Watercolor Mixing for Beginners: Paint Landscapes with 3 Colors Only

1. What's In Store for You: When I was a beginner, I used to believe that the more colors I have, the better my art would be. Yet I found myself endlessly searching for that elusive, perfect palette. It all changed when I discovered the art of color mixing and the power of a simple three color limited palette. I didn't stumble upon this by myself. I have art friends who advised me that learning how to mix and understand my colors is an essential. Now I am returning the favor by showing you how to mix the very colors you need for your painting projects, armed with just three colors. Hi, I'm Bianca Lustre, a watercolorist from Batangas, Philippines. I'm recently focusing my efforts on helping watercolor beginners improve their skills and gain confidence. One of the key skills to do that is by learning how to mix your colors. In this class, we will learn how to choose and mix primary colors, create your own chart, and expand it to find the very colors you need for an art project. We'll also talk about color temperature, why mody colors appear, and how to avoid them. Finally, we will apply what we have learned by painting a simple landscape scene using three colors only. As a bonus, I will also give away an E book containing all the color charts that I created for the past few months. Please state tuned for my announcement on how you could grab your copy. Anyone who loves water colors and would like to give color mixing a try. Welcome. In this class, you'll need your basic watercolor materials, such as paper paints and brushes. But above all, your passion to learn and experiment with colors. Once you're done with this class, you'll have the confidence and knowledge and mixing and choosing your own colors and applying it on different painting subjects using a limited palette. Grab your materials and let's get started. 2. Class Project: Our goal for this class is to be able to choose our three primary colors and create different charts that will be a valuable reference in our color mixing exercises. I will demo how to swatch your colors. Create an odd shaped color wheel. Extend it to an earth color chart in either landscape or portrait orientation. You can upload any of this as your class project if you want to go extra, then expand this chart even more and find the specific colors you'll need to create a simple artwork like this. I will show you how I used a warm, cool, and mixed palette to these landscape paintings you can use as an inspiration. To get started, please download the class guide in the resources center and prepare the following watercolor paper. Please use any texture and quality that is available to you. Three watercolor paints, don't worry, I'll show you which colors to pick later. A palette where you can mix your colors. Any brush that you're comfortable using. Water jar for rinsing the brush and paper tawel or rag to remove excess water. Of course, you love to learn and experiment with colors. I want you to have the best experience during this class. So please make sure to use the different features such as Projects Gallery, where we can share our work and receive feedback and also discover different combinations that everyone came up with. The discussion stab, where you can start a conversation, ask a question, or just say hi. The review stab, where you can write an honest review for other students to decide if this class is for them or not, if I am making quality classes. In the next video, let's discuss what you'll gain by learning how to mix your colors. 3. Why Learn Color Mixing: From achieving harmony to being able to paint anything you want in terms of colors. Here are some reasons why you should learn color mixing. By using a limited palette, you will harmonize your painting. Look at these two artworks, do you see the difference? Can you feel it? For the painting on the left, I used as many colors as I think I need without heavily mixing my colors. Well, on the other one, I used only three colors. You have probably heard that by using a limited palette, you will definitely achieve harmony in your paintings. That's because all of the colors are related to each other. For example, the blue I used in the sky is also present in the grass in the foreground and is also used for the smaller details in the middle ground. Using a limited palette will unify our colors and help you avoid disjointed colors or jolting wants like what happened here. In the other example, we actually have a term for a painting where you used almost all of the colors available to you. They call it the fruit salad effect. That's what we want to avoid. Well, unless you're going after that style, no need to buy endless tubes of paint. When I was a beginner, I treated myself with this lovely set of water colors from Pebeo. I thought that the more pigments I have, the better my paintings will be. But I was wrong, since I have these beautiful, convenient mixes. I totally ignored learning how to mix my own colors and relied heavily on the pigments that are available to me. If I need green, then I use the green pigment. I want to paint grapes or lavenders, Then el pick violet. And it became a habit. If I want to paint a beautiful scene or a still life setting, I'll check my colors first before I commit to it. If I have all the pigments I think I need, then I'll work on this project. But if not, it's either I purchase a new color or I'll completely give up on that project. Which is a shame really because I'm the type of artist that needs to be inspired and feel a connection to my painting subject first before I could begin. It feels really bad. This also meant more palettes. Since I can't seem to find the set of colors that I need, It's an important skill that every beginner should learn. You're working with only three colors or a limited palette. You are forced to think about your colors carefully when you do not have so many resources. You are forced to be creative and to be a good problem solver. This eventually leads to confidence in painting and choosing your colors wisely. If I could go back in time, I would definitely learn how to paint using a limited palette and mix my colors efficiently before trying out other convenient pigments. If you're a beginner, I suggest that you learn the skill as early as possible. You can paint anything you want with only three colors. You can paint landscape, still life, portrait, abstract shapes, literally anything that you want. As long as you know how to mix them efficiently, would you think that all these paintings are from the same limited palette? Yes, they are. I really thought that would be impossible at first, but with lots of time invested on testing and mixing different combinations, it is indeed possible. It was actually a fun exercise to paint different subjects with three colors only. But for the sake of simplicity of this class, we will only focus on landscape paintings, but you are free to paint any subject that you want later. Okay, this also encourages you to expand the palette and experiment to achieve the colors that you want. Learning how to mix your colors does not only apply to water colors, but with other mediums as well. There might be slight changes and adjustments needed. But this skill of mixing your colors and being mindful about it will be useful no matter what medium we use. Here's why. You need to learn how to mix your colors. You'll achieve harmony in your paintings. No need to buy endless choices of paints. You'll build confidence. You'll be able to paint anything you want, and it is applicable to other medium. In the next video, let's discuss how to choose our three colors. 4. How to Choose Primary Colors: What are primary colors? You must have heard from school that the primary colors consist of red, yellow, and blue. Technically, colors that you cannot mix. You can have one red, one yellow, or one blue as your primary with water colors, you can also use yellow. And just like how printers work, how do you really choose your primaries? Here are some tips to help you choose your primaries. Start with what you have, whether you have a beginner set of water colors or a few tubes in your possession. The best advice that I have in choosing your colors is to just start with what you have. Unless you don't have a red or magenta, blue or ion and yellow on your palette, then you might need to borrow or purchase new ones. If you have a set where the pigments have no name, then it's important to Swat shear colors first and intuitively pick up your primaries. Take note of starter kits from famous brands. Another good reference in choosing your primary colors is checking what the famous brands are offering as their starter kit. For example, here's a list from Windsor Newton's official website. Their three color system includes Winsor lemon, Windsor blue, red shade, and permanent rose. I use the closest pigments that I have, and this is how the professional three color system looks like. Well, from their Cotman line, which is considered student grade, they have lemon yellow hue, ultramarine and permanent rose. I use the Cotman three color system as my reference in creating this color chart with M grams basic set, he can spot ultramarine blue, Azo yellow, and Alizarine crimson. I use cadmium yellow instead of Azo yellow to give you an idea how the color chart looks for this starter kit. On the other hand, Daniel Smith's starter set includes a bright primary triad, which has ultramarine blue hands, a yellow medium, and Quinacridone rose. I've substituted bum yellow light with hands a yellow. And this is how the bright triad looks like as a color chart. While the Earth primary triad includes Montata natural Siena, transparent red oxide, and cerulean blue chromium, I use the closest pigments available to me to produce The Earth Triad color chart. Looks a lot different than the previous months. Right? Equally spaced from each other in the color wheel. In case you have accumulated lots of tubes and pans, then it's best to consult Bruce Mcavoys, Artists Color Wheel, which shows the color appearance locations of all major watercolor pigments in use today. Looking at both the color wheel and the suggestions of major brands in choosing your primary, we can see that ultramarine blue, cadmium lemon, and cadmium red are equally spaced from each other. If plotted on a color chart, this is how that combination looks like. We can also try cobalt till quinacridone magenta and cadmium lemon. Ideally colors that are equally spaced and therefore produce a triangle shape like this. Here's what it looks like when you expand that palette. Pretty cool, huh? A pickup on choosing your colors, start with what you have. Check Famous Brands starter kit and see the color wheel. In the next video, let's start mixing our colors. 5. Mixing Your Colors: Now that we know how to choose our primary colors, we can start creating our color charts that will be useful later. I've chosen Prussian blue, cadmium, yellow light, and rose matter. They are from different brands, but it doesn't really matter. Place the pigment names here and an informal color wheel over here, and it should look something like this. We'll also expand it and apply it on a painting later. Now first things first, of course, you need to swatch the primary colors. I'd like to start with blue, because that's my favorite. Add a bit of water on your paint To achieve this consistency, then paint a small square like this. Rinse your brush, tap off excess water on your rag and extend that square downwards to create a rectangle. This way you'll see the color in two shades. Do this for the other two primary colors. A quick tip. With water colors, you can treat water as a color as much as it's important to keep our bodies healthy also plays an important role in color mixing. It's not only meant for rinsing your brush, Water also controls the opacity or strength of your mixture. For example, this blue is too dark for painting skies, right? But if you add just enough amount of water, you can achieve different shades of this blue that fits your painting. With acrylics, you can add white to a color to make it lighter. But with water colors, we use water for demonstration purposes. Here's what it looks like when you mix white with these primaries. Instead of making the colors less intense and more transparent white paint, turn them into pastel colors, lighter powdery and more opaque. They could be useful in other painting styles, but let's stick to the traditional approach in this class. Next, let's create an oddly shaped color wheel. I start with two triangles overlapping each other. On these three that I marked, I will paint my blue, red, and yellow. Starting with blue, again, paint an abstract shape like this. Make it big enough to mark it as your primary. Then mix with yellow. And that makes our secondary color green paint that a bit smaller than the blue shape. Then add more blue, mix blue green, and place it here. Add more yellow. For yellow green, we have two tertiary colors. Now go ahead and place yellow over here, slightly bigger than the secondary. And tertiary colors. Mix that bit red to produce orange, Another secondary color. Then add more yellow for yellow, orange, and red for red, orange. Another set of tertiaries. Lastly, place your red here as much as you can. Make the primary colors the same size. The secondary color is the same size and so on. Makes red with blue to achieve violet. Another secondary color then more red for red violet and painted here more blue for blue violet looks like a descent color wheel, right? It's not just circle, but you get it. Just with three primaries, we were able to mix three secondaries and six tertiary colors. If you mix the three, you'll have this muddy brown color. This muddy color might not be tear liking, but in painting different subjects you will definitely need brown and different shades of it. A quick recap, we swatched our primaries in two shades with an added white paint to see how they look like, and created a color wheel to mix the secondary and tertiary colors. In the next video, let's mix our Earth colors. 6. Earth Colors: Now that we have a color wheel with our primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, let's expand it and mix these Earth colors to the perfect for trees, ground, and shadows of the clouds. Starting with blue, mix here blue with water. To achieve this consistency, and paint a small swatch. Gradually add yellow to the mixture. See how it change just with a tiny amount of yellow. Add a bit more and more and more, and see how the colors change. Do this until you get as close to yellow as possible. If your mixture is getting thick, don't forget to add water. By doing this chart, you'll learn the following. Through experience, the range of colors you can create with your primaries and not just your standard secondary tertiary colors. Which colors are overpowering and how versatile a limited color palette truly is. Enjoy this process and expand your limited color palette. Our goal at this point is to turn blue to green and then to yellow. Then when you come at a point where the mixture is close to yellow or yellow green, you can then start adding red to the mixture. See how it changes by using all three in the mixture. From this point on, our goal is to turn this yellow green to a color as close as to brownish red as possible. These are your earth colors, perfect for land masses, grounds, and anything that requires this shade. It is a good alternative for burnt sienna, light red, and other earth colors. Now, when you get to the point where the mixture is close to red and doesn't seem to change, no matter how much red you add to it, it's time to add blue back into the mixture. I might have added more blue than I intended to, but that's okay. By looking at the color wheel, I know that I can produce a lighter brown with these three primaries. Go ahead and continue until you fill out this page. This time you'll get a range of dark browns and even bluish browns depending on the primary colors you're using. They are a good alternative to Bird Umber CPA and paints gray. These shades are also perfect for shadows. Who would have thought that you could have lots of colors from three primaries? Right, A recap on what we did. We started with blue and turned the mixture into green, then yellow. Then we introduced red to the mixture. When it turned red, we finally added blue back to the mixture. This type of chart shows various shades of green, browns, and grays. In the next video, let's look at a simpler version of this chart and more examples of three color combinations that you can use. 7. Other Color Charts: Just very quickly. Here's a simpler alternative chart that I love, graving. I like it so much that I filled the whole sketch book with these type of charts and explore different primary color combinations. This is actually pretty straightforward. Write the names of the colors at the upper left, Swatch your primaries downwards, followed by the secondary colors and a mixture of the three. Then do the same thing as the Earth color chart earlier, only in portrait orientation. Starting from blue and slowly adding yellow, then add red. Once the mixture turns out as a yellowish green, then add blue again once it turns into a reddish brown. By testing out different color combinations, you'll see that you can get a wide range of green browns, purples or grays depending on the pigments you use. You can even control how abrupt the change is from one color to the other. Take it slow and swatch a wide range of earth colors. Like in this example, I got lots of greens, a fair bit of browns, which turned into really dark, neutral colors once I started adding blue again in the mixture. It really depends on which type of chart you'd want to share in the project's gallery. It can be a simple primary color swatch plus a color wheel, or an earth color swatch in landscape orientation or in portrait orientation. Here are some more color charts featuring different three color combinations. I love how muted this color is in the grays that it produced. While this one has lovely muted browns, greens and purples. This chart boasts its olive greens, reddish browns, and red violets. While this combination has really bright greens and grays perfect for sunny landscapes. I'm giving away this color charts for free with pigment's name. Of course, I turned it into a small book with over 30 pages. Please stay tuned for my announcement and how you can grab your copy. I spent hours and hours testing out different combinations just to satisfy my curiosity, while hoping that this could be a useful guide to others to decide on their primary colors. A quick summary of what we did, we created a simpler alternative chart in portrait orientation. We found out that different combinations will produce different charts. In the next video, let's learn about complimentary colors. 8. Complementary Colors: Let's talk about complimentary colors and why it's useful to know what they are. Complimentary colors are ones that lie opposite in the color wheel. Blue and orange, yellow and violet, red and green. When used together, they create a bright contrast. When mixed together, you'll have various versions of neutral colors, such as browns, grays, and black very quickly. Let's mix the complementary colors by using the three primaries we used earlier. You can see that the orange and blue turned out is a greenish. One, yellow and violet mixed together became brown. Red and green also turned out to be brown. But keep in mind that this highly depends on the pigments you are combining together and the amount of each pigment in the mixture. Also, we're using a limited palette for comparison purposes. Here's what other complementary colors from pigments look like. Knowing your complementaries is especially useful when you want to tone down or desaturate the color. For example, if this yellow is too bright to your liking a purple, which is actually red plus blue, you'll have a dull yellow like this. Same goes for red. Add green from a mixture of yellow and blue and you'll have a sort of muddy red perfect for roofs. Lastly, blue, mixed with a bit of orange from red and yellow turns into this cooler blue. Put simply, depending on the amount of each primary pigment, the result would be different. That's the power of color mixing. Here's the convenient mixes from earlier, mixed with a bit of their complimentary color. A quick rec up on complimentary colors, they lie each other in the color wheel. When placed beside each other, they appear vibrant. But when mixed together, they'll turn into a neutral color. Could be brown or gray. A color can be used to desaturate or tone down. It's complimentary. In the next video, let's talk about the temperature of colors and how it affects your color mixing. 9. Warm and Cool Colors: Look at these two sunset paintings. Does one feel warmer than the other? Why do you think so? Right? That's because of color temperature. But how do we know which colors are warm and which are cool? The simplest way is to think of fire and ice. When you say fire, we feel warm. What colors are present there? Reds, oranges, and yellows on the opposite ice, which can contain greens, blues and purples is generally on the cooler side. That's one way to remember our warms and cools. In case of our limited palette, red and yellow are on the warm side and blue is on the cool side. But there are other ways to identify a colors. Temperature, divide the color wheel in half. Technically, we can treat one half as cool and the other half as warm. Take this color wheel by Arts and Foundation's website, for example, from red violet to yellow green, they are considered warm. The other half with blues, violets and greens are considered cool. We can do the same to our own color wheel. I think this line divides them, marking the upper part as cool, the lower part as warm. But water color pigments are versatile. All blue pigments are not necessarily cool. There are also warm variations. The same applies to red and yellow that determine its bias. This is a, an intuitive way of identifying a colors temperature. You need to swatch, see, and observe if there are chases of other colors in your pigment. For example, each of these yellows is warmer. If you pick the one at the right, then you're correct. It has an orange bias and appears to have a red mixed in it, while the other one looks like it has traces of blue in it. As mentioned earlier, blue is cold and red is warm. This is lemon yellow and gumbo Enova. Can you determine which yellows are warm? You got it. Those with bits of red and leaning towards yellow orange. Now, which of these feels cooler? The one at the right is cooler since it has a violet bias and appears to have a bit of blue in it. While the other one seems to have a bit of yellow mixed in it. Again, blue is cool and yellow is warm. These are vermilion hue and rose matter. Which of these reds appear warm, right? Those with traces of yellow in them and appear near orange in the color wheel. Now, this is where it gets tricky. Which of these blue is cooler? The one at the left has bits of red in it, while the one at the right appears to have yellow mixed with it. Before I answer that, let's check the color wheel again. Both red and yellow are on the warm side of the color wheel. How do we know which is cool and which is warm? In fact, some artists think that all blues are cool, while others think the opposite. But here's something to keep in mind. Most of the time we paint oceans and seas with blue green blues, with traces of yellow in them and seem to be leaning towards blue green are considered cool. One with bits of red and leaning towards violet is warm here. The one at the left is warm, that's ultramarine blue. And the one at the right, turquoise blue is cool. What about this group which are warm blues, right? Only two of them. Now, why does it matter to know your colors, temperature? If you want to suggest distant mountains, your better choice will be a blue. If you want to paint grasses in the foreground, near the viewer, then it only makes sense to mix a warmer green. That's because cool colors recede or go back in space and warm colors advance. This is due to the wavelengths of warm colors being longer. Your eyes see them sooner than the shorter wavelengths of cooler colors of, of those technical terms. If you want to paint landscapes to warmth or coolness, it's better to use colors with the right temperature for comparison. Here's another version where I use the opposite color, temperature feels different. Right here are the two sunset paintings again, which feels warmer? Yes, the one at the right. I used warm primary colors on this one, which made it appear warmer. But this is not an absolute rule. Take this painting for example. It looks like the grass in the middle is warmer than the one in the foreground. And I also used a warm blue in the distant mountains, and it seems like I still use the correct colors. It really all depends on the mood that you want to create in your paintings. You could also avoid muddy colors when you consider a pigment's temperature, you might have experienced firsthand or heard from someone else, that greens and violets are the hardest secondary colors to mix. That goes the same for me until I discovered why. If you want to successfully mix a clear and vibrant secondary color, you must take the temperature into consideration. Let's look at this simple color chart. For example, on the left, I have warm and cool blue. At the top, I have cool and warm yellow, warm and cool red. A warm blue and warm yellow mixed together will produce a warm green. A warm blue and cool yellow will mix. A different green mix and match and see what happens, now, this is where it gets muddy. Vermilion hue is a warm red, and Prussian blue is a cool blue. When mixed together, they should produce violet, right? Mud brown. Why? Because Vermilion has an orange bias which appears to have a bit of yellow in it. Prussian blue has a green bias, meaning all primary colors are present. Blue plus red plus yellow equals brown, or a neutral color. We learned that earlier when we created our own chart. If you want to go technical, here's more info on the two pigments from King's Framing and Art Gallery. Prussian blue contains anthrop blue pigment. Well, vermilion hue has transparent pyal orange, pyal red, and Iso indoline yellow. Yes, technically all primary colors are present, thus producing brown. You have greater chances of producing vibrant secondary color mixtures if you mix colors with the same temperature, but it's not applicable to all warm and cool color combinations. That's why the time spent mixing and testing out different combinations, we keeping in mind their temperature is an essential skill that you should learn. Creating swatches might look and feel tedious, but I'd like to coat one of my favorite authors, Charles Swindle. I'm a real believer in spending some time every day doing what's important rather than doing what's urgent. Let that sink in a summary on how to tell your colors. Temperature, think of fire and eyes. Divide the color wheel in half, determine its bias and learning this will help you avoid muddy colors, and I'll see in the next video to apply what we have learned so far and paint this simple landscape scene. 10. Cool Color Palette: Now it's time to put our color mixing to the test. We will expand this chart we created earlier to achieve this, using our cool color, limited palette featuring prussian blue, yellow light, and rose matter. We will recreate this painting by finding the colors that are not present in our earth colors chart. Yes, we have a range of different greens, browns and grays. But there are still colors in the reference painting that are not Swatched here. This time we will also see how each color changes by gradually adding water to the mixture for reference. Let's place this here and work on finding the sky colors first. I also did a simple sketch that will serve as my guide later, where I'll paint the house and the trees using the same blue, Prussian blue to start the chart. But this is too bright, it's actually too cool for the sky and the mood that I want to portray. What do we do? Consult the chart that we made earlier and find a base color this blue violet will do. We know from experience that by adding a bit of rose matter on our blue, it will turn into a blue violet swatch again. And check, yes, this is the color that I'm after. We'll also need a blue green for the distant mountain. Again, check the color wheel. Find the base color, and it's here. By adding a bit of yellow to our blue, it makes it even cooler. But I think this is too cool. What do we do? Remember, our complimentary colors, blue, green, and red, are not necessarily placed directly opposite each other on the color wheel. But if I add a bit of red to the mixture, it should change, right? Correct. I think I like this version of blue green more. Lastly, we need some shadow colors for the clouds. What could work as a base color red violet, right? If it's too blue, add and if it's too red, add blue swatch to check if you like the color that you're mixing. I think it's too bright and vibrant. Let's add a bit of yellow to tone it down. It's the same complimentary color principle that we discussed earlier. Do you now see the importance of the color charts that we did before? Through experience, we know which pigments are needed to mix such and such colors. Soon, you won't even need to check your color wheel, but intuitively grab the colors that you need. Now that we have the three colors for the sky, let's see how those colors change by adding water gradually to the mixture. Remember what I said earlier. You should also treat water as a color mixing medium, not just for rinsing your brush. If a color is too strong or dark, maybe you just need some water to find the shade that you need. Here, you can already see the sky colors that we can use for our landscape painting. Okay, it's time to paint the background. Since that blue is too dark to my liking, I'll add more water to achieve this shade and use it on the sky. I want soft clouds, let me wet the whole sky area first with water. Work on this, wet on wet. Starting at the top, I'll drop the blue shade that I chose earlier and move downwards. Don't forget to leave some white spaces for the clouds. As I go downwards, I'll also go lighter and that means more water in the mixture while still wet. Load your brush with a red violet mixture and paint the underside of the clouds with this shadow color. The sky looks dark right now, but water color is dry lighter, so don't worry about that. Next, your brush with blue, green, and paint the mountain. While the paper is still wet, I want to create an illusion that the mountain is far in the background. Painting it wet and wet will help me achieve the look that I'm after now. While waiting for the sky area to dry, let's mix the other colors that we'll need for the grass and the house. Instead of wiping off the mixtures that we already got here, let's just adjust them to find the colors that we need. I'll prepare a bright yellow green and a dark green for the grass. This is mainly blue, so we know that by adding lots of yellow, it will turn into a yellow green. In fact, we already mixed that color earlier in our color chart, right next to mix a dark green, then there should be more blue than yellow. Keep adding, mixing, and testing your colors until you find the shade that you need for the house. I'm looking for a color near this one. We know from experience that to achieve that, there are lots of blue and red with a bit of yellow as an alternative. You can also try dark brown instead of a bluish brown, something like this. If you watch all the color mixing exercises earlier and better, if you did your own chart, you'll know that we can achieve this by mixing all primaries together. I can borrow from this color, adjust it by adding a bit more yellow and red. It really does take time to get the colors that you'll need, but in practice and in time, you will get faster. Don't rush and enjoy every minute you spend in these exercises. Now let's do the same thing we did earlier and add these colors here, along with the different shades creating by adding water to each mixture. I actually ran out of space for the brown, but you get the idea right. Next, it's time to work on the foreground using a flat brush, I'll cover most of the foreground area with a lighter green. The white spaces I'm leaving out are for the darker greens. This Gs isn't really about how to paint landscape paintings, but more on color mixing and finding the shades that you need by using a limited palette and understanding basic principles. But there might be some of you who would like to go extra and paint this scenery. I'll narrate my approach and decisions as I work on this artwork. Okay, I have let this dry completely before adding the final details. I tend to work from top to bottom, light to dark. It's a more traditional approach and I'm comfortable with it with the same dark green. I'll paint some bushes and add shadows and texture. With dry brush technique, you don't really need to paint individual blades of grass, But adding some grass shapes will help the viewer see what we intended to portray. Now, with the darkest color paint the house, it's just a silhouette. No need to worry about doors, windows, plant balls. Just focus on the big shape. If you've observed, I also switch to a smaller brush. For the smaller details, you can keep on adding more red or more yellow depending on the colors that you are after. But since they're all dark now, no need to be extra critical about getting the exact shade I am using. In fact, you should be getting different shades of colors if you are using a different color combination after adding some more details. We're done now for a quick recap. We chose our primaries and Swatch them. We added Y to see what they look like as pastel colors. We created an oddly shaped color wheel to mix the secondary and tertiary colors, and then extended it to create an Earth color chart. We also experimented by mixing the complementary colors and expanded it even more to find landscape colors we'll need for this painting. There are lots of color mixing exercises presented here, and I hope that by providing those opportunities, you are starting to love mixing your colors too. A quick recap on what we did to find the color, we determined a base color first and made necessary adjustments, and that could include adding water. We painted a simple landscape scene. I'll see you in the next video. And let's try a warm color palette this time. 11. Warm Color Palette: This time let's use warm colors featuring royal blue Gambo, Genova, and Vermilion Hue to paint a landscape scene. This time, the field takes up a bigger space than the clouds or the sky. I will scratch the foreground colors first and then paint them. I'm mixing a dark green, a yellow green, a neutral green, and a brown. We know from experience that greens are a combination of blue and yellow. And if you want to produce brown, then add red into the mixture and adjust as needed. These colors definitely have a different vibe than the first mark. It only shows that whatever colors are available to you and their temperature are. You can still mix colors that will fit a specific painting project. All honesty, I used to hate warm colors, Red, orange, and yellows. I always tend to only paint with cool blues, violets, and pinks. I wouldn't even touch red because it's too bold and bright for me. But look here. Ever since I focused on maximizing a primary color palette, I'm amazed with warm colors potentials, especially the earth colors that they produce. I didn't think that would be possible. Why did I even hate them before? Take this chance for you to try out colors don't like to use. Don't forget to create an opacity chart too, And expand this palette even more to produce different shades. For you to really appreciate how far this limited palette could go time to work on the foreground. With a flat brush, I'll start with yellow green and cover most of the area. Then change my colors as I reach the bottom and turn it into a darker shade. Actually, my reference photo, the composition, didn't look that interesting until I cropped it. But for simplicity's sake, let's just use my finished painting as the reference photo. While wet, I'll connect this huge filled area with Earth mass and paint brown. Then drop darker green to add texture while still wet. I will speed up the demo, since I trust that you get the process first, decide on the color that you need and then find a base color in your chart. And just as needed, while working on the foreground, I suddenly realize that I also need a darker shade of brown pre texture. So let me add more blue to the mixture. To achieve that, then drop some dark colors and paint broken diagonal lines. Now leave this a dry before working on the sky. It's time to mix our sky colors. This blue is a bit too blue. If used, purely adding just a tiny bit of red will make it perfect for the sky color test on your scrap paper and see, yes, that's the shade that I want. Now for the cloud shadows, I'll have red and blue. You know what? I've always regretted buying Vermilion Hue because I thought it's too warm and orangy and vibrant for me. Who would have thought that mixing it with blue will create a pretty nice shadow color? I used to mix blue with orange only for my shadows, But I guess I will substitute this pigment from time to time. It wasn't a waste at all, wasn't it? Just like the first project, I like to work, wet and wet in the sky. Go lighter as I reach the bottom. Add shadows on the underside of the clouds. Paint the mountain wet, wet. When painting the mountain shape, though, it really helps if there are more pigments than water on your mixture. It's easier to control and the colors won't go everywhere. Color mixing can be tedious for some, but I think knowing your colors play an important role too. It's like preparing coffee. They need more coffee. Water, is it bland? Do you want it sweet? Then add sugar, you want it creamy. Then add milk or creamer. If you're familiar how each ingredient tastes. Coffee, grounds, water, sugar, and milk. You know which one is lacking in your mixture, which one is weak or which is overpowering. Please take this time to get to know your pigments and don't rush. All that's left now is adding more texture on the foreground using the same colors as earlier and we're done. Here's another project idea that you can share with the class. You can either upload just the color chart or share a finished painting using your limited color palette. It's amazing how those bright and brilliant yellows and reds can turn into rich earth tone colors. A summary on this video, we used another set of primaries. And found the specific colors we need by consulting our chart and finding a base color, then making necessary adjustment. We came up with a simple landscape scene. In the next video, let's explore a mixed color palette. 12. Mixed Color Palette: It's time for a mixed color palette. Now let's use ultramarine blue, Gambo Inova, and Scarlet lake. This is how the chartletts, both my yellow and blue are on the warm side while scarlet lake is on the cool side. Are mix the colors L need here and created an opacity chart. This video will be quick since I only showing you how I painted this landscape, you might have been wondering what a mixed looks like. And no, you don't really need to strictly use warm colors only or cool colors only. A mixture of pigments from different temperatures will also produce different colors like what you see here. That's why I spent a huge amount of time matching and mixing different three color combinations. It doesn't even matter if you're using different brands. Like in this case, my ultramarine blue is from Shinhan and both my Gamble snovenscarlet leg are from Holbein. The approach in painting this will most likely be the same as the first project I work on the sky wet and wet, and started the blue, left some white areas for the clouds and painted the underside of the clouds with a shadow color, a mixture of blue and red. The mountain in the background was also painted wet and wet. But unlike the first project, I didn't wait for the sky to dry and I mixed all my primaries to produce this brown for the ground. Then I added more paint to mix a darker and thicker and black curve version of that and used it on the details. I mainly used dry brush technique for the bushes and trees and other landscape elements that you'll see here. It's really only a matter of adjusting your mixture. Adding more blue or red or yellow as needed depending on the neutral color that you want to mix. Here's another project option that you can upload. The colors are not as vibrant and bright as the first two, But personally, I like how gloomy this scene looks. A quick recap on what we did. We used a combination of warm and cool colors and learned that brands really don't matter. We learned that spending time in studying your colors will all be worth it. I'll see you on the next video, and let's discuss what you can do from here. 13. Sharing Your Work: Congrats for coming this far. How do you feel about your color mixing skills now that you've finished this class? It was a fun journey with you from learning the advantages of color mixing, to choosing your primary colors, swatching and mixing them to create our color wheel and expanding it to produce a wide range of earth colors. For those who took the challenge of applying their skills in painting a simple scene, I commend you for that. If there's one key lesson that I want you to take away from this class, that would be taking time to really understand your colors. You don't need blots of tubes of paint to improve your skill. What you need is to dedicate time, and don't be too harsh on yourself when you don't get it on the first try. Now that you know the basics of color mixing, go ahead and pick up another set of three colors and be surprised and amazed on the different charts you can make out of them. Try applying them on different painting subjects too. I have plans on making other color mixing classes and painting with a limited palette. Don't forget to follow me here and on my socials. Now it's my time to learn from you. What colors did you try and how does your chart look like? Please share them on the projects gallery and let's appreciate each other's effort and the wonderful mixes we have produced. I will highly appreciate an honest class review too. What did you like the most about this class and what do you think should have been included? Looking forward to painting with you see on my other classes together, let's make this world a little bit more colorful with our artworks.