Color Mixing Success Class and Ebook!

1. Class Intro: Hi, I'm excited to bring you this class on color. I have been told for, I guess, since I started painting four or five years ago, that I have such a color sensor knack for color and I didn't really know what that meant or if it was even true. I just knew I loved color. And so I've put together this class to simplify it and debunk the myths surround it's complex. You have to use a color wheel and you have rules. Now, There's a few guidelines, but mostly learning about color and getting confident with color is about exploring and playing and figuring out what you love, what color combinations you love, what Kohut would colors themselves that you love, how they play together, and how to be bold with color and not feel like you have to follow a bunch of rules does you'll know when it works and when it doesn't. And that's what you develop over time, playing and practicing. So I'm not shy about color. This is a typical painting. I've just got a few here that show you that the color is just something that I love a lot with. And for me as a real challenge to do a quieter color palette. But everything, every color can't be a star. You know, when, when a painting is that way or when it, because it'll be in that stage sometimes. Then you have to massage some neutrals and things like that. But I have to go along with this class, the e-book. And we're going to look at color mixing. We're going to look at this chart that I created to help you discover a range of colors within one q. And then we're going to look at tips and tricks and some of my favorite colors and how I mix them, or the ones that you just can't mix and that you have to buy colored parties. So join me. 2. Color Tips Part 1: Let's look at some of my favorite tips and tricks that I've just learned by experimenting a lot. And you'll learn your own tips and tricks and add them to your memory. It's like, it's like when you learn anything new, you start out really starts really awkwardly, like say learning to drive. Do you remember when you learned to drive and you have to think about every little thing and now we drive and never gave it a thought. Well, that same muscle memory and knowledge and intuition will develop over time. And you'll, you'll be able to make your own list. And I'm sure you have some already. But these are the ones that I've captured in them in the book. And so I wanted to share them with you and just demonstrate a little bit. Number one is using a mother colored or main color to create harmony. And this is something that helps with composition and also harmony, just keeping everything together and you don't need a lot of it. So, for example, in this bread, I used a tiny bit of burnt umber, a tiny bit in every color in here. So I used mix the color I wanted and then added a tiny bit of something. So it can be really tiny bit of anything. You could pick. Experiment, you could pick a coral red, you could pick a, you just don't want to pick anything that's super highly pigmented, overpowering and burnt umber can be that way. So just the teeniest little bit gave everything a sense that even though these colors are quite different, they harmonize. So that is something I recommend. And you're, like I said, it's just you're talking about a tiny bit. So let's say you're going to paint with an orange, okay? And then you're going to use, let's say an aqua in your painting. Well, if I say, I'm just going to take a tiny bit of this sky blue. Then it's going to alter both colors and every other color use. My orange seems to be here it is. Dry, it a little bit. So here's my orange straight out of the tube. And if I just had a tiniest little bit, and this is a compliment to orange. Blue is so it'll subdue it a little bit. So there is my orange with a tiny bit of blue. And let's take the turquoise and have a teeny tiny bit of blue. Start with a clean brush. Just so that I can show you a tiny bit of that blue. This turquoise, I can add little more of the blue because they're in the same family. So I'm not introducing a complement which is, could, you know, take it to mud quickly. And so here's a turquoise with a little bit of blue. And let's pick a third color. Let's say we wanted to use. I'm trying to think it's something that's not, let's say an opera red, which is a really bright fluorescent color that I use a lot. And it often needs toning down, which would mean adding a compliment. But if we're saying we're going to add a little bit of this blue there, every color. There's our Hombre teeny bit of blue. If I add too much, I alter it. So just going to grab there we go. Just wanted a little bit. And there it is with a little bit. So if we take each of these colors just straight from the tube, Let's see if you can tell the difference between the ones that have the mother color and the ones that don't. So here's the orange. Blue and my orange that won't work at all. How did that happen? Remember? There's the orange can see it's much brighter. Oh, I know what happened. I picked the wrong top on their goodness lesson learned, right? And then I'll take the turquoise. When I get a really clean brush, let me just get a new one so that I don't. I'll do the experiment by using a brush with some color in it. Here's the turquoise. And let's get the pink. So I hope you can see the difference, which is that these are all brighter, but they don't blend as well. They don't think they pop and they, they kinda get to one of my next tips and tricks which is creating for the brain. They are more jarring if you'd look at it this way. Which is these three. They're a bit more jarring than when they've been harmonized. So that is the mother color concept. Let's look at the, keeping a bit of color in the brush. Alright, so that creates something similar in the sense that I will often paint and not wash out my brush completely. I'll have a paper towel handy. And it depends what direction I'm going because if I'm doing say warm colors or reds, reds, yellows, oranges, I don't need to wash the brush as much. And even if I'm going into a blue, I can harmonize by just keeping a bit of paint on my brush. So let's look at this one. Let's see what's the paper towel gives it away because it's been sitting in water while we Talked. And you can see there's some pinky orange in there. What I'll do is leave that and often I'll pain if you watch me paint or take my classes, I'll just go from one color to you via other. Over time you'll develop that sense to not get mud. You'll know that you can't have a bunch of blue on your brush and then go into orange, for example. So when you do a complement colors, which are colors on the opposite end of the color wheel. You have to make sure there's just a very little bit of that compliment in your brush. Otherwise, it will turn to MC. So I'll be painting along and let's say I'm painting some leaves with this pink. I want to vary the color a little bit. I know that I can go into the orange. I still got pink and my brush and I can come back in here and the care and bringing that together. Now, if I were to try to, with all this pink and orange on my brush, grab some turquoise. Turquoise is not bad in terms of because it, it will still be a color, but it's going to neutralize it, which it did turn it to a gray. But there's a lot of white and turquoise in this turquoise anyway. So it didn't go brown. But if I were to have orange, now I've got a few different things on my brush, right? I've got some turquoise and pink. And if I were to get some orange and then get too much of this blue switch to that. You can see that it goes pretty quickly. Now, you may want to neutral like this. There's nothing wrong with that. Just knowing, I don't want it here. Maybe I want it in the stem. Just knowing what direction you're going. But I really don't wash my brush that much. And that's developed over time. Now what I will do though is say, Okay, I've got orange in here now, right now I've got mud and they're not going to watch it, but I'm going to blot it. And I'll take my paper towel and I will get most of the color out. Then let's see if I've taken enough color out that I can do a turquoise or a blue and still get a little bit of that bit of color effect in my brush. Yeah, so here's blue, which is the sky blue, which is a much brighter color. Because I've got a little bit. Can you see that? A little bit of orange and pink still left in there. It's altering it to make it a nice blue, kind of a tone down blue. So that's just something you learn by experimenting. But you don't always, I used to, when I started wash the brush every time completely out, I realized that what that does is it can it can, first of all, a waste paint and it can create more of a disjointed composition. Whereas if you just leave a little bit in there, depending on what you got and what direction you're going color wise, which again, you just develop over time, then you can harmonize better. So I've got a little bit of yellow. I mean, I've got still got blue and my brush see. So I know now since I know about color that if I want a green, there's no sense in Washington that that blue ray that makes no sense because I'm gonna be needing blue make green. And greens are usually almost always make rather than buy. So it's perfect to grab that yellow with the blue that's already in there and make my green. And then I can tone down my green if I want by adding a little bit of orange, which is a compliment, I could brighten it back up by adding more yellow. And the sky is the limit. But don't necessarily think that you always want to wash out your brush. Let's try it again. A blot out without rinsing. So let's see, I've got some green in there. Mostly. Green is a complement to orange. So if I string the page, if I were to grab orange right now, I'm gonna get a more muddy color. But it could be a pretty orange. See how it's a little more muddy. And that's because I had green on my brush. So it's just knowing and knowing an experiment in really, because that's how you develop that sense. You can get to where you're not really using as much pain. You're not rinsing as much. Here's I'm getting some of that pink, but I've still got that orange on my brush. But I plotted most of it out, so I'm getting the pink, but I'm getting some bits of orange in there, which is a nice color. So that's the idea, that's number two, the idea of keeping a bit of color in your brush. 3. Color Tips Part 2: Now let's talk about creating for the brain. So this is personal preference as well. But we like to be stimulated when we look at something but not overstimulated. And again, it's personal preference or people who look at my work and it's overstimulating for them. Like maybe not this one, but say that one because it's very lots of color. That is something that just overtime. Yes, this is stimulating. But it still works. And I think it works because there's enough to look at those interests. It's not I don't know that there's a place necessarily for the eye to rest. There are a couple of places you can rest here. And this pot is kinda restful. But I definitely, my work definitely goes on the side of stimulating. So a couple of examples. This is a painting in process which some might find stimulating enough. They just might say there's enough color in here, there's enough interests, there's texture. There is, there's plenty going on. There are much quieter paintings that are sold every day. But for me this lack something, it's not done. It lacks some kind of interest. I just think it's a little boring. That has an opposite. Here's one that I did some finishing details on. And what I'm thinking now is that I'm going to probably find some ways to tone it down. Not necessarily the colors, but it is theirs. I don't feel like a place to really rest at all. So I may even just come through here with some get rid of these green marks. So there's just some plain blue there. I don't need much because I really liked this painting. But just even along the edge or somewhere here, a little bit of quiet space will make a difference. So just think about creating for the brain enough stimulation, not too much. Another example is, this is actually a painting in process in the class I'm filming now. And it's at the overstimulating stage. So it's just, you know, what I know it needs is some neutrals to be brought in like this one. And to just calm things down because it's just too much. I've got the bright background colors in the foreground colors and it is lots of fun and there's nothing like if this feels good to you and this is what you want. I just think it's too much. So that's a little bit about that. Let's look at the next tip and trick, Whoa, off white here, that's one of my favorites. Off wake. You can make off white and I'll show you in the color mixing video how to do that. But it's a bit of a pain. So I usually buy it. Comes. Every company has a version. This is the whole being ivory white. Turner gouache has a high ivory white, I think they call it. This is just a map flow acrylic that I picked up because the price is right and it's a good quality. I'm actually going to do a review on these soon on my, in my, my YouTube channel because I like them. There are Matt flow acrylic. This is an bleached titanium. That's what it's called sometimes I've seen it called phage, but basically an off-white. Now what I love about mixing with offline versus white, and I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm just saying that it's a good tool to have in your tool bag, is that light? We don't realize it, but when we mix white with something, and this is my white, actually I grabbed this way. That's my Jessica, which I use this quite a lot, but I'm going to grab this white gouache and show you the difference. White actually cools colors down. And that's something that you just realize and learn over time. So if you want a warmer, lighter color, that's where an ivory or beige comes in. Let's look at the difference. When we lighten with these two. Let's take our pink again. I'm going to make sure my brush is nice and clean. And let's take this bright pink and lighten it with the white. Okay, there it is. Beautiful color. Nothing wrong again, I'm not saying that warm moist is better than cool. Wait, I just wanted to show you how it has given another dimension to my color mixing. And now let's take the pink. We have ambit of the ivory. There's just a richness. I feel like that shows up. I think it's because you're not just adding light, you're adding a little bit of all the colors that go into making an ivory. And I'll show you a color I'm mixing. It really is a lot of different colors that go into making an ivory. So that's why I think you get the richness. This just looks a bit more flat, but it is brighter. So it depends on the effect that you want. You could use the warm light when you're working in the background, let's say of a floral. And your brighter, your whites in the foreground. To bring them up. As an idea, Let's do one more color. Let's do the blue. So I'll take some of those blue and add some white, beautiful color. With a warm white. You can see the difference. It almost has a turquoise you feeling. Because in the warm white, there's probably some green and some blue. And so you're getting that depth. And that's just from mixing it with warm way. I feel like I get a complex color with a warm way. I think maybe that's the best way to think of it. This is a more simple color and this is a more complex color. There are times when you want one or the other. Let's do one more color because it's so fun. Let's try just a straight red. This is a poppy red mixed with white. And you can play with this in my color discovery chart to okay, there's just a white with red. Shall go brush. I wonder if I had some ivory still on my brush because that looks a little more high brioche. And we'll see the difference here. Okay, so yeah, you can see that creamy or child. So anyway, just another idea for you to play with. The next tip is on making colors your own. And what I simply mean by that is sometimes, you know, you get creating and you're just grabbing colors and you're putting them on and that's all good. And if you're layering, they're going to change anyway. But as much as you can try to refrain from using a color straight from the tube. Because then I feel like it's not your color. It's the color that the company made, right? And if you want to make it your own, just add something, anything to it. Take it in one direction or the other in the color discovery charts. Really good for this, but like this, poppy red is really pretty very, very bright. But if I add a little bit of orange, I change it and are a little bit of the warm white or a little bit of the yellow. I change it and it doesn't need to be that much. I can still get a red and add just a tiny bit of something else and make it my own. So here's the red, the tiniest little bit of yellow in it, and the littlest bit of white in it. And it just makes it my own, gives it depth and all that to say, do your best to not use colors straight from the tube. Now, I will say when I'm highlighting with ivory, I often do use it. Well, there might be something in my brush to whatever's on my brush. I might have to the ivory. But usually I will add a little something to each color. You'll get a sense of that over time as well. All right, next is excuse me, developing the habit or playing with the habit of using a bright turquoise or fluorescent pink or red or orange underpainting. Before you even start. These are wood panels and I have these bright colors already painted on them. So that when I paint something, little pops without, it'll probably be 99 or 98% covered up, but something will show through. Here's an example. This whole background, you can see some of it peeking through was a mixture of bright oranges and fluorescence. And not much of it ended up in the finished piece. I had some elements that I kept the negative space painting here and here I kept up part. And the rest got covered with either elements or this off-white ivory. So then here I scraped away the leaf lines in the background came through. So it's really fun to experiment with bright colors. There is no right or wrong color. Some people say it's good to use a complement as your background. So for example, if you're, if you're going to paint a floral with a lot of greenery, doing a red background. Or I have. But I've seen landscape stone with a background that was hot pink like this, or turquoise. And it looks beautiful. So just experiment with that. Bottom line is to play. Don't be afraid of color. It's a great thing to play with on a day that maybe you have some time to play with creating, but you don't feel inspired to create any particular thing. Maybe you're not feeling well. Hi, I have Lyme disease, chronic Lyme. So there are days are parts of days where I am just sitting there going, I don't know what to paint. So that's a great time to just play with color. Do some color discovery charts. Think about moving a color in one direction or another by adding other colors. And you will overtime develop a sense of what you like, which will lead into your color signature. So be playful, experiment and have fun. 4. Color Discovery Chart 1: Let's do this color discovery chart with red. And so we'll see how it turns out. You can use any paint you have. I'm just sticking with these acrylics and the main colors just to illustrate how the chart helps us learn how to manipulate colors. So I've got some cadmium red here. I just squeezed some golden, just basic cadmium red. And I've got it on my palette paper. So I'm going to put my starting color right here in the center. And I just printed this on printer paper. It's a good heavy paper, but it's not the cheapest paper. But I think if you use just a good quality printer paper, you should be fine. Or you can, of course, just take this the way this chart looks and just use watercolor paper or another community and mixed media paper. Actually, I feel like mixed media paper or Bristol paper is better for this exercise because the watercolor soaks right into the, the paint itself, right into watercolor paper and you can't mix it as well to kinda get assumption. Alright, so now we're going to take some red and add a cool dark in it. So we're going to add some Payne's gray, which I have right here. And boy, do you only need a teeny bit of Payne's gray to to do this. I mean, in fact, I'm just gonna go like that because you'll turn it Black pretty quickly. Payne's gray is a cool dark. So I can see just look at that even though I grab just a tiny bit. So there's my cool dark and color. Now I'm going to try the burnt umber and do a warm, the same thing here, just a teeny bit. Get some of my red. I can even put it on here first and then grab a little of my bird number. Smidge more. I want to make it the same amount of darkness that I have over here. Just so you can really see the difference between a warm dark in a cool dark. Yeah. So we darkened it with the burnt umber which made it a warm, dark look at the difference. It's the same color here. I think it's fascinating. Alright, now we're going to lighten it. That's pretty easy. We just add a little bit of white. I've got two titanium white here. Obviously, depending on your weight, your shape will be different. Sometimes I lighten with a above white. I can show you that here as well, just for kicks. Here's the regular way. A little bit of red. And we knew what would happen there, right. We know what it looks like to add weight. But I don't know if you didn't know that adding white mix colors much more opaque. So sometimes I'll do it just to increase the opacity. Because I love opaque paint. That's why I like wash. But you can see how much more opaque this looks than the thick any of these because of the weight. Now, let me grab my buff way just for fun to show you. Because I do use a lot of colors like this and golden, It's called Titan Buff, but usually it's called ivory. Like if I'm using my gouache here it is in ivory white. This is a whole Bain aqua brush. You can make an awful way, but it's one of those colors that I use enough that I just buy it. So they don't have to keep mixing and mixing it, but I use it to mix. So let's kinda fun to see what it does. Let's see what it does with the red compared to just the regular way. It'll be subtle if we see any change at all. And I'll just put that down here. A little event bus. It's almost like it my experiences, it's kinda like a worm. I guess it is a warm white so it ends up lightening it in a bit warmer way. Almost as if I added teeny-weeny yellow, which of course is probably what's in the buff. So that's what buff light. Alright, now let's go over here to Brighton. Brighton, remember we're adding either a fluorescent or a brighter shade of that color. So if I've got this red, and let's say this is my cadmium red, but let's say I have this quinacridone red light. And it, let's say it's a little brighter or any red that's a little brighter. I could add it to that to brighten it up. But we're really brightens it up. You can imagine because the fluorescent and I have gotten more into fluorescence lately. I usually turn them down. But they can do, they can really make things pop, even if you just add a little bit, goes a long way. So there we have brightened to the red. And of course you can add as much or as little of it as you want. So now we're going to subdue it, tone it down, create something that could become a natural gray. And so we'll refer to our color wheel. And all we do is go to red, which is right here, and look opposite the red, green. Red orange is a blue-green. I just need to mix it with green. I could also use the TOO to that just for time. I'm going to grab this oxide green. It doesn't really matter what green. And then we'll see just for fun the difference between the blue-green but the red. So I'm going to take it again. It's only going to take the tiniest bit. That's our red. Need to make sure I'm using clean read, not read that they've mixed with something else. So you're going to see how the complimentary color opposite on the color wheel will turn down a color. Take the intensity of it down every time. And if you keep going with it, adding more of it, you'll get, you can get, you can make these beautiful neutrals. So when I'm thinking about a color, Let's say if you know my work at all, you know that it gets pretty darn colorful and sometimes I'm like, okay, Suzanne needed to throw in some neutrals here and calm this whole thing down. Not every color has to be a show of the painting. So I'll do this and then had some white, which I'm not going to do it here because I just wanted you to see it this way, but I'll take the compliment and then I'd wait and just get a really, I guess I can show you that. Let's go grab a piece of paper and show you what happens if you add the red. Let me get a little more red. And the green. I guess I need a little bit more and then a bit of weight so we can get a pretty gray. Okay. Excuse you up here. Here's my white. It'll either be so you can work toward a gray or a neutral, basically. Maybe a little more green. You can take it as far as you want, but you're going to end up with a nice neutral color. Same. That's red with its complement. And a little bit of why you get what's what they call natural grace. Because you could take your color, your main color, in this case red and add some gray. But they end up looking flat, the back, the back gray just, it's just not as unique and interesting, is a gray made this way. And doing that down here with the compliment will always give you a muted color. All right, now let's just for kicks, try the red with the TO the blue-green because it is close to it on the go. Opposite. These colors are interesting to add it to the compliment. Anything in here, it's gonna be interesting. So let's see what it looks like. I need to get more red here. And because my reds gotten all mucked up here. When you're doing this exercise, we do need to clean out your brush in between obviously to get a true sense of it. Or you'll just end up mixing it all together and they'll all look the same. So here's my red, cadmium red. I'm just going to add tiny little bit of this TO they call it to you. It's beautiful color by the way, the, the, my two favorite turquoise is, are the Winsor and Newton gouache, cobalt, turquoise light. Then if our acrylic, it's this one, the Teal Blue Lagoon. Alright, let's add a little bit of that. So that turns it down and it's a bit cooler. Can you see the difference? That's because green is warmer than TO, so we get a cooled down version here. Anyway, you can see that you could go on forever. You could keep adding different things to alter it. And we haven't even mixed like a color, a primary with a primary, this is just variations on red. So we'll do a couple more of these, but I just love this exercise to be able to see on one page. If I've got my red and I want to warm it, darken it. I do the part number one, a cool dark in it. I do the Payne's gray lighten Brighton and subdue. I hope that's helpful. 5. Color Discovery Chart 2: Let's do another color discovery chart and we're going to do green this time. So I've got this just kind of a basic green. I don't normally buy greens, like to make them. But I thought I'd see what this color was like and it's so, but we're going to see how we can make it more interesting by adding some things. Alright, so this is our main color. It's called chromium oxide green. So I'm going to paint it here in the middle. These are nova acrylics, which are really nice quality acrylics for the, for the price effect. I'm working with them now to do a bundle as Suzanne tailored bundle for students. But I won't be choosing this green because there's just no reason to buy a green like this, you can make it so easily. But for the purposes of this, I just wanted to show you. Remember when you're doing this exercise, don't use a nice brush because you're just grabbing paint on there. This is a cheapy, alright, so now let's lighten this. We're going to add some white. And I'm using acrylic, but I grabbed a gouache hyper wash, right, that's fine. Or I could use gesso because my white. It doesn't matter for this purposes of this. Just going to add a little bit of weight to this. It's pretty predictable, right? What's going to happen when we add some white square brush might be better. This is just pallet paper I have here. I like to fold the sheets and half. So of course we can add as much white. Actually, that really makes a pretty color with just the white. Okay, and now let's see what happens when we do a cool dark. So we're going to add the Payne's gray. And I'm just using a bit of water and then I'm loading my brush with a paper towel because I don't have I don't really need to get all of the green out. So here is the green with some Payne's gray. I'm painting you always want a dark. You want a difference in values, so you want the lights and darks. And one of my favorite darks is a dark navy, dark, dark blue. I also like this kind of a dark, dark green. Let's try a warm dark. And now I've got burnt umber on here and I have the burnt umber, but I wanted to show you also that this came in a kid sepia and it's a dark brown. So how we're trying to do is darken it with a warm dark. So if you have something like this that came in your kit, that will work just fine. So I just thought I'd show you any dark brown. We'll get you that warm dark. Here's our green. And add a bit of that. Just a bit. Otherwise it'll turn to mud. And then, you know, Chris, you can take this so many directions you could have wait to these, and you could put those here and here and just keep playing. Alright, so we've got our warm dark or cool, dark or light. Now let's do a brightened. I do have fluorescent yellow, but you probably don't. So let's use a light yellow. So the key to brightening it is, at least if you're trying to go in the right direction, has a light yellow like this as opposed to a golden yellow like usually called permanent yellow or cad yellow. It's going to have more of a golden tone to it like this. So if you have a lemony yellow battle, brighten it up, you don't need to have a fluorescent paper towel blot off the brush. Get some green. A bit of this hansa yellow light. This is a great color. This will definitely be in my bundle. So when we brighten it up, we can choose how much we want to brighten it up by how much? Hello. Yeah. Yeah. So it's quite a bit brighter than that. And then to get out the complement to the green, we look at the color wheel, green here we go straight across and we see that we can use red to tone it down. So we're going to grab some red. Just got a cadmium red here. My brush. Get some green. And just a teeny bit of red. It takes so little. And this green is already, in my opinion, very toned down. Which is probably why I don't like it much. But we're going to turn it down even further with some red. Just watch those complimentary colors. A tiny bit goes such a long way. Okay, there is our toned down, subdued green. So I would do this as much as you want with different colors as you want to get yourself more familiar with them. And like I said, you can keep adding. You can lighten every one of these. You could brighten each one. You could take some yellow and add it to these. And just have fun exploring color. 6. Favorite Color Mixing 1: Alright, let's take a look at my favorite colors. Now. There are colors that I love, that I buy. I know I talk about having a minimal number of colors, but over time, look what happens. But you don't need all these colors. But there are some that if you like these colors, do you need to buy him a turquoise is one of those for me. You can make it. But then we'll go through that. But I use it so much that I like, and I just love collecting turquoise in various forums. So that's one of them. And sometimes it's called turquoise Turner calls at aqua green. Sometimes it's called blue-green, I think nova colors. Blue green is more turquoise than the color that they called turquoise, which is right here. To me, this is more turquoise and we'll play with this and I'll show you then. So turquoise is one of them, Payne's gray or dark blue, which comes in various brands. The Payne's gray are going to be a little different. So for example, well, I'll just show you this. I'll show you the Liquitex basics, Payne's gray, but Payne's gray is really a blue black and navy indigo type color, and that's what it's sometimes referred to as well. Then Turner has this black blue, but it's my favorite dark. So that's why I like to have it on hand. And then coral is a color I love. And I particularly like this coral the Turner, either in the regular gouache or acrylic gouache. Again, you can make it and I'll show you how, but I'm just showing you the ones that I go ahead and buy now a color that a couple of colors that you just can't make. Unless you have, if you had a fluorescent, you codes that magenta. I know people. General knowledge is the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. And you can make all colors from just those three colors. But if you've ever tried to make magenta, I'm mixing red and blue. You can get a purple, but you don't get the magenta. So I buy magenta, especially if you want really break. This is gonna be in my Nova Color bundle. By the way, I'm finalizing the bundle colors, but that'll, I'll announce that when I get to put together some magenta is one of those. The other one that you'd have to buy as fluorescent, fluorescent pink and Nova Color or acrylics, or sometimes it's called Opera read or opera pink, either any of those are fine. You can also get an inks. This is liquid Texas fluorescent pink ink. And you can't make these from red, blue, or from the primary colors. So that's that. And then the last one is the ivory, which I'll show you that I make. But I also buy because it's time-consuming and I use a lot of it. Alright, so let's get to mixing some of my favorites. Let's start with turquoise. And I've given you in the, in the e-book, the, a bit of a recipe for these colors, the ones that are possible to make. So we will start with turquoise, which cerulean blue, and a hansa yellow light, or any lemon light. In other words, it could be C. This one's called permanent lemon. It's a cooler yellow that you want. Not a warm yellow. Hello if you added a little bit, if you'd probably still work, but it'll, it'll take you more towards the green. So if we take a little bit of cerulean blue and we add our lemon yellow. Let's see, I'm gonna do this this way. I'm not mixing too much. You can eat it. My brush a little bit. It's got some water because I just watched them. And let's just try a tiny bit. So that was too much blue. Still too much. Wait a minute. I'm on the wrong direction. I got them. I get go backwards. It was not enough. I was thinking, Wait, I'm going the wrong direction here. Where we're getting her turquoise shades. And then of course, weight is in the little recipe. That's when it really turns turquoise. Turquoise with like every color is, has its variations. That's almost a jade. And you had a little more of the cerulean and get a little more blue, turquoise. And you can just see that you can take it. You can take a whole range of turquoise colors. Lighten, lighten it even more. You can keep lightening. But I'll show you. So that's a really pretty turquoise. But I'm not discouraging color mixing. I think it's a great thing to do. But if I just go and use my aqua green, this one definitely has more weight in it. Let's see if we can get close to it just for fun. Here's the one from Turner. We're pretty close. I think we can get there if we just add more more weight. So I'm just going to blot out my brush, leave what's in it. I plotted it too much. Pretty close. Yeah. So that's the turquoise I mixed and that's the Turner. But this is even brighter. So it just depends on what you like. So those are the two colors to get you there and there's a whole range. Sometimes it's fun to just get a piece of paper out like this and see how many shades of one color you can make. How many tints? Tints being with weight. Alright, so that's turquoise. Let's look at dark indigo. Dark indigo or Payne's gray. As I said, I did mix this for a long time, is black and blue. So you can let me show you what the Payne's gray looks like. First. Black in the jar, doesn't it? Let's get a clean brush because that is going to have some turquoise on it. That one is so stiff. This is for my junky brush jar. You know, because you don't use you don't want to use your good brushes. Brushes for this kind of activity. So here's the Nova Color. Let me lighten that up because it looks black. But you can start to see the color of it. You get a little light. You can see it's got some blue tones to it. Okay, so that's the Nova Color. Just play. Let's just get this liquid texts one out for fun. This is Liquitex basics. Payne's gray. This one is less blue, so it's not when I use it, I have to. I just use nova now, but I had already had this from before. And it's also not as good a quality. You can see how much more transparent this is, but less pigmented. But if I went, I was using this, I would add some blue to it to get any blue. But a failure blue, dark blue. And you can still get sort of a blue black by adding the Payne's gray touch, just a touch of yellow, blue and give kind of a dark blue, indigo blue. Now it matches the Nova Color. Know what color is my favorite? Payne's gray so far. And the gouache, I, there is a color called black blue and there's also blue black, which is funny because I've gotten them both and I can't tell the difference so that you can just do that. Or as I said, you can take black and mix a bit of dark blue with it and get yourself there. So that's Payne's gray. Let me get some black and blue and we'll mix that and see if we can get close to the the tube colors for the Payne's gray. 7. Favorite Color Mixing 2: I so seldom use black that I don't have much of it. And actually I really don't use it. And I had to figure out where it was hiding. Okay. You can see it's like a brand new tube from the original set. So let's take a bit of black. Before I found Payne's gray, I was mixing a blue like this. And let's say you had a sudden it came with a Prussian blue or a little blue and dark blue. Then you just, you can experiment with how much of each color you want to give to a navy. So there's a little bit of that. Too blue. I said more black. That's closer to white. Now it looks pretty close to that. So that's how you can make a Payne's gray is just to color as well, unless you're going to add weight. Were indigo I call him indigo Payne's gray. Navy. It's a bit darker than a navy though. And let's talk about how to make coral. Something bled through their coral is, like I said, it color that I buy. But if you don't have it and you want to make it, you're gonna get a magenta of some kind. Or, you know. Let's see. You can use a quinacridone magenta, quinacridone red, or just a plain magenta. So here's like a primary magenta. We'll use this one and then some cadmium red. Let's try. Let's see. Let's do you know how to experiment with your read? Some reds will work, and some reds might not lose a cadmium red light. It's a little more on the orangey side. Let's see what that does. Because sometimes there's a cad red, sometimes they can be just dark and dreary and take it too much in that direction. The wash out this brush makes sure it's nice and clean. If you have a red like this, that's also going to be in the bundle of an app. So crimson, that will also produce a nice coral. All right, so and of course we're going to have weight, so let me get some lighter, right? So I'm going to grab a bit of this magenta and some of this cad red. And this is just mixing two, you get the right level of correlate. You want more white, darker coral, maybe a lighter coral. You go. And I'll show you how that compares to the tube coral. This one by Turner. I think it's got a bit more white in it. Yeah. It's definitely lighter than this one. But you could you could get there just adding some more weight. So that's plural. Half white, ivory or flight. All of that stuff. That one is interesting. You mix that by a little bit of the three primary colors. Now there's so many shades of ivory that you could, you could make something that's a variation, It's a neutral. I don't want that brush. It's got some Payne's gray in it. Let's get this nice clean brush. We're going to use white of course. And then we're going to use a tiny bit of red. Let's put some, they're tiny bit of blue. A tiny bit of each on my color, on my brush. It's going to look, this got red, blue and then a tiny bit of yellow. Got all three there. And it's gonna be too much. This is what happens why I buy ivory because it's so hard to just get a tiny bit. So then you end up mixing more and more. Clearly, got way too much blue. So I'm showing you exactly why I buy over here, although that's a really pretty color in it. That's what's fun about color discovery. So now I've added some yellow and went too far on the Yellow Sea. Why you do another pretty Kosovo. You could discover library colors on the way. Let's add a tiny bit of red without trial, without overdoing it. And lots of white. And we're finally getting an ivory. There it is. So you see that it's white with teeny tiny bit of the three primary colors. To get a nice ivory. Then to compare it with that whole vein I read, I'll just show it to you. This brush. It's not clean yet, and I really do need a clean, so I'm gonna get a different brush just so I can show you the color accurately. There's her home and I re I liked this ivory just fine. That we made is just that, you know, by the time you get there. Anyway, you can certainly make it. So the last color that I will show you how to mix, if you don't want that to one of my favorites that if you don't want to buy it, is a lime green, also called by Turner fresh green. This one is the Japanese lime colors of Turner called J light green. Turner's version is yellow, green, but this is to green. So I always add a little bit of Hansa yellow to it, or a lemon yellow. But you can get a lime green by actually mixing the same colors we mix to get the turquoise. But we're going to go in the other direction, the direction I started out in, which is just a more yellow and less blue. So that might even work with what we have right here from earlier. Yeah, there it is. So you're just doing lemony yellow again. Don't go with a yellow of dark gold. I'll show you. So this is a very dark coat on a candidate. Demonstrate this a warmer yellow, but if you take the warmer yellow, you'll get a nice green is just not that lime green that I was that I'm trying to show you. So I just want to show you what happens. This is not a super warm yellow, but it is warmer. And let's get our tiny bit of blue. That should be enough. Let's see what happens. Yeah, so it's a pretty green is definitely in the line, but just a little more subdued is all so you can play with that. If you can change your lime green from a cooler lime green to a warmer one by the yellow that you use. Whether you use a light lemon, they're called lemon or hand side or light, sometimes to a warm light hairs that okay, I'll show you an example of a warmer yellow that's gonna be in the bundle, the cad yellow medium. So let's mix that up. Get something that is much warmer, get some of the blue. And we get Miami, but almost all of E2. So those are the ranges you can see. I hope you can tell how that's a cooler lime yellow and a warmer one. And you can play with the color in there. Okay, so that's how to either buy or identify or mix some of my favorite colors. You'll have your own favorite colors and that becomes part of your color signature in your work. Sometimes I think that colors the only thing that is unifying my work because the styles, I change it, I liked it, do all kinds of different work, but I do have my favorite colors. So over time, it's fun to play with that and develop that. And I'm looking at this going, isn't that a pretty little palette? So anyway, enjoy and play. So some most important advice when it comes to color. 8. Final Tips and Resources: So I hope that you learn some things and mostly, but I hope that you take away from this class is that it's about playing with color and it's a great activity. You know how you want to progress and your painting, but you don't feel necessarily super creative everyday or inspired every day or maybe you're ill and recovering or tired. There's all kinds of reasons that you might not feel inspired to create a painting. Well, those are great days to play with color. Literally take three colors and see how many colors can you make with those three. And just get a sketch book like doesn't need to be watercolor paper or sketchbook. It can be one that's just drawing paper. Fans, long as you don't use a lot of water, it'll work and you can just flipped or that are just cheap paper. It doesn't matter if you're just playing with color. And it can have to feel any pressure about creating something, masterpiece or anything at all. Just like a color journal. And another great exercise is to look at color in a magazine or in any object. And try to make that color say, okay, this is a red, but it's not red. Reds are all different, right? So what is in this red? And it can help train your mind to think warmer, cooler, brighter, more subdued. Is it orange in this? Now, I went the wrong direction. Let's see, You know what I mean? So that's a great exercise to do. And also identifying colors you love. Fat can happen when you're looking at art work or anything. And you say, Oh, I love that so much. Then ask yourself, why. What do I love about it? Are there colors that I love, other color combinations that I love? Are there? Like for whatever reason. This is pretty common because you see it in clothing, but pink and green just really look great together. Now certain shades of pink and green. So play with it, have fun, and keep learning, but don't let yourself get stuck in any particular color rules. Is my teenage daughter used to say, Yeah, Mom, you can wear orange, pink together. I'm going to share with you some of my favorite books on color as well. And I have links to these in my, Most of them in the supplies tab on my website. If you go to my website and go to resources, it'll say supplies and books. And I have all my favorite supplies links to those and look for the best prices on those supplies. And then the books are there as well. So one of my favorite books that doesn't seem like it would be about color, is color me floral by Kiana underwood. And these are listed in the book as well. And what she does is she makes, in this book monochromatic bouquets. And of course, my bouquets are not really monochromatic, but I think it's just really helpful to see some of the ways that she combines florals. When she's trying to stick with yellows or whites or pinks and even the shades of pink and so forth. And her work is lovely and inspiring. And so if you feel like florals, I think is a great color slash floral book. And then this one was also floral. Even though I've probably do, I don't know if I do more abstract and florals or which way it is. But this is the flower color guide. And it is this little book that has a single stem, usually are two or three map many organized by color. So sometimes I'll choose, I'll just use this as a color reference. I'll just say, I want to color idea. Nothing's coming to me and I'll flip it, just literally flip it up and go, That's pretty and then make that color. So that'd be a good exercise as well. And it also shows you these beautiful flowers if you'd like to paint florals. And then a book, I'm just pure color on that subject matter is the secret lives of color. It's just interesting. There's a lot of history in it about and some quotes that are great. But history related to color and how will they were developed and how their origins. So just some fun facts and stories about color. There are many other references out there. But I'll also show you, even though I'm not, you know, I have this around, I don't use it much. I do like this particular color wheel just because you can turn it. And I think for our beginner, it's helpful to up to see that when you mix yellow with a green, you've got a yellow green and it's just kind of a, a nice tool. But you can also just pull up a picture of a color wheel on the internet or I gave you one in the e-book as well. I just don't I don't use cogwheel much, but I think it's a good reference for beginners. Used it more in the beginning once you know the complimentary colors, That's really what I use it for. So I know that yellow is a compliment of violet. Then I know that those two colors, if they're next to each other, ordinary each other will make each other pop and that they will subdue each other. So if I want to soften a yellow, I will add a little bit of violet and soften it and so on and so forth, all the way across. That's mainly what you use it for in the beginning is just once you memorize these, blue and orange are complements and you'll know. But then you learn that really anything on this side in the red to yellow will subdue anything on this side and vice versa. Well, you could do it this way. So anyway, it's just a fun tool to play with. It. Don't get attached to it though, and don't feel like you need to follow rules. I want to encourage you to play and enjoy and develop your own color signature, which is gonna be what you love. It's not going to be what I love. And you may be drawn to my work because of color. But there's gonna be something, somethings that you uniquely want to develop in your color signature. So keep exploring. Remember to stay loose. Have fun, and try to keep that judgy voice out of your studio space, which by the way, can just be a kitchen table. Studio space doesn't mean a room like this. Wherever you pain is your studio space, even if it's on a bench, outside, hits your space, meaning you get to make the rules, you get to play, and nobody else gets to tell you what to do. Isn't that great? Okay, Have fun.