Color Mixing Techniques in Watercolors: Beginner-Friendly

1. What You'll Learn: Did you know that there are other ways of mixing your colors aside from using a palette? Let's explore five different watercolor mixing techniques and see how they look on portraits, trees, and flowers. This class is designed for all artists with any skill level. We will create different swatches of oranges, greens and purples, along with a quick review of our primary and secondary colors. I will also show you how I combine the different mixing techniques in painting this simple orange illustration. Once you've tried mixing colors in different ways, then you'll have an idea which technique to use in a specific painting subject. If you've been following me, then you'll know that I am a fan of a limited palette. So we will only use three colors for this class. If this is your first class with me, then hi, I'm Bianca Lustre, an aspiring watercolor artist from Betangas Philippines. My current obsession is testing out as many combinations of primary colors as possible and creating color wheels and charts in the hopes of helping you choose your own pigments for your own limited palette. In fact, I'm giving away a free copy of my latest ebook, Color Wheels to my students, and I'll tell you more details about this in the next video. 2. A Gift for You: Our goal for this class is simple. Test out the different color mixing techniques. As a class project, you can either upload a photo of your swatches, mixing chart, or if you want to go extra, then please follow along and let's paint this orange. By doing so, you will be eligible to get a free copy of my latest eBook, Color Wheels Version one, where I mix and match different primary color combinations from various brands in the hopes of helping you pick your own primary colors for a limited palette. These wheels do not only showcase the secondary and tertiary colors you can mix by using the primary colors featured, but I've also swatched different shades of skin tones, greens and purples to show you how you can further expand a limited palette of three colors. But if you are a bit shy in uploading your class project, then you can still get a free copy by living an honest class review. But why not do both? So if that has motivated you, then please prepare your usual watercolor materials, including paints, paper, brushes, download a class guide for your reference containing the mixing chart, painting samples, and let's get started. 3. Mixing on Palette: O Let's start by clarifying that mixing is not blending. Mixing is about combining two or more colors to achieve a new one, while blending is more focused on transitioning from one color to another. And if you're more interested in blending, then I have a different class about that. Okay, now a quick review on our primary and secondary colors. For this color wheel, I used magenta, orolin and To turquoise. These are my primary colors. Of course, you can use any colors that you have. But remember that you will achieve different colors if you do. So this wine shows cadmium red, cadmium yellow light, and cobalt blue. See, they have different purples and greens compared to this one. Anyways, if I want to mix a secondary color, say orange, which is this wine, then you just need to look at the two primary colors surrounding it. So if I want to mix orange, then I'll need my red or pink and yellow. Same goes for green. Look at the two primary colors surrounding it. You'll have yellow and blue and the same goes for violet or purple. If you want to learn more about color mixing, then I have a different class about that. The most common way of mixing is mixing on palette. It's pretty much straightforward. Now, let's say I want to mix green, I have my yellow and blue here. Oh, by the way, I'm using Gambognova permanent rose and cobalt blue. I'll grab my Yellow first. I always start with a lighter color, but you can do it differently and then load it with my second color, which is blue. And that's it. That's how you mix your color, and I'm pretty much sure that most of you are doing this. Now, the color, the shade that you achieve depends on the amount of each pigment you mix. So if you want a blue green, then add more blue. If you want a yellow green, then add more yellow. That's it. Let's use this color for this leaf. That's pretty much it. Let's see how this style looks with a tree, tulip, and a simple portrait. I used more than one layer to paint this, so it's pretty normal. You know, that's the most common way of mixing, so I think nothing's different on this technique. But let's see how the second technique brings more movement and makes your painting more interesting by mixing not on the palette, but on the paper directly. 4. Mixing on Paper: Now, a more interesting way of mixing is if you do it on the paper instead of on the palette. Let me show you how it looks. Say I wanted to mix an orange, I'll go for the lighter color first. I will paint it directly on the paper, rinse my brush, load it with a second color, which is permanent rose, and then mix it on the paper. For comparison, let's mix orange directly on our palette. Can you see how different they look? Now, let's try painting pink first, and then mix in yellow. They look so different, right? Now, let's try it on this orange. I am more confident when I start with the lighter colors first, so I will paint this with yellow. Again, this will look different depending on the amount of pigment that you use. Of course, if you use a stronger yellow or a stronger pink, you will achieve a different look than what I am doing right now. Now let's go for pink. This technique is kind of interesting because you can see more movement on your paper. And you'll see hints of yellows and pinks. I'll just add more pink on this side because the shadow is on the left side, so it makes sense for this to be darker. That's it. Okay. You might be curious how this looks like on the previous examples of a tree, a tulip, and a simple portrait. So let's take a look. I love how the portrait looks, the mixing of the colors. There are still hints of pinks and blues that are visible. The same goes for the tulip and for the trees, but I think I needed more texture on the trees, and I should have added more layer. But overall, I like how the colors seem to be playing with each other with this technique. Now, let's take another variation of this technique in the next video. 5. Mixing thru Glazing: Watercolor is known for its transparency, and with that, we can also mix colors through glazing. It is a process of adding a thin wash of paint over a previously dried one. So with that being said, I will need you to be patient this time as you need the first layer to dry first before adding in the second one. So this is my green. This is a yellow that I painted earlier and I let it dry. I can go ahead and load my brush with a thin wash of blue and paint it over my yellow wash. It looks different from this one, since the yellow is still showing through the wash of blue. Let's try adding a thin wash of yellow over blue. This has a somewhat different look than the first one, and I like this better. So I prepared this leaf with a blue wash. Now let's add a yellow wash over it to mix greens. This technique can also be used in what they call underpainting. I've seen some artists use blue as an underpainting for their shadowed parts. So for example, this leaf here, I can add blue on the shadowed area, say here. And wait for it to dry before adding another layer. Okay, this time, the tree the tulip and the portrait looks a bit different than the previous one. But I like how the portrait and the tulip looks. But with this technique, again, you'll need more patients, and you'll need more study as you need to decide which color to paint first. Now, I'll see you in the next video for a more challenging way of mixing your colors. 6. Mixing thru Illusion: If you needed patients with the previous technique, then buckle up because you'll need more patients this time. This technique is inspired by pointism. We'll use short strokes like this or small marks like this and place the color side by side and let the eye do the mixing. Thus, mixing through illusion. For comparison purposes, let us mix purple directly on the palette. So that's pink plus blue or red plus blue. And let's put that here. Now, use this short repetitive stroke. And let it dry first. If you want, you can also use short strokes like this, which I previously painted so you can see how it works. Let's say I want to mix purple again, so my blue is ready. Now I will add in short strokes of pink and fill in those gaps. Some of the marks can also overlap. Doesn't make sense right now, but later I'll show you how I applied it on a landscape portrait and simple still life. Now, I'm going ahead and adding blue on this previously painted pink. Then now that this is somewhat dried, I can now add pink. This could be really time consuming, but it is also meditative since you are doing repetitive strokes. Now, let's paint in this branch with the same technique, and this is brown, meaning we need to combine all of our primary colors. I've added in yellow in advance, so now let's add pink. Wait for it to dry. Then we can add blue. These samples don't make sense and they look a bit clunky and messy, but see how they look when I zoom them out. Now it all makes sense. If you use a smaller brush or if you work on a bigger painting, then looking at it from afar, the eye really does the mixing. If you think that this technique is too time consuming, then the next one might be a better option for you. I'll see you there. What 7. Mixing on Wet Paper: For the last technique, we will do the same as the previous one, but we will prepare the paper with water first. So say I want to mix purple, I will wet my paper first with water and then load my brush with pink. Prinse your brush thoroughly and add in blue and try to fill in those gaps. So now the edges are softer and they are kind of blending with each other because of the water. You can also try adding in blue first and using a different shape like this one, short strokes. Rinse and add pink. This has a different effect. Now, let's do that on the shadow. I'd like to add in pink first and use the dots, then add in blue. This part is darker since it's nearer the fruit, so I'll add another touch of pink. Okay, I think, honestly, I didn't do a good job with the portraits and tulip, but I love how the colors are mixing with each other. They look unfinished and really painterly. But if I am to use this on an actual painting, then I might use other techniques like directly mixing my colors on a palette and add that as the final layer so that the features of the face are more defined, as well as the separation of the petals and adding more texture on the tree. But overall, yeah, this could work. Now, let's see how our Still Life project looks if we combined all of the techniques. I'll see you there. 8. Combining the Techniques: I'll just show you how I'll finish this orange because it looks a bit pale to my liking. So I will combine all of the techniques demonstrated earlier, and I'll walk you through how I decide which one to choose for which area. Let's start with the orange itself. I use the second technique for the orange, so I will do the same, but I'll go stronger with the colors. Meaning more paint than water. Starting off with this side, I'll add more yellow there. Also on this part, rinse my brush and add more pink on this part. So I left that part yellowish, a bit yellowish. And then I will extend so that there's a bit of flow into the shadow. Since we use the fifth technique on this one, let me retouch it by adding dots of blue. To achieve harmony, I will also add dots of blue on this part of the orange. So it is a combination of techniques number two and five. Now, these leaves are looking pale. We used technique number one on this one and number three on this one. I'll do blazing again on this one. So there is a shadowed part. I'll add pink on the shadowed part of this leaf. Do the same on this one. Then this branch looks a bit messy. So what I'll do is I'll mix all of the colors to achieve brown. Purple has already pink and blue in it, so I just need to add yellow to make it brown. Cover the branch with that brown color. The leaves are too pale and looks awkward at the moment, and then the orange is too smooth to my liking, so let's retouch those parts. First with the green, I will directly mix my colors on my palette and add another glaze over this one. Now for the second leaf, I'll make that more of a blue green. The best technique to add texture is this one, the fourth technique. So I'll start with yellow, rinse my brush and load it with pink, and try to fill in the gaps. This part is also darker. Now I will add some details here. Me texture here, and I think I'm done. I'll see you in the next video. Let's wrap up, and I'll remind you how you can grab a copy of my gift for you. See ya. 9. Claim Your Gift: But That is so interesting, isn't it? Which one is your favorite technique? We tried mixing on palette, which is the most common usual way. Mixing on paper where there's more pigment movement, mixing through glazing, which indeed tested our patients, mixing through illusion, which really did take some time to complete and mixing on wet paper, which I personally think is the most unique way. We also look at how each technique can be applied on a simple portrait, a landscape element such as trees and florals. Each technique has a beauty of its own. But if there's one thing that I want you to take away from this class, that is taking time to study color mixing, doing your own swatches, but still having fun while experimenting with different techniques. I hope you enjoyed this class as much as I enjoyed creating this, especially the part where we combined all of the techniques. Now it's your turn to complete the learning process by uploading your project and telling us which colors you used. Then, please go ahead and leave an honest class review to help other students decide whether this class is for them or not. Don't forget to grab a copy of my latest eBook as my way of saying thank you for supporting this class. I hope to see you on my other classes and together, let's make this world a little bit more colorful with our artworks. 10. Bonus: Best Technique: I love all these techniques and each has their own use. But if I am to choose, then it would be the second one, which is mixing on paper and the fifth one, which is mixing on wet paper. But I am more accustomed to mixing on the palette, and the lasing is also a fun experiment to do while mixing through illusion, can be useful in adding textures and depending on the effect that you wanted. But to help you decide which one is the best for you then, let's again review the different painting subjects that I did using the different techniques. Starting first with a tulip. On this one, I think the best one that I have for you is glazing or layering. But again, it will depend on the amount of time that you dedicated in creating your craft, and the ones are just studies. So it just took me 15 minutes to do these studies. That's why I strongly encourage you to test this on your own and decide. Next, for the portrait, of course, this is the safest pick mixing your colors on a palette. But these two really grabbed my attention. I would like to make more portraits using the mixing on paper and mixing through glazing techniques. Not so much for the last two, but again, I think if I used smaller points, smaller brushes and took more time, then they might have looked better. For landscape elements like trees, this to really caught my attention, but mixing on wet paper might also work if you're on the final layer. Take note that I did all of this with three layers. The demonstrations I did earlier look pale compared to this one because one, I use different colors, and two, these were only done using one layer. So I hope that helps you in choosing which style to experiment with and which style works best with your personality and your painting subjects. I'll see you in the next video. Let's wrap up, and I'll remind you how you can get your gift from me.