot of stuff going on here. - Um, - I'm always going back and forth with my paintbrush. - A little bit of the water, - a little bit more that you kind of go back and forth until you blend it. - You get it nice and mixed. - And you always gonna make sure has kind of like this frosting like consistency. - Okay, - it's not too stiff. - It's not too watery, - all right, - Especially when you're learning how to mix. - And this is kind of the motion that I go in when I'm learning how to mix. - Was gonna go ahead and finish this and talk to you a little bit of the end. - When using acrylic paint, - it's important to know that it can dry quickly. - So I like to keep ah, - spray bottle of water. - Just handy to kind of keep it open. - Keep the paint workable. - When you go to remove your tape from your painting board, - you wanna wait for your painting to completely dry and then keep your fingers very close to - the surface, - pulling very slowly and away from the painting. - All right, - so here it is our finished abstract color chart painting that acts as a guide for us on - when we are mixing with acrylic paint. - We always want to keep Arkalyk paint morning by lately missing it. - Okay. - We always want to keep tons of clean water by because you don't want to be mixing your - paint with murky water that will just muss up your colors. - You want to keep some towels nearby to die of your precious, - and you always I'm gonna be going and defining your brush back in the water and just - clearly pulling. - I'm just gonna pull this and this, - okay, - pain a little bit. - Here. - The color wheel is an amazing reference tool and also list for you some other reference - tools in my additional materials. - And I will show you, - like if you're working with yellow, - here's what adding blue will do to it. - Here's what adding red will do to it's It's amazing tool for helping you and always you won - a reference back. - You are color guide there some variations you can do to make it a little more abstract. - You could change the with. - You can make it look more like color bans. - It doesn't have to be squares or rectangles. - You can really change it up and mix it up to play with it. - The whole point is getting you comfortable with mixing a variety of colors. - Subtle color changes, - playing with compliments. - Okay, - remember the three properties of color but few intensity on value. - Cute is what color is it? - Intensity? - How much color is in it on value? - How light or dark? - Is it? - OK, - and when you're working with the paint, - you're working with the properties of translucent to opaque. - All right, - so you'll notice the more white you add any of your pain, - the more opaque at will become, - and certain paint pigments are naturally more opaque, - and certain paint pigments are naturally more translucent. - So it's great to start with just the basics. - Your primary colors and a little bit of white, - a little bit of water, - some good acrylic brushes and have fun