Mixing Grays with Complimentary Colors

1. Mixing Grays Intro: Hi, I'm Lana, artist and owner of Come Alive Studio. I've been a professional artist for about eight years. That includes teaching students that range from the age of 5-80. One of the things I'm really passionate about is colors and artwork. These colors can apply to any medium that you use. Specifically, I'd like to teach my students how to create their own colors instead of using colors straight from the tube. Today, we are going to learn how to mix grays with complimentary colors. We're going to mix grays with green and red, yellow and purple, and orange and blue. You'll get a wide range of colors within mixing the complimentary colors, but we'll see how to create grays instead of using a gray paint from the tube or a watered down black with white. It's going to be a really fun class, and we're going to do that with creating a color scale. We'll start with pure blue here and slowly add orange until you get to an orange all the way on opposite side, but in the middle will have this beautiful range of gray colors. That is what I want you to be able to take away from this class, is how to mix your own grays so that your artwork will have more depth than just simply mixing black and white paint to create gray. Let's get started. 2. Mixing Grays Supplies: The supplies we're going to use for this class are pretty straight forward. First, I'm just using a piece of paper that's 9x12. It is a cold press piece of paper for watercolor because that is the medium that I'm using for this class today. But honestly, you can also use acrylics if you wanted to. We're going to work horizontally, so you want it to be at least 10 inches wide. I am using a flat paintbrush. So the head of the paintbrush is just a square and the reason for that it's also a size 10 paintbrush. Again, you're open to use whatever size paint brushes that you would like but we are going to do our brush strokes like this. So, I want your brush to be wide enough to see a color. So you don't want to use a really skinny brush. It'll just be easier to do one swatch with a slightly wider brush. I'm using my favorite paint palette that I can use to travel easily as well. So it snaps closed like this. I used to paint. So you can just squirt your paint in the little tube and it will dry here. So in this one pallet, I have this surface. I have this surface up here, but this clear thing also pops out so you have three different surfaces. I will link this palette, if you like it, in the notes of the class. I'll fold a paper towel just to dab your brush if you're using watercolor, if you get too much water on the brush itself and then a water cup. Again, if you're using watercolors for this class, but you're welcome to use acrylics if that's what you have. Again, I love this cup. It collapses. So it makes for good, easy travel. It also has these ridges on the top so that a lot of times your paintbrush, if you put it on your table, it will roll and then you risk it getting on your artwork. This is designed for your brushes right there so it doesn't roll off. Again, I'll link this in the class notes as well. Then paints we're using six colors today. We are doing complementary colors yellow and purple. You want to make sure to get as true to a true purple or yellow as much as you can. So we're using Cad Yellow Light for the yellow. We're using Purple Dioxin, which is just trying to pick a purple that was as much blue and red equally. We're using a Primary Red paint with Viridian Green and Ultramarine Blue with a Cadmium Red Light, sorry, but it's orange. Those are the colors that we're going to be using. Again, use what you have available. Because you can mix the same orange with two different blues and have a totally different range of colors. So this exercise is really just to teach you the variation of colors and grays that you can get when you mix two colors together. So, that's the supplies. Let's get started. 3. Mixing Grays Yellow to Purple: We're going to start with mixing our complimentary colors of yellow and purple. If you missed my first video on basics, you might want to just go back and watch it, but complimentary colors are colors that are opposite of each other, and they don't color well. I'm just going to score just a tiny bit of this yellow on my palette. I'm going to do the same for the purple. I'm starting with a clean surface here so that I have no colors that might contaminate this mixing because you want it to be as clean and true as possible. I've scored in my two colors. You want to start with a pile of each, and you want to make sure the pile is big enough because you're going to use this same pile every single time to keep adding color to. It'd be better to make it too much than not enough. I feel like I'm going to do a little bit more just because I don't want to run out, and I add water. What's really important in between each color swatch that we're going to paint, is to clean your brush really well because you don't want to contaminate when you go to get more purple or yellow, you don't want to contaminate the colors. Now I'm going to do a purple. I'm going to do it far enough away to where the two won't mix with each other and get a little bit more. I'm just adding water to get the fluidity level that I want. I don't want it to be too dry or it gets sticky. I've got a good pile started for each color. Then I wash my brush really well. I'll still see some purple on my paper towel here from where I got the excess water off, so I'm going to keep cleaning. That's better. First, I'm going to start with just a pure swatch of yellow. We're going to work horizontally across the top. You can do your color swatches as big or as small as you want to. You want to make sure they're big enough that you can really see the color. We've got our yellow. Again, clean your brush after each here. You make sure when you're grabbing purple, you're getting just purple. This is where it gets important. I want this to be a very gradual shift. You can make it even more gradual than I am. But to do that, I'm barely going to get get any purple. I'm just going to dip my brush barely in the end, and I'm going to take that and mix it into this yellow. Then you take it and do your next swatch. It may be so subtle at first that you don't necessarily see the difference. But I can already see a slight difference between these two. This yellow is somehow a little bit darker. Again, clean your brush, grab just a little bit more purple again and add it to your yellow. You're probably wondering how I'll ever going to get to gray. But I promise it will happen quicker than you might imagine. Each time, again, you're just going to grab a touch of purple, add it to your yellow. You can start to see that our color is changing, it's definitely still yellow, but it's a different yellow. Not only is this exercise going to gave you a good mix of, that's a little too much purple. If you feel like, that went way dark, you can just clean out their brush and get the rest of your paint off and then mix it together. We're not only going to be getting graze or comprehend colors, but you're going to be getting a range of yellows and a range of purples rather than straight out of the tube colors. Our yellow is starting to turn into a yellow ocher, so it's just got a brownish more of an earthy tone to it, which means we're getting toward grays. Each time again, the slide has been about color, because I want you to be able to see the subtle differences you could have. Now we're really starting to get into brownish grays. I think the thing that's beautiful about gray is that there can be so many different hues with any gray. That's what adds to the depth of our colors and ultimately the depth of our paintings. Because if you just use colors straight out of the tube, it can just get a little flat and boring. This is a simple way to maybe challenge yourself to use less colors in that painting, and to see how many colors you can get. Now we're really getting into the grays. Those to me are some really beautiful grays that have a richness to them because if you look, you can like, yeah, I can see a little bit of purple in that, I can see a little bit yellow in that. That's what you're aiming for. From here, it's going to transition into purple. But even that purple, it's just like these yellows have a hands-off gray, and then even this purple is a very muted, under toned, grayish purple. It's a little too much purple. Even though this is very clearly a purple, there's still a yellow in it because we have started with this original yellow pile. This purple is very much still different than our pure purple over here. Probably we're going to do one more pile, adding the purple over here. Then I'll do a straight purple. Now I'm just going to go straight to purple. We've done our color scale from cad yellow lights all the way to this purple. In within that, you see all these different variations of colors and you could honestly get hundreds of colors in between each of these. But this right here, these are all different types of grays. At first, you may not be like, well, that doesn't look like a gray. But once you put that in your paintings, you'll see that the gray like this works much better than a gray that you just simply mix with black and white. That is our color scale for these complimentary colors. 4. Mixing Grays Blue to Orange: Now we're going to work on going from blue to orange. These are complimentary colors that are opposite on the color wheel. Each time I want you to get new fresh water, so I've cleaned out my water, and I've also cleaned our palate so I can have a new surface. This is just stained it's not actually wet. Let's start with squirting out some fresh blue, and I'm using ultramarine blue and some cad red light. Even though it says cad red, it's definitely a true bright orange, it is a very powerful color. It's why I'm going to start with blue and then work our way to the orange, because the orange can easily overpower this blue. Again, I'm going to start with a good pile of blue, get a little bit more liquid-y, I clean my brush really well and get some orange. [inaudible] I aim to get the same amount of transitions for the blue to orange, but that may not happen; different colors work differently with each other. So starting with blue, up here, blue swatch, and again, just the slightest amount of orange. You'd rather go too little to start, and then you get more than starting with too much from the beginning, because once you contaminated your [inaudible] , you don't necessarily want to go back because then you'll be trying to figure out where you were. I'm going to grab some more orange and mix it in. It's very subtle, but I can start to see the blue is getting darker. Can you see that slight difference? This is another good exercise to just teach you in subtleties in color, and instead of being, "They are the same blue," and you're like, "Is there any difference between those two?" The harder you look, the more those changes will become obvious to you and you'll be able to see them in your artwork, in other people's artwork, and it's really what adds depth to your paintings. I'm also trying to make sure that I mix it into this whole pile because sometimes I can have some blue that might sit over here and then it doesn't get purely mixed in. Now we're starting to get a really gorgeous navy color, which might be surprising that you can get a navy blue by mixing orange with it. That's why I love these kind of exercises because it opens up your world to new things. It's going to be a big jab. Now I'm really starting to see this shift into gray hue, so if you look suddenly from here to here, you can see that change, and how this is way more of a gray hue than this one. Not a really beautiful gray color, and I can start to see this shift right here, between more blue to more orange. Now it's shifting to a very almost rusty color, but still in the gray family. Those kind of colors would be really great for a dusty sunset or sunrise, it will be a really beautiful, and that is not a color that you will find in a tube. I know what we're doing here is not rocket science, you may be like, "I don't think I'm learning anything, " but I really want you to just slow down and start to look for these colors in everyday life, and see the different subtleties in clothes or rugs and start to look for like, okay, what colors do I see in that gray? Or okay, that's a blue, but does it have a little green in it? Does it have a lot of yellow in it? Does it have a little orange in it? Those are the things that are going to make your eyes start to see the world differently, and it's a really beautiful thing. So I think I'm ready to do my pure orange now. You have this full range of all these different colors that you can get from mixing oranges and the blues, but right here in the center, is where you've got great swatch of grays, and it's about in the same line as this purple and yellows. Those are all different grays that you can mix for subtleties and you can do a whole painting that has a ton of gray in it. Shadows on people's faces, shadows on the ground, and you use these different tones. Let's move on to the next one. 5. Mixing Grays Red to Green: Now we're going to mix the colors, primary red with a viridian green. To me this green is just a very in the middle between yellow and blue, green. You might recognize these colors from Christmas. I'm going to do a little bit of fresh red. Again, I've cleaned my palate so it's a fresh slate and I've gotten new water and cleaned my brush really well. I can't emphasize how important that is when you're painting because your colors can get money and you don't even realize it. Let's start with a really good pile of red. That's pretty good. Again, you always want to start with more than not enough. Because you end up running out, then it gets your color scale all off. I'm actually going to do some more green. All that's dry so I relate to get a good pile, I want to use some wet paint. I think watercolors are really great for these exercises because it's quick deriving medium that's pretty affordable and that's great for seeing colors. I'm going to start with red lamp here, red swatch. Again, you want to think that this green would be very powerful against that really strong, vibrant red. But it is, so again I'm just going to start super slow with adding migraine. Already with that tiny bit of green, you can see the difference that this red is a little darker and it has a slightly warmer hue to it. Again, I'm making sure to mix my whole pile if it. You might recognize a lot of complimentary colors in like sports teams or big holidays because they traditionally, they compliment each other so that good together, but it goes deeper than just the straight red and green together, the two colors work really well. You can see that as an example with all these different hughes and beautiful tones that I've gotten that you just can't find in YouTube. They can only be made by you mixing them because the changes are so subtle and so beautiful. Now we're getting into a really deep, warm crimson color. It's really beautiful, more toward Burgundy or a wine color. They're not really bright red. I also find this to be very calming and therapeutic. If you're in array and you don't really know what you want to do next, just get some paint out and start make some colors and do some swatches. You don't have to paint anything extraordinary, but just to get out a brush and start using it will open up maybe some creativity that you have blocked right now. It's taking a little more colors to get into the grays here. But you can see this beautiful transition, we're going to get there. Red is a very powerful color. Now we're starting to see subtle shift toward gray and not so red. [inaudible] on my palate looks really gray. I'm going to do a little skinnier so I can thin green on there. Now I'm starting to see this gray shift slightly to the green just from that one launch transition is so subtle. I'll do one last swatch of green. We did the complimentary colors today, but you aren't limited to trying to get greens with other colors. I really encourage you see what colors you get when you mix blue. You can do this same training session from blue to green and see all the different variations you can get in there. Then with blue to purple, blue to red and just see that shift and the subtlety is that you can get with the most simple, basic colors. 6. Mixing Grays Primary Color Gray: I'm showing you how to get a different range of gray. Now I'm going to show you this is another she'd have aver from a different time than I did this. But I am going to show you now how to get one of my favorite grays, which is by mixing three primary colors. Mixing red, ultramarine, blue, and yellow. I've already got colors squared on pallets. I don't have to square it more. When you mix these three colors together, you get a really beautiful gray and any variation in between that. I'm just going to start with yellow and this is something that you just play with. You have to like push and pull the different colors. Be like I've got too much blue in there. Maybe I should counteract it with another color. You've gotten a pre-green. Let me get some red. I'm creating this really like or mesh and brown color. I'm going to see what happens when I add a little bit of blue. Yeah, definitely went to gray really quickly. That is a very true pure gray. But from there, you can just add a little subtlety like, I've got that gray. I wanted to talk a little bit yellow. Mix that yellow in. You've got a gray with a touch of yellow or if you want to go. This won't be a gray it has slightly more red, but if you want it to go a little bit more blue, good touch a blue water. Touch the blue. [inaudible] to red very small dot. With that, you add, just mix those grays by mixing the three primary colors, red, yellow, blue. Now you know how to mix grays. 7. Mixing Grays Wrap Up: That concludes our class on mixing grays with complimentary colors. I really hope that you learned a lot about the range of colors that you can get just by mixing complimentary colors and that you're most rich and true grays are going to come when you do mix complimentary colors rather than using a gray straight out of the tube, mixing white and black together, or if you're doing whiter color, a gray down black. I hope that you enjoyed this class and that you'll continue to take this class series so easy a kid could do it. Thanks.