But what does this mean? The concept can be tricky and confusing if you don’t get it!

People often tell me they struggle with this idea. And because I refer to it so often in various lessons, below I’m going to explain in detail just exactly what warm and cool colors are…

Also, the reason why you can’t figure out warm and cool colors isn’t because you don’t understand color theory… (although that does come in handy)… It’s more likely because you haven’t mastered the idea of “relative color temperatures”.

But first, let’s cover some of the basics…

What are warm and cool colors?

Warm colors include red, orange, and yellow. These colors often make us think of warmth, energy, or excitement (like the colors of fire or a sunset). On the other hand, cool colors  include hues such as blue, green, and purple. These colors tend to evoke feelings of calmness and relaxation (like the colors of water or the sky).

The classification of colors into warm or cool groups is also referred to as “color temperature”.

And as you can tell from the description, warm or cool hues relate to our emotional response to color.

Color temperature is psychological

Yep… It’s all in your head  

The concept of warm and cool colors originates from the way we perceive colors and how they interact with our emotions and senses.

Throughout history various cultures and artistic traditions have made use of the notion of color temperature.

But the formal distinction between warm and cool colors as we understand it today actually gained popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the development of color theory in art.

Artists and theorists began to explore how colors could be categorized based on their visual and emotional effects. Warm colors were associated with sensations like heat, fire, and sunlight, while cool colors were linked to qualities such as water, sky, and shadows.

This distinction became an important tool for artists to create mood, atmosphere, and balanced compositions in their work.

Why color temperature is so confusing

Many artists find the concept of color temperature confusing because it’s not a fixed characteristic. 

What do I mean?

Well… The perception of whether a color is warm or cool can change depending on its context. 

For example, this particular shade of red appears warm next to blue:

But as you can see, it seems cooler next to an orange:

This relative nature of color temperature can make it challenging to grasp

Additionally, some colors can be classified as both warm and cool AT THE SAME TIME depending on the context in which they are used.

Confused yet?

Here’s another example. A green can lean towards being warm if it has more yellow in it, or cool if it has more blue !

But isn’t green a cool hue?

Yes… The color GREEN is itself a COOL COLOR! And yet, it can have a warm or cool “tendency” depending on its context relative to other colors.You’ll see this kind of thing often on paint tubes. Take greens for example… The common paint color “Phthalo green” is available in both “blue shade” (meaning it leans more towards the blue side of the spectrum) or “yellow shade” (meaning it tends more towards yellow).

This duality adds another layer of complexity to understanding and using warm and cool colors effectively.

Easy rules for understanding warm and cool colors

So here are a couple of tips to keep in mind for judging whether a color is warm or cool…

1. Start with the basics:

Remember that warm colors include:

• reds, 
• oranges, 
• and yellows, 

while cool colors comprise:

• blues, 
• greens, 
• and purples.

As artists we can easily visualize this using a color wheel divided into a warm side and cool side:

2. Consider the context: 

Understand that whether a color appears warm or cool can depend on what other colors surround it. 

This is what we saw with the example of greens above.

The color can be “relatively” warm or cool depending on which way it leans and its proximity to the warm or cool side of the color wheel. This is where the idea of “relative color temperatures” comes into play.

So Why is color temperature important in art?

Two reasons:

• Compositional Balance
• Color mixing

Color Temperature and Harmony in Art

By balancing warm and cool colors, artists can control the composition of their artwork, create more harmonious results, affect the mood and atmosphere of a piece of art, or help create a sense of depth.

As a general rule, it’s a good idea to let either warm or cool colors dominate a piece of art. I find that an even balance of both fails to effectively emphasize the mood of a composition. Instead try a 70/30% or 80/20% split.

Take this composition idea for example which has dominantly cool color temperature:

The colors in this image are mostly cool blues. The pale blue cityscape in the foreground gives the impression of a cold morning, and evokes a sense of quiet and calm. The urban landscape dominates the lower portion of the image, with its muted blue tones. Meanwhile, the pale pink-orange sky introduces a subtle warmth hinting at the possibility of a gentle sunrise. 

This interplay of colors helps to create a balanced yet somewhat emotive composition, where the dominance of cool hues sets the overall mood.

Here’s another example which uses predominantly warm tones:

In a composition like this you can use warm and cool colors to suggest depth and distance. 

The atmosphere changes the way we see color…  As colors recede into the distance, they get both cooler and grayer. This is a phenomenon known as “atmospheric perspective”. Warm colors tend to advance visually, appearing closer to the viewer, while cool colors recede, appearing farther away.

This composition idea exaggerates the atmospheric perspective with warm red trees backlit by the sun in the foreground. The distant treeline on the horizon is depicted using cool, subdued blues, enhancing the illusion of depth and drawing the viewer’s eye into the distance. 

This deliberate use of warm and cool colors shows how atmospheric perspective can be used to convey spatial relationships, while also adding emotional depth to the composition.

Obviously there are other things going on here to suggest depth – such as perspective, color values and color intensity. But the use of warm and cool colors to suggest distance works well since our brain is “trained” to pick up on these kinds of signals.

Color Temperature in Color Mixing

In watercolor painting, understanding color temperature is also useful for color mixing. 

For example, warm and cool versions of primary colors when mixed create different results depending on which ones you use. Again… This is because of the concept of “relative color temperatures”

For instance, mixing a warm red (such as pyrrol scarlet) with a cool blue (such as phthalo blue) can result in a more neutralized, less vibrant purple, while mixing a cool red (like quinacridone rose) with a warm blue (french ultramarine) can produce a more vivid, intense purple.

If you’re familiar with the “split primary” color palette this is where it becomes a useful guide for mixing. But that’s another lesson

Also, remember the color wheel which is divided into a warm and cool side? Well… As a general rule, mixing colors from opposite sides of the warm/cool split line results in duller, more muted results. Particularly if they are “complementary colors” (directly opposite each other on the wheel).

For example, green and red are two colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. Mixing these together produces a neutral grayish or brownish hue…

How to tell if your paint color is warm or cool 

To find out if your paint has a warm or cool bias, simply find the pigment used in its ingredients, and look up its position on a color map. A color map charts the precise color characteristics of the most common pigments and paint colors. On this map, you’ll see dots representing different watercolor pigments. They’re spread out around the circle according to their hues, just like on a regular color wheel. 

But the position of each dot also shows how vibrant or dull a color is.

Locating the pigment used in the paint ingredients allows you to judge the paint’s color temperature.

This is my color map which was developed for my “Successful Color Mixing course” where I go into detail about using color maps …

Other resources such as the Daniel Smith color map is laid out in a similar way. 

You’ll find it on this page…

Lists of warm and cool watercolor paints

Some manufacturers provide lists of their paints categorized according to their color temperature. However, just a quick heads-up – the Daniel Smith warm and cool watercolors list is FALSE. They appear to be using a very “generic” interpretation of “warm” and “cool” colors on their color charts. For example, red is warm, and blue is cool… (e.g. french ultramarine is blue, so if you follow their logic it’s cool).

But they don’t take into account the “relative” color temperature of paints, and how “blue” paints can have a warm OR cool bias depending on the pigments used.

I also contacted Winsor & Newton who kindly provided me with the list of their professional watercolors categorized by color temperature. I’ve put this into a worksheet that you can download here…

So here are the key takeaways from my article above:

• Warm vs. Cool Colors: Warm colors (reds, oranges, yellows) evoke warmth and energy, while cool colors (blues, greens, purples) evoke calmness and relaxation.
• Color Temperature: Refers to how we emotionally perceive colors as warm or cool.
• Context Matters: A color’s warmth or coolness can change based on surrounding colors (relative color temperatures).
• Artistic Use: Understanding warm and cool colors helps create balanced compositions, and suggest depth through atmospheric perspective.
• Color Mixing: Mixing warm and cool versions of primary colors yields different results – get to know your primary colors!
• Practical Tips:
  • You can use a split color wheel to visualize warm and cool hues.
  • Consider the context of colors and use the concept of relative color temperatures for better mixing.
• Tools: You can also use color maps and manufacturer lists to help identify color temperatures of paints for better mixing.

If you want to learn how to mix watercolor, check out my new course:

The post Why Warm & Cool Colors Confuse Artists! first appeared on Watercolor Affair.

Color is important for artists

Have you ever sat in front of your watercolor palette, feeling completely unsure about which colors to mix – or how to avoid ending up with a muddy mess?

The good news is, there’s a simple, proven system for understanding colors that will help you mix and match any color with confidence. In this lesson, I’m going to show you the three key color properties that most beginners completely overlook – PLUS, I’ll show you an easy 3‑step method to apply them, so you can mix colors accurately in watercolor without the frustration or guesswork.

And, I’ll be honest – color mixing  wasn’t always obvious to me either.
I used to really struggle… I’d spend ages mixing and adjusting, trying to find the right shade… and still end up with something that looked dull or completely wrong. It was pretty frustrating, 

But when I finally learned about these three color properties, everything changed. Mixing became simpler, my paintings looked better, and the whole process became much more fun!

Here’s the thing I realised…

The reason I couldn’t get the right colors in my paintings wasn’t a lack of skill or practice – It was simply because I hadn’t learned to see color in the right way.I hadn’t learned about something called the dimensions of color.

What are The Dimensions of Color?

There are three dimensions of color that allow us to describe color appearance accurately. They are:

• Hue
• Chroma
• Value

In a similar way to how an object’s physical dimensions – its length, width and height – define its size and shape, these three color properties reveal how color really works and how we perceive and describe it.

It gives us a more accurate vocabulary for talking about colors in art

You’ve probably seen “hue,” “chroma” and “value” mentioned before during your artistic journey – but only when you put all three together do you get the full picture of a color’s appearance.

And you really do need the full picture! – I mean, it is a painting lesson…

So, let’s start at the beginning – with the property that artists rely on first when identifying a color:

Hue…

Understanding Hue (The Color’s family)

You know when you look at a color and instantly know it’s red, green, or whatever? 

For example, when you spot a banana, you immediately think yellow… or apricots are orange, kiwis are green… You get the idea.

Well… That instant recognition is what artists call “hue.” 

It’s basically the thing that makes each color unique and recognizable. It’s the name we’d naturally give it based on its color family.

Hue refers to the aspect of color we usually describe with familiar names like red, blue, green, and so on. These can be primary colors (red, blue, yellow), secondary colors (orange, green, purple), or anything in between.

Simple definition of hue: 

Chroma: The Intensity of Color

So now that we’ve nailed down what color something is (the hue), let’s look at the next dimension: the one that affects how vibrant, or muted a color looks…

Chroma is the intensity or saturation of a color. It describes how bright and vibrant a color appears, or how dull and neutral it looks. High chroma means the color is vivid and intense, while low chroma means the color is more muted or grayish.

A high-chroma color pops off the page with intensity. A low-chroma color feels more subtle, soft, or neutral.

For example, think of the sky. On some days it’s a bold, electric blue. On others, it’s a much softer, greyish blue. Same hue – different chroma.

Simple definition of chroma:

Value: The Lightness and Darkness of Color

So, if chroma tells us how intense a color feels, value is what tells us how light or dark it appears. 

Simply put, value is the lightness or darkness of a color. 

It’s one of the most powerful tools you have for creating depth and contrast in your artwork. Without a good range of values, even the best color choices can end up looking flat. Values help convey a sense of realism, and three-dimensions.

In watercolors we adjust value by diluting or thickening the paint mixture, or by layering colors on top of each other using a glazing technique.

Diluting the paint creates lighter values, thickening the paint mixture creates darker ones. And because watercolors are transparent, layering colors on top of each other using a glazing technique darkens the values of a painting.  

(Note: With opaque mediums like acrylic or oil, artists usually adjust value by mixing in white or black.)

Simple definition of value:

The Secret to Using the Dimensions of Color in Art…(Simple 3-Step Process)

This is where the magic starts to happen – and how you can use your knowledge of these three color properties to mix amazing and accurate colors far more easily.

Understanding hue, chroma, and value lets us precisely describe and mix colors to achieve a desired result.

Now that you know what these “dimensions” of color are, you can use them to mix any color with this simple three-step process:

1. Identify the target hue
2. Adjust the chroma
3. Change the value

If you’ve ever found yourself struggling to recreate the exact shade you’re aiming for, try using these three steps to get the right mixture:

Here’s an example of how this works…

Step 1.

Begin by pinpointing the target hue you’re aiming for… This is your starting point for mixing any color. 

For example, use a simple color wheel to locate the approximate hue you want to match. This might be a primary color that you grab straight from the palette, or a secondary color you need to mix up. 

(In this example, here I’m assuming my end color is a kind brown color. Browns are essentially neutral oranges, so I’ll start by mixing a pure, bright orange hue)

Step 2.

Now consider the chroma you’re aiming for… 

For example, is the target hue “colorful” or “colorless”? Is it a vivid hue, or does your color mixture need toning down. 

If you’re targeting a bright color – you don’t need to change anything! You can go straight to step 3…

Otherwise, you can adjust chroma, by adding complementary colors to the paint mix.

(So in this example, to make my orange hue more brown, I can make the mixture more neutral by mixing in a warm blue like french ultramarine )

Step 3.

Now you have a puddle of paint that approaches your desired hue, you only need to adjust one final parameter – The value…

And in watercolor painting the values of any color are controlled by adjusting the water-to-paint ratio. 

Diluting the paint lightens the tonal value, while darker hues need less water…

(Let’s assume for our example I’m aiming for a light brown color – maybe a bit like yellow ochre – so I’ll add more water until I reach the correct value or “lightness”).

And there you go!I think you can see using the dimensions of color in this order when mixing watercolors is a very useful way to get to your target color quickly and easily

…This is just a small part of what I teach in my new “Successful Color Mixing” course. 

Through years of trial and error, I’ve developed a system that changed my approach to color mixing. In this new course I’ll show you how to quickly and easily mix colors using my simple color maps system. 

Need More Help? Share your color-related struggles in the comments… I’ll personally help you find solutions

The post The Dimensions of Color (3 Things You Need To Know) first appeared on Watercolor Affair.

It can be pretty frustrating!

But guess what? It’s not about the amount of effort you put in … it’s because you’re probably relying on something called “local color.” 

This means you’re painting objects based on what you “think” the color is instead of “the colors you really see”. 

In a case like this… the key to improving your art is to capture the colors as they really appear with all the light, shadows, and reflections. 

What is Local Color in Art?

Local color in art refers to the true color of an object as it appears in neutral lighting, without any shadows or reflections affecting its appearance.

It’s the “true” color you would see if you looked at an object and stripped away all shading, shadows, and reflected highlights.

Local color is often referred to using a generic name that labels the color. 

For example:

• bananas are “yellow” 
• a leaf is “green”
• apples are “red”, etc…

These basic colors are what artists would call “hues”.

And of course you would be right! That apple IS red all over…

But …This is different from how these colors might appear in various lighting situations, where light and shade can significantly alter their “perceived” color. 

Lighting in the environment influences the way we see colors, creating different values, color intensities, and hues based on the strength and direction of light. Even other colored objects in the surroundings can influence the object’s color appearance!

It’s true… when you look at an apple it registers as “red”.

But as artists we have to interpret what we see into different colors so that we can capture not just the local color, but also the full spectrum of how light and shadow play on the object. 

This is how we bring our artwork to life with depth and realism.

Local Color vs Perceived Color

The local color is the inherent color of an object under neutral light, whereas the perceived colors are how objects truly appear under different lighting situations. The change in perceived colors across the surface of the object are what we need to use in a painting to suggest depth and three dimensional shape.

And this varies depending on your painting subject. Maybe it’s a reference photo. Or perhaps your painting from real life? (brave you!)

For example, imagine looking at an apple under warm sunlight vs. artificial indoor lighting. 

The colors would be completely different!

Using too much local color!

It’s very helpful to know the local color of an object you are painting (for example as the starting point for mixing colors). However you shouldn’t mix only the local color and use it to paint that object.

And this is where artists sometimes struggle… Because they are relying too much on local color. 

You might be using local color (the color you know or imagine) rather than the actual colors of the object (the real colors perceived by your eyes).

It can be confusing when you’re trying to match up what you think the local color should be with the colors you need to use to realistically interpret a subject.

If you see what I mean

So what should you do to interpret that apple to make it look like a three-dimensional object?

How do you determine true colors?

Here are some artist tricks to help you understand how lighting changes an object’s “local color” and find the perceived true colors you need to paint…

1. Color Isolation Tool: 

This is one of the most useful little tools you can have for judging the color intensity, and values of a subject. I often use this on my reference photos.

Yes… I know

It’s just a piece of card with a hole in the middle!

But it’s extremely handy! 

You can create a small viewing window in a piece of white paper or cardboard and look at the subject through this window. This reduces the influence of surrounding colors and helps you focus on the actual color.

2. Color isolation app: 

There are plenty of artist phone apps available these days that let you manipulate reference images. 

The one that I use at the moment is called “Coolors”. 

With it, you can take a photo of your subject, or browse images on your phone and then pinpoint an area to extract colors from your photos:

3. Squint Your Eyes: 

This is an age-old artist trick

Squinting helps reduce the impact of shadows and highlights, making it easier to see the object’s underlying colors and values.

(Or you can just take your glasses off to get that lovely fuzzy look !)

4. Color Charts: 

If you’re a fan of color charts and swatching colors (and you should be…) you can use them to help identify colors in your paint mixing range, to find mixes that approach your target color.

Compare the object’s color to a color chart or swatch under the same lighting conditions. This can help in matching and identifying the color accurately.

Creating and using color charts in the color mixing process is just a small part of what I teach in my new “Successful Color Mixing” course…

So next time you paint, try focusing on those real perceived colors.

Your paintings will come to life in ways you never imagined!

The post Local Color vs Perceived Color in Art first appeared on Watercolor Affair.

Maybe it was your art teacher who conveyed this idea during your art classes (perhaps with an air of wisdom and authority?) 

However, not all aphorisms are universally true. If you’ve ever tried mixing with just these three primaries, you’ll understand why

So what are the true primary colors?

This is a long-standing debate in art circles. So in this article I’ll try to explain what the real primaries are and how you can use this to your advantage in color mixing.

The True Primary Colors

The traditional primary color set is said to be red, yellow and blue. But modern color theory suggests that cyan, magenta and yellow are the real primary colors. However for artists, “true” primary colors don’t actually exist. 

Academic teaching tells us the RYB primary colors are the basis of color mixing. 

These colors are called “Primary” (As in they come first and foremost, and cannot be replicated by mixing other colors).

But in practice this does not work. Because paint colors are “imperfect”. 

If you’ve played around with paint mixing for a while you’ve discovered that in reality primary color paints cannot mix all possible colors.

Are you scratching your head in frustration yet? 

So where do you go from here?

Two Primary Color Models (RYB & CMY)

In the realm of art and color theory, two prominent color models reign supreme: the RYB model and the CMY model.

The classic red, yellow and blue (RYB) and the more modern cyan, magenta, yellow (CMY).

Let’s take a closer look at what these are…

RYB primary colors (Red, yellow, and blue)

Dating back centuries, artists have experimented with pigments derived from natural sources to create paint colors.

The RYB model emerged as a foundational framework for color mixing, based on the observations of how certain pigments interact when combined.

Historically, these primary colors were readily available in the form of naturally occurring pigments, such as red ochre, yellow ochre, and various blues sourced from minerals and plants.

And so, this model became ingrained in artistic tradition and was taught in art academies for years.

In terms of real paint colors an example would be:

• RED – Pyrrol scarlet (Pigment number: PR255)
• YELLOW – Hansa Yellow Deep (Pigment number: PY65)
• BLUE – French ultramarine (Pigment number: PB29)

However, when mixing these colors they don’t always yield clean bright versions of secondary colors!

For example, blue and yellow should produce green. But the resulting green mixture using these primaries is actually quite dull and muted.

So the RYB model has its limitations. Particularly for accurately reproducing certain colors.

Despite this, the importance of the red, yellow, and blue primaries in shaping how artists understand colors and paint mixing is huge!

They were the original primary colors that laid the groundwork for modern color theory.

CMY primary colors (Cyan, magenta, and yellow)

In another part of the spectrum lies the CMY color model, composed of Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. 

Over time, artists sought to expand their palette beyond the limitations of traditional pigments like red, yellow, and blue. It was discovered that by combining cyan, magenta, and yellow pigments, they could create a broader spectrum of hues compared to the traditional RYB primaries.

And indeed these colors do produce more vibrant versions of secondary colors

Again in terms of actual paint colors, an example I would use is:

• CYAN – Phthalo blue GS (Pigment number: PB15:3)
• MAGENTA – Quinacridone rose (Pigment number: PV19)
• YELLOW – Lemon yellow (Pigment number: PY175)

Today, the CMY primaries are commonly used in modern printing processes. Usually in combination with black to enhance the contrast and depth of mixed colors.

However, despite the advantages of the CMY color model, it also has a few limitations when it comes to mixing paints.

For instance, if you experiment with the CMY paint colors above you may struggle to reproduce certain colors with an intense brightness. In particular, mixing good purples and oranges lacks intensity and saturation.

Two Sets of Primary Colors (Spilt Primaries) 

This is where a combination of both RYB and CMY can be advantageous for artists.

A set up like this is the basis of what became known as the “split primary palette”.

These two sets of primary colors are now commonly understood as “warm” and “cool” versions of the primary colors. 

So… The split primary palette divides the traditional primary colors into two groups, each containing a warm and a cool version. This approach provides us with a more versatile range of hues for color mixing.

By using both color models, artists can overcome the limitations of one system with the benefits of the other

Woopee!

When considering warm and cool paint options for the split primary palette, the typical selection includes:

1. Warm primaries:

• Warm red: This is a red with orange undertones, leaning towards the warmer end of the spectrum.
• Warm yellow: A yellow with a slightly orange bias, appearing warmer in comparison to other yellows.
• Warm blue: A blue with hints of purple, leaning towards the warmer side of the color spectrum.

2. Cool primaries:

• Cool red: A red with violet or blue bias, giving it a cooler appearance compared to warm reds.
• Cool yellow: A yellow with greenish undertones, appearing cooler when compared to warmer yellows.
• Cool blue: A blue which tends towards green, leaning towards the cooler end of the spectrum.

Here’s an example of a color wheel that was made using the split primary palette. By mixing the appropriate warm and cool primaries, you’ll get mixes that have a wider range of more saturated, vibrant colors.

For example:

• Mixing warm red with warm yellow produces vibrant oranges.
• Mixing warm blue with cool red yields rich saturated purples.
• Combining cool blue with cool yellow creates greens that are bright and intense.

It’s true… If you’re looking for 3 true primary colors – the CMY model is the closest you’ll get to a set of 3 primaries…

However, embracing both warm and cool primaries, artists can more easily navigate the vast range of mixing possibilities with paints

Here’s a list of watercolor paints that I typically use to make a split primary palette:

• Hansa Yellow Deep – Pigment number: PY65
• Lemon yellow – Pigment number: PY175
• Phthalo blue GS – Pigment number: PB15:3
• French ultramarine – Pigment number: PB29
• Quinacridone rose – Pigment number: PV19
• Pyrrol scarlet – Pigment number: PR255

Understanding color temperature

If you don’t know… Color temperature refers to the perceived warmth or coolness of a color. This distinction becomes particularly relevant when selecting primary colors for mixing. 

In the realm of art and color theory, understanding color temperature is useful for achieving certain visual effects or color mixing. Warm colors include reds, oranges, and yellows, while cool colors include blues, violets and greens.

Key takeaways:

• Traditional belief holds that red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors, but modern color theory suggests cyan, magenta, and yellow are more accurate.
• In practice, no single set of “true” primary colors exists for artists due to the imperfections in paint colors.
• RYB primaries have historical significance but are limited for producing certain colors.
• CMY primaries offer a broader spectrum, but they also have limitations, particularly in producing intense mixtures.
• Combining both RYB and CMY primaries into a split primary palette provides warm and cool versions of each primary color, enhancing your color mixing range. You can create more vibrant and saturated colors by mixing appropriate warm and cool primaries.

If you’d like to learn all about mixing colors in watercolor, check out my course:

The post What Are The TRUE Primary Colors? first appeared on Watercolor Affair.

A color wheel is a very handy tool for artists and designers, but… you’ve got to figure out how to use one first.

For a start, you probably need a magnifying glass to read the minuscule text written on the back! Furthermore, the confusing array of colors could leave you scratching your head!

So below, I’m going to show you how to use a color wheel to easily choose colors for painting, mixing paints, or for creating harmonious color relationships.

Types of Color Wheels

First let’s make a quick distinction. There are generally two types of color wheels used by artists. 

• Commercially bought: A cardboard circular device that you find in art supply stores. 
• Handmade: A painted circle created by artists themselves.

In this article I’m talking about the ready-made, store-bought type

I have an in-depth tutorial showing you how to make your own color wheel here…

The “Color Wheel Company” produces some of the easiest to use color wheels like this one. 

A Bit of History (The Color Wheel in Art)

Sir Isaac Newton is often credited with the creation of the first color wheel in the context of light and the color spectrum. 

Newton’s work involved refracting light using prisms, which proved that light was in fact made up of a spectrum of several distinct colors. Newton’s color wheel shows the natural progression of the colors of the spectrum around a circular wheel, and was first presented in black and white in his 1704 book titled Opticks (Color printing as we know it today developed much later): 

The adaptation of these principles to art emerged soon after. For example, a few years later, the painter Claude Boutet made the color wheels below based on Newton’s theories: 

From then on, various color theorists elaborated different concepts through the use of color wheels. In particular, one influential figure in the development of color theory is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer, artist, and scientist. In the early 19th century, his interest in art and painting led to the publication of his book “Theory of Colors,” in which he explored the psychological and emotional aspects of color. 

Here’s an example of his color wheel:

This contribution, among others, played a pivotal role in shaping modern color theory.

What is a color wheel used for today?

Over time, the color wheel became a tool for artists to navigate color relationships, create harmonious compositions, and understand color mixing. 

These days most people use a color wheel for:

• mixing colors 
• creating harmonious color relationships.

These wheels are designed to help artists, and anyone else working with colors to understand color relationships and make informed color choices. 

With a little bit of knowledge about color theory, the color wheel becomes a handy chart for selecting colors that work together harmoniously. And it can help artists choose combinations of paint colors to achieve a desired mixing result. 

How does a color wheel work

If you’ve ever wondered how to choose the correct combination of colors for mixing, or creating color schemes that work well together – the color wheel was created exactly for that purpose. 

A commercially bought color wheel has two sides and each side presents two disks:

• An outer circular disk divided into segments of different colors. 
• two smaller secondary disks that can be rotated. 

Part 1 – The Outer Disk

The colors on the outer disk are not just a pretty arrangement of hues! It follows a logical sequence that mirrors the color spectrum that was discovered by Newton.

A color wheel is effectively the color spectrum arranged around a circle.

The underlying principle is based on what we call the “primary colors”: 

• red, 
• yellow, 
• and blue. 

These are positioned equidistant from each other on the wheel. These primary colors are considered the building blocks of color mixing because they cannot be created by mixing other colors. 

When you combine these primary colors, you get what are known as the “secondary colors”: 

• orange, 
• green, 
• and purple.

So for example, if you take two primaries on the color wheel and mix them, the resulting secondary color is placed midway in between. What’s fascinating is that when mixing primaries, the order of these secondary colors on the color wheel corresponds to the order of the colors in the spectrum!

I find it amazing how natural light and mixing colored pigments follow the same rules!

You’ll see that the same is true for the tertiary colors – for example if you mix the primary color yellow with the secondary color green, the result (placed in between) is a “yellow-green” appearance. Blue, plus violet results in “blue-violet”. And so on… You get the gist…

See below:

This phenomenon is not merely a coincidence – it’s a result of the way light and color interact. 

Part 2 – The inner rotating disks

The rotating inner disks vary in purpose depending on which side you’re looking at!

The first side includes the three primaries plus black and white on the outer edge of the dial, with cutout windows underneath each one. The purpose of this is to show the effects of mixing colors.

The second side also has a series of cutout windows and is designed to show different color relationships.

It’s a pretty clever setup. So let’s take a look at how to actually use it…

How to use a color wheel (Two Options)

Color wheels are multipurpose tools. As such, you can use it to provide different types of information. And it depends on which side of the wheel you’re looking at. One side is a guide to mixing color, and the other illustrates color harmonies.

How to use a color wheel to mix colors when painting

Select a color on the outside edge of the wheel – then align it with the color on the inside wheel. The resulting mixture of the two colors appears in the window underneath.

So for example if you align green on the outer disk with red on the inner disk, the window reveals the color brown:

It’s a rough guide to color mixing. 

Similarly, you get the approximate mixing results of adding white or black to one of the colors on the outer wheel by aligning the inner disk accordingly.

That’s it!

Now if you’ve ever actually played around with mixing paints, you might be thinking this seems a bit over-simplified. 

And it is

I’ll discuss the limitations of this system below.

How to Use a Color Wheel with Color Theory

The second side of the color wheel shows a more complex looking layout. The outer edge continues to display the pure colors of the color spectrum. The center of the disk shows a series of geometric shapes and arrows like this:

To use the color wheel for color relationships, align the inner disk with a color on the outer edge. The diagram in the middle displays various color relationships, showing how colors interact when combined. 

These relationships include familiar combinations as explained by color theory:

Color wheel complementary colors

Colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel are considered complementary. The diagram in the middle shows a simple arrow pointing to the two complementaries.

For example green is the complement of red, and vice versa.

Complementary colors create strong contrast when placed next to each other, and when mixed together, they can produce neutral tones. (In this respect the wheel is also a quick guide to mixing neutrals and grays).

Split complementary color wheel 

Split-complementary colors are a variation of the complementary color scheme, where you take a base color and use the two colors adjacent to its complementary color.

1. Choose a base color.
2. Identify the complementary color of the base color.
3. Instead of using the complementary color, use the two colors adjacent to it on the color wheel.

Split-complementary color schemes retain some of the dynamic contrast seen in complementary colors but introduces a bit more diversity and harmony.

Triadic colors

Triadic colors are evenly spaced around the color wheel and form a triangle. This is shown by the triangular shape in the center of the wheel.

1. Select a base color
2. Locate the two colors that are equidistant from the base color on the color wheel using the triangular diagram.

This relationship between colors allows for interesting and eye-catching compositions in your artwork.

Tetradic colors

Tetradic colors are four colors, in the form of two pairs of complementary colors, that form a rectangle or square on the color wheel (also known as double-complementary colors).

The diagram in the center of the wheel shows a rectangle and a square, the corners of which point to the Tetradic color combinations.

Tetradic color schemes are quite attention-grabbing and suitable for creating visually striking compositions

Monochromatic color schemes

This side of the color wheel can also be used as a guide to monochromatic (single color) schemes. This is shown in the windows underneath each pure color of the spectrum. You’ll find three monochromatic color variations called:

• Tint:
  • Created by adding white to a color.
  • Lightens the original color.
  • Results in a softer, pastel-like hue.
• Tone:
  • Made by adding gray to a color.
  • Moderates the intensity without drastically changing the lightness.
  • Produces a more muted and subdued appearance.
• Shade:
  • Mixed by adding black to a color.
  • Darkens the original color.
  • Results in a deeper and more intense hue.

Analogous colors on the wheel

Analogous colors are those that are next to each other on the color wheel. These colors usually match well and create serene and calming compositions.

1. Select the base color 
2. Identify adjacent colors

Analogous color schemes can include more than two adjacent colors. To create a more varied palette, you can include additional colors on either side of the base color.

Limitations of store-bought color wheels

Not all paint colors combine in the simplistic way that a commercial color wheel suggests.

For a start, most color wheels indicate mixing relationships using the traditional primary colors “red, yellow and blue” (RYB). They do not take into account the idea of an alternative primary color set “cyan, magenta, and yellow” (CMY). 

Every paint pigment has its own unique color appearance. And when mixed with other paints produces unique results. And when you stick to the RYB set of primaries, you cannot get a full scope of color mixing possibilities. That’s why some artists advocate using a CMY color model which yields a wider range of colors mixing results.

(Personally I use both paint versions in my palette for the best color mixing experience. You can read more about this here…)

So keep in mind, the color wheel offers an “illustration” or “rough guide” of what you can achieve and not an exact match for color mixing. 

By the way, you can also buy the CMY color wheel :

This is a useful addition to the traditional RGB version (click here).

And for watercolor artists like myself, they have even produced a Watercolor wheel that takes into account this medium’s unique mixing properties using water.

Let me know your own thoughts about using these handy tools in the comments below

And you can also find a bunch of related color mixing articles in this section here…

Want to learn all about color mixing? Find out about my new course below:

The post How to use a Color Wheel Like a Pro! (Easy In-Depth Guide) first appeared on Watercolor Affair.

Funny how it keeps coming around so quick

My neighborhood’s autumn colors have inspired me to try out some paint mixes. So I wanted to share some of my favorite color-mixing recipes for fall paintings. 

There’s a unique atmosphere at this time of year. The cool, sometimes foggy mornings. The ever-changing colors of the foliage. It even smells differently outdoors these days!

Each season evokes its own emotions. The colors associated with autumn are easily recognizable. Shades of yellow, orange, red, brown, and green. Rusty reds and oranges, subdued yellows, and warm greens. They create beautiful harmonies in a painting and help to conjure up feelings connected to this time of the year. 

But how do you create a fall color palette by mixing the small range of pigments in your paint box?

Below I’ll show you a few suggestions and ideas…

Warm fall color palettes

There are a few interesting things to observe about fall color palettes. First, the colors associated with autumn are predominantly warm. And for the most part, they set up an analogous color harmony.

Fall colors naturally work well together because of these characteristics. 

Making use of these warm hues in your artwork has a soothing influence. For example, the softly changing colors of a fall scene create a relaxing harmony that is cozy, comforting, and calming. 

But why is this so?

Fall colors are analogous.

Colors can suggest different emotional responses. And we evaluate colors in context with other surrounding colors. These relationships can be used to express feelings. In the case of an autumn color palette, the predominant hues are mostly analogous.  

Color theory tells us that analogous colors are those which are close to each other on the color wheel. This is a valuable tool to show relationships between hues, especially when mixing paints with a few primary colored pigments. 

You could also compare this to how colors are arranged on the color spectrum. Each hue appears to merge naturally into the next. 

If you look at the portion of colors we associate with fall, you can see they are closely related. Reds, oranges, and yellows are right next to each other on the color wheel. They are analogous. 

Autumn colors are primarily warm.

Different hues also have a “color temperature.” This can be a tricky concept to grasp. As a general rule, any color can be considered warm or cool. I like to use the sun and shade as an analogy for warm and cool hues. For example, the orange sun is warm, whereas blue-tinted shadows and shade are cool. 

So warm colors include:

• Yellow
• orange
• red

Cool hues would be:

• Green 
• blue 
• purple

So as you can see, the golden yellows, burgundy reds, and muted oranges of an autumn subject are mostly warm.

Mixing fall colors in watercolor

Most of the colors in your paint palette are probably bright primary colors (at least they should be!). So how do you turn these into a soft, muted fall color palette?

If you observe the range of shades in an autumn scene, you’ll notice the colors are slightly subdued. There are a lot of muted versions of yellow, red, and green.

There are different ways to create this color palette with your paints. In the following examples, I’ll show you how to achieve a fall color scheme using primary colors as the starting point. But the color temperature of the primary paints is essential. To mix soft, muted colors, we must use both cool and warm versions of the primary paints.

The most simple autumn mixtures are made with just two paints.

Mixing two primary colors produces a secondary color. In this case, we’ll mix yellows and reds to make oranges, plus yellows and blues to create greens.

More complex neutrals and browns are mixed using three primary paints.

• Two color mixes – used to mix oranges and greens
• Three color mixes – creates neutral browns. 

Mixing chromatic scales for fall colors

Here you can see some examples of toned-down greens. Subtle greens like this are so important for painting fall subjects. These are mixed using a warm yellow plus blue. The warm yellow is essential. In this case, I used Hansa yellow deep (all the color names here relate to Daniel Smith watercolors).

2 primary colors: Yellow + blue

Notice how the resulting greens are slightly neutral and muted. If you were to try this using a cool yellow paint, the green would be much brighter and less characteristic of autumn hues.

You can try this yourself if you have a range of cool and warm yellows.

2 primary colors: Yellow + red

Next, I made some orange mixes. This time I’m using a cool red as the basis for this mixing recipe. The cool red (in this case, quinacridone rose) produces a more low-key, muted orange. If you were to mix two warm primaries (a warm red and warm yellow), you’d end up with a bright orange that is less typical of fall scenes.

The next set of mixing recipes uses three primaries to create a range of beautiful neutrals and warm browns. This is done using the following process:

• First, mix a secondary color, such as the orange or green colors above. Make sure you make a big puddle of paint to make mixing easier.
• Next, mix this secondary color with a primary paint color. Doing this is a method known as “mixing complements.”

So the secret to creating subdued neutral hues is to mix complementary paint hues like these:

• Yellow and purple
• Red and green
• Blue and orange

Complementary colors : Green + red

Here are the results when you mix the green mixtures from above with a warm red (I used pyrrol scarlet).

You get some beautiful warm rusty browns.

Complementary colors: Orange + blue

When you mix orange and blues, you can obtain some interesting, slightly darker neutrals.

Complementary colors: Purple + yellow

The final color mix I want to share uses purple and yellow complements. This was made using a mixture of quinacridone rose and french ultramarine (to make purple). Then I added this to a warm yellow (Hansa yellow deep).

The result is a fantastic rich chestnut brown!

Try making chromatic scales with your paints to produce an autumnal color palette! This is a fantastic way to explore the mixing capabilities of your watercolors. The process is great fun, and you might discover some surprising results

If you’d like to learn how to avoid muddy colors and learn how to mix watercolors, try my new course:

The post Mixing a Fall Color Palette (Keys to Success) first appeared on Watercolor Affair.

Some artists passionately argue against using black paint in watercolor altogether. They say things like “Real artists don’t use black”… Others happily accept the use of black paint as a convenient, ready to go color.

So what should you do? And who should you believe ?

In this article I’ll explain everything you need to know about using and mixing black and neutral colors in watercolor painting. We’ll look at the arguments for and against using black directly from the tube versus mixing your own blacks.

Black Watercolor (Basics)

The most common pigments used in black watercolor paint and other neutral colors are probably PBk6 and PBk9.

These numbers simply refer to the color index names of the pigments. You can usually find these written on the paint tubes. All paints have a pigment number like this. The “P” stands for “pigment” and “Bk” stands for “black”.

You can learn more about how to read paint labels and the various properties of paints in this article (click here)

Black pigments are carbon-based. In other words they come from things like charred bones, soot, and charcoal.

PBk6 is often referred to as Lamp Black. It’s the most opaque of these black pigments. Lamp black has a cool bluish undertone.

PBk9 is known as Ivory black. This pigment is less opaque than lamp black and it has more of a warm black appearance.

Black pigments in general have a high tinting strength. This means they can easily become overpowering when mixed with other paints. Also black paints are very opaque. As a result they tend to hide underlying colors when layered over the top using a glazing technique.

Do you use Black in Watercolor?

Whenever you want to add shading and shadows, or to darken a color in your palette, it’s a natural instinct to want to use black. After all… If a color isn’t dark enough, just add black… Right?

But actually a lot of traditional watercolor artists do not use pure black paints, preferring to mix dark colors by combining the other hues in their palette.

A common complaint with pure black paints is that they tend to modify the original hue in a rather unnatural and harsh way, and that they don’t harmonize well with the other colors in a painting.

But what does this mean exactly ? Take the example below using the color yellow.

I started out by painting with pure yellow. Then little by little I mixed in some lamp black to produce a gradient of color from light to dark.

In the next example I again started with pure yellow, then I darken the yellow paint by mixing in some purple. 

This time the resulting gradient produces a more harmonious looking transition in tonal value from light to dark.

Here’s another example. Say that I wanted to paint this bowl of lemons. What do you think would be the best mixture of colors to produce a natural and harmonious range of hues and tonal values?

Mixing yellow with black ? Or mixing yellow with complementary hues?

When you sample the actual colors from the photo, you can see that the shading and shadows are made up of a range of warm oranges and browns. Even the darkest part of the shadows is a dark chocolate color and not black.

So, it appears that mixing yellow with complementaries would give rise to a more compatible range of colors. This is one of the reasons why a lot of artists prefer shading with complements rather than pure black paints…

This is not to say that black pigments should be avoided at all costs. I know a number of artists who use convenience mixtures which contain black pigments like PBk6 and PBk9.

Neutral tint, Payne’s gray, Indigo and Sepia are all good examples of neutral convenience colors which contain black pigment mixed with other colors.

The advantage I find with these convenience mixtures is that they’re a lot less harsh than using pure black.

Should you use black in watercolor?

There is no right or wrong choice.

If you want to use black, just be careful to mix in a small amount at a time. Because of it’s high tinting strength you don’t need much. You can also try mixing black with other colors to get shades that have more interest, or even reproduce the mixes used for convenience paints.

For example Payne’s gray is a mixture of Ivory black and French ultramarine (PBk9 + PB29).

Advantages of mixing your own blacks

There are however some important advantages to mixing your own colors for dark toned areas of a painting (as you can see from previous example with the lemons):

• You get blacks which have more color variety and interest.
• You can harmonize your neutral colors to better match the other colors in your painting.
• Mixing your own blacks and neutrals also improves you color mixing skills

How to make black in watercolor

So how do you mix black watercolor ?

The truth is you can mix perfectly good neutral colors or a good interpretation of black by mixing other paints.

So before you reach for a tube of black paint I would encourage you to experiment with mixing your own blacks, grays and neutral colors.

I’m going to show you a few simple recipes for mixing your own grays and dark shades. But before we look at that, it’s useful to understand the mixing method typically used to neutralize a color, or to make black. And to help us understand the relationships between paint colors and the mixing results that can be achieved we can use an artist’s color wheel.

This color wheel was painted using three primary paint colors, a yellow, a blue and a red.

Mixing together adjacent colors results in the secondary colors, green, purple, and orange.

When mixed together, the three primary colors make black, or usually some variation of dark gray.

So the standard formula for mixing black is to mix together three primary colors.

But obviously mixing three paints every time you want black or gray is somewhat complicated and time consuming. Getting a balanced mix of the three primaries takes time to get the desired result.

An easier option is to mix together just two paints.

In general, this can be done by mixing any given color with a “complementary color” on the opposite side of the color wheel. As mentioned earlier, this is known as neutralizing a color.

So for example, to neutralize red you can mix it with a green color. And to neutralize blue you mix it with orange.

But why do dual color combinations like this work for mixing black? 

This is why mixing together two paint colors such as ultramarine blue and burnt sienna (which is like a warm orange color) works so well.

​Below you can download a copy of these mixing recipes for future reference:

Black Watercolor Mixing Recipes

So here are a few examples of the useful mixing recipes for making black or gray.

This first set of two-color mixtures uses some form of blue and orange based pigments. You can produce neutral colors from just about any mixture of blue and orange.

French Ultramarine + Burnt umber 

Two colors that I recommend people have in their palette are French Ultramarine and Burnt umber. When mixed they create a color very close to black, which can be fine-tuned to achieve a warm or a cool black as needed. (Just add a little more blue to get a cool neutral, or a bit more brown for a warm dark color appearance).

French Ultramarine + Burnt sienna

This mixture produces a nice cool range of grays and leans towards a purple gray. This color combination is also known as Jane’s gray, named after the well-known Australian watercolorist Jane Blundell. You can even buy this as a ready-to-go convenience mixture.

“In mixing it acts as a neutral tint, darkening other colours without changing them.”

Cobalt Blue + Burnt umber (or burnt sienna)

Cobalt blue is somewhere between a warm and cool blue pigment color. This is another nice combination for making warm or cool grays depending on the mixing ratio.

Phthalo Blue G.S. + Burnt umber

Not quite as neutral as mixing burnt umber with french ultramarine. The green shaded blue results in grays that have a tinge of green.

Phthalo Blue R.S + Transparent Pyrrol orange

Both of these paints have quite an intense color appearance. Phthalo blue is a very good complement to transparent orange. Phthalo blue Green Shade works pretty well, but Red shade is even better !

As we saw earlier we can also mix grays using some kind of combination of green and red. Here are a couple common of examples to try out:

Phthalo Green B.S. + Pyrrol scarlet 

The combination of Phthalo green B.S. and Pyrrol scarlet produces a nice warm gray appearance.

Phthalo Green B.S. + Quinacridone rose

In contrast to the previous mixture, this combination creates an interesting cool gray color.

Next time you paint, I hope you’ll give black color mixing a try for yourself.

Mixing together two complementary pigments gives rise to some wonderful vibrant blacks and grays that contain a hint of other colors, and help you achieve a much more lively appearance in your paintings.

Best black watercolor paint:

What are the best black paints and convenience mixtures for shading ?

In my opinion you can’t go wrong with some of the following. If you do need a very intense black appearance, then go for something like lamp black. Just keep in mind everything outlined in the article above (the links below are affiliate links):

Ivory black watercolor PBk9 (warm bias)

Lamp black watercolor PBk6 (cool bias)

Lunar black PBk11

Neutral tint PBk6 / PV19 / PB15

Payne’s gray PBk9 / PB29

Indigo PBk6 / PB60

Sepia PBk9 / PBr 7

And if you’d like to learn everything you need to know about color mixing – check out my new course:

The post Black Watercolor (Artists Don’t use Black) first appeared on Watercolor Affair.

So how do you make watercolor swatches?

It’s good practice to paint your swatches on the same watercolor paper you use for your watercolor paintings. For each swatch make a note of the brand, the paint name, and the pigments used in the paint formula. Paint a graded wash so you can see the full range of the paint’s color appearance, from fully saturated to diluted. You can also use your swatches to reveal characteristics such as transparency, staining properties and granulation.

To get the best out of your watercolor swatches feel free to try the step by step tutorial which I’ve described below. To help you out, you can also download the template I created for my own swatches.

There are hundreds of paints to choose from and they all have their own unique characteristics. Swatches are an excellent way to become more familiar with your own watercolors and understand their true qualities and color appearance. I’d encourage you to try making your own versions which you can add to as your collection of paints increases.

It’s good fun, and you never know, you might find some surprising results…

Watercolor Swatch Template

First of all let’s break down the different components of the template I made for swatching my watercolors. If you like the way this is done and you want to try this for yourself, you can download a copy of my template below and print it onto watercolor paper. Hopefully it’ll make the process slightly quicker ! (Simply download and save the PDF template, then load your printer with a sheet of watercolor paper. This works fine on my own printer with fairly thick 300 gsm paper).

​Download the watercolor swatch template here

Here you can see how I decided to organize each swatch for creating a test sample of each of my paints. The aim was to make the layout of the swatch cards as efficient and easy to make as possible. The swatch box is broken down into the following parts.

The Label:

I’ve made the label area big enough to contain all the written information you need to note down. I don’t see the point in having separate small boxes for each paint attribute, and you can get all your note taking done in one area. The important data I decided to put here include the paint name, the manufacturer, and the pigment numbers contained in the paint ingredients.

What Information to Include:

Sometimes you might not find all the information you need on the label of your paint tubes, or maybe you’re using pans and no longer have the label available. You can usually find all this data on the color charts provided by the paint manufacturers website(For example, I use Daniel Smith watercolors – you can find their color chart here). These color charts will give you lots of information you can copy onto your swatch cards if you feel it’s important. A reminder of the things you might want to note include:

• ​Brand
• ​Color name
• ​Pigment information
• ​Opacity
• ​Lightfastness or permanency rating
• ​Granulation
• ​Staining properties

Understanding Pigment Numbers:

Understanding which pigments have been added to your paint will also increase your familiarity with your watercolors. As artists we are essentially interested in color. The pigments in watercolor paints are noted in the form of color index numbers. These numbers have a prefix which indicate the color family that the pigment belongs to:

• ​PY Pigment Yellow
• ​PO Pigment Orange  
• ​PR Pigment Red
• ​PV Pigment Violet
• ​PB Pigment Blue
• ​PG Pigment Green
• ​PBr Pigment Brown
• ​PBk Pigment Black
• ​PW Pigment White

​Knowing how many pigments are included is also an interesting attribute to know, because watercolorists often prefer single pigment paints. Paints that contain multiple pigments have the reputation of producing less vivid color mixes, especially when mixed with other paints.

Abbreviations for Swatch Notes:

To simplify your notes you can use a code or abbreviation of some kind for the opacity, lightfastness, granulation and staining info. I’ve included the following legend on the template for this purpose:

• ​Transparency: T / S-T / O (transparent / semi-transparent / opaque)
• Lightfastness: i / ii / iii (​excellent / very good / fair)
• ​Granulating: Y / N (Yes / No)
• ​Staining: Y / N (Yes / No)

​It could be tempting just to print out a copy of the manufacturer’s color chart for reference, but keep in mind that this won’t give you a good feeling for the real life attributes and handling properties of your watercolor palette. Sorry – you still have to do the work of making all those swatches !

A box for painting a Graded Swatch of Color

This is the space for painting a color swatch using a graded wash of your chosen paint. The reason you want to paint a graded wash is so that you can see the full range of color from full color saturation of the pigments (often referred to as the masstone) and the lightest pastel color(usually called the tint).

Try to make the size of the swatch large enough to get a good visual appreciation of the paints color and attributes. Mine are 1and 1/2 inchs (38 mm) wide by 2 inches (50 mm) tall.

An Indelible Line for Testing Transparency

This is a typical way of evaluating the opacity or transparency of watercolor paints. Transparency is generally indicated by manufacturers as either transparent, semi-transparent, or opaque. Painting over this line gives us a visual measure of the paints real transparency.

This attribute is useful to know because traditionally watercolor artists aim for the most transparent paints possible. Watercolor paintings are frequently built up in layers, with each new layer of paint adding more intensity and deepening the tones of the painting. This layering (known as glazing) is best achieved with transparent paints. Truly transparent paints allow the underlying colors and the white paper to shine through.

An area for testing lifting properties

This is the part of the swatch used as a lifting test area to get an idea of the staining properties of the paint. A non staining paint will lift easily whereas a highly staining paint will be difficult to lift. You may have already noted the staining information in the notes at the top, but this gives you a true visual assessment of the paint’s lifting behaviour.

This is a useful characteristic to note. For example, non-staining paints that lift off too easily may not be very good for glazing, since each new glaze of paint would lift the underlying layers of color.

Wet in wet diffusion test

This is a way to assess the paints behaviour for wet on wet painting situations. The activity of pigments in a wet wash can vary depending on pigment particle size, granulation and the quantity of pigments in the paint. We are looking for things like, how far does the paint spread in a wet in wet wash, or does the pigment separate into two colors (this can occur with a mix of different pigments).

​Swatch Format

I scratched my head about this for a while!

First of all, ask yourself how you want to organize your swatches? I see a lot of artists organizing swatches by brand. However, I think this system can get complicated when you add more paints to your collection. I chose to organize the swatches by color, regardless of the brand being testing.

Some people paint individual swatch cards and put them on a ring binder, or keep them in a large binder file with transparent sleeves to contain the cards. This is quite a neat method, but I find it makes the process longer because you have to cut up all the individual cards. (If you do opt to make a lot of individual cards then I recommend you use a paper cutter to speed up the process).

For me, the objective of swatches is to clearly show the differences between your different paints, and as a comparison between colors as if you were in a real life painting situation.

A better system seems to be to paint your swatches on individual sheets, such as the ones I created here. The advantage is that you can create sheets for each color family and compare similar hues more easily. You also don’t have to cut up a load of individual cards. Just print out a new sheet when you need one. You may not fill in all of the swatches on each page, but that’s fine. It leaves room to come back and add a new color when your paint collection grows.

Keep in mind that paint will have a different appearance depending on the watercolor paper, so it’s important to use the same paper you use for your actual paintings. I use Arches cold pressed paper for most of my artwork. The paper’s color, sizing, texture, etc., will all have an effect on the final color appearance.

How to Make Watercolor Swatches

When painting your swatches, try to make all samples as similar as possible so you have consistent results for comparison. Use a constant amount of water and mix a reasonably thick puddle of paint, making sure the water and pigment mix well. You can always try making three swatches for the same color as a test. If the results are quite similar then you know that your method is fairly consistent.

Start by drawing a horizontal line near the top of the color swatch using a Sharpie or other type of waterproof pen. Leave a space above this line for the lifting test.

Write the brand name, paint color name, pigment numbers and any other information you want to note at the top of each swatch.

Paint your swatch using a graded wash technique. I find it easier to use a small number 12 flat brush for this. Start at the top of the box with a thick mix of paint to show the mass tone. Progressively graduate the wash as you move down the paper. Do this by dipping your brush in water, and blotting the brush to remove excess moisture, then apply a new brush stroke underneath the previously laid color. Don’t worry about trying to paint a perfectly smooth wash. I think an imperfect wash helps reveal the handling qualities of the paint.

The top of you wash should show the mass tone and the bottom the tint (dark to light). Increase the mass tone if needed with another pass of paint so you get a well saturated color.

When you paint over the impermeable ink line this helps reveal the transparency of the paint. Observe the paint as you apply the color, the differences in transparency should be quite obvious with semi-transparent and opaque paints covering the line more.

The small box underneath the swatch color is for testing the wet in wet behavior of the paint. Pre-wet this box with clear water, then dab some color into one side of the box only. Watch the pigment activity to see how fast or slow the pigments spread in the clear water. this will continue for a while until the paper dries and gives an indication of how lively the paint is in wet in wet painting conditions.

Leave your paint swatches to dry for a while, ideally overnight. The final stage is to test the staining properties of each paint (otherwise known as permanency). For this I used a cotton swab dipped in clear water. Blot the cotton swab so there’s not a huge amount of water, then rub it in the area over the top of your indelible ink line. Do this 4 or five times, always rubbing with the same horizontal stroke (use the same amount of rubbing strokes on each swatch or the results will be skewed). Try to avoid scrubbing back and forth. If you rub too hard the paper may start to disintegrate.

That’s it !

You now have a bunch of swatches which fairly reliably show the paint attributes of your colors.

Looking at the Results of your Swatches

If you’ve been using your watercolors for a while you probably already have an idea how they perform. The results of your swatches may help confirm some of your suspicions about iffy colors and those which are a pleasure to work with !

For example, take a look at the swatch for Cerulean Blue. This paint is semi-transparent, very granular, and non-staining. For me personally, these properties all together make it a color which is difficult to handle. The pigments just seem to swim around on the surface of the paper without fixing, which I find unpleasant. This is due to the low permanency of the paint. It’s also quite opaque making it a poor color for glazing.

​Use your swatches as an opportunity to judge your watercolors objectively against each other. It will probably help confirm your favorite paints, and maybe prompt you to replace some badly behaving colors !

The post How to Make Watercolor Swatches like a Boss first appeared on Watercolor Affair.

Glazing or layering colors is a fundamental technique in watercolor painting. When you paint, the transparent layers of pigment build up, one on top of the other. This layering of paint modifies the values and the color appearance of the final painting.

Yellow glazed with blue will create a green color. Yellow glazed with red makes orange. Yellow glazed with yellow makes a deeper toned yellow, etc.

But some paint combinations can be surprising. And this is where a glazing chart becomes a very useful tool. It can be done very quickly at the beginning of each painting session. Or you can take your time and create glazing charts of all your paints for future reference.

Either way, a color chart of this kind is an incredibly useful planning tool, helping you to predict the results of different paint combinations when painting and glazing with watercolors.

So how do you make a watercolor glazing chart ?

A typical glazing chart is made up of vertical and horizontal painted lines. Each line is a brushstroke of color for one specific paint. First you paint all the colored lines in one direction, and you let them dry completely. Then you paint the same colors in the other direction, glazing them over the top of the first set of lines. The resulting chart shows how your colors blend when layered on top of each other.

Below I’ll talk about why you might find it interesting to make your own charts and give you some step by step instructions on how to go about it!

Personally, I love color mixing, so as well as being useful, I find these exercises fun and relaxing…

Note: Read this article for a more in-depth overview of watercolor glazing.

Why make a glazing chart?

When I first started painting I didn’t realize the benefits of this type of chart. Yes… I understood that watercolors are transparent and that my artwork is essentially built up with successive layers of paint. For me, the ability to see the underlying shapes and brushstrokes is one of the things that makes watercolors such a beautiful and unique art form.

But what I didn’t appreciate was how different paints react with each other when glazed. And when planning a new project, this can affect your choice of paints.

The thing is, watercolor paints all have different mixing qualities. And there’s a huge range of diverse paints which interact with each other differently when mixed on the paper. For example a cool blue mixed with a cool red gives a very different appearance to a cool blue plus a warm red.

This is all the more true because of the varying properties of each individual paint. Paints all have diverging characteristics such as granulation, staining and transparency. For example an opaque pigment glazed over a transparent pigment can almost completely blot out the underlying color. The resulting color is also less vivid compared to glazing with two transparent paints. The staining properties of paint also need to be considered. Certain families of pigments such as the Quinacridones are highly staining, meaning that they adhere to the paper surface and are difficult to lift off. On the other hand, pigments in the Cadmium family are non-staining, and can easily lift off the paper, making them more difficult to use for glazing. The general advice is to apply staining pigments before using non-staining paints.

Glazing chart preparation & materials

First things first. I recommend you use a flat brush for painting your chart. This is because you want to be able to paint a fairly thick line in a single brush stroke. As just mentioned, different paints are more or less staining. If you paint each line with repeated brushing you risk lifting the underlying paint and the colors will bleed together.

If you’re feeling neat and organized, you’ll need a pencil and ruler to draw your grid.

If you want the best results, use a sheet of good quality watercolor paper. Glazing just works better when you use decent quality paper. The colors will be more vibrant and closer to what you’d expect when doing an actual painting.

For my chart I selected a warm and cool color for each primary color. I think this shows a good example of the discrepancies between warm and cool color mixing. However you should use whichever colors you need to test.

Two jars of water are also very useful. I use one jar for rinsing and another as a supply of clear water for mixing. This helps to avoid color contamination when changing from one color to the next, especially when painting the lighter hued yellows.

How to make your watercolor glazing chart

• ​Begin by preparing a grid for your glazing chart. With a ruler and pencil, mark out the horizontal and vertical lines. Draw one vertical and horizontal line for each color.
• ​The width of the lines depends on the width of your brush. Since you want to be able to paint each line with one single stroke, it’s a good idea to make each line the same with as your flat brush. Leave a small gap between each line. This prevents overlapping colored lines from bleeding into each other.

• ​Prepare your chosen watercolors. Either squeeze out a fresh spot of paint from a tube, or if your using pans, make sure each color is clean by rinsing them with clear water. Mix a thin wash for each of your colors. If your paint is too thick the glazing will be difficult to see.
• ​I recommend you start painting with the lightest hues first, in my case the yellows. Make sure your brush is completely clean since yellow is so easily contaminated with any residual color on your brush or in your palette.

• ​Prepare your chosen watercolors. Either squeeze out a fresh spot of paint from a tube, or if your using pans, make sure each color is clean by rinsing them with clear water. Mix a thin wash for each of your colors. If your paint is too thick the glazing will be difficult to see.
• ​I recommend you start painting with the lightest hues first, in my case the yellows. Make sure your brush is completely clean since yellow is so easily contaminated with any residual color on your brush or in your palette.

• ​When you’ve painted all of the colored lines in one direction, leave them to dry thoroughly! Yep… This is where you need to be patient. If you paint over the first lines while they’re still wet, the colors will lift and bleed, and the glazing effect will be lost (hint: you can always use a hairdryer to speed things up).
• ​When the paint has dried, paint your colored lines in the other direction using a single continuous pass of the brush. This is the most delicate part, but if you avoid scrubbing your brush over the underlying paint all will be good!

• ​Finish the chart by making a note of the paint names for each of the colors. If you want to learn more about the properties of your watercolors, I suggest you also make a note of the pigments used in each paint, and possibly their transparency and the level of staining.

​That’s it! Now you have a handy chart that shows you what to expect when combining glazes of your paints!

Tips for glazing with watercolors

As you have probably guessed, glazing is primarily a transparent watercolor technique. For the best results when glazing, most artists therefore recommend that you use only transparent watercolors(not semi-opaque or opaque). Opaque paints tend to look chalky or muddy when they dry. This is easier said than done, since finding a good palette of colors that reunite the best qualities of watercolor paints can be tricky (if you’d like help choosing paints which have the best characteristics then take a look at my selection here).

This technique also requires a light touch because as far as possible you don’t want to disturb the underlying layers of paint. Try not to scrub, and don’t repeatedly brush the previous layers. Try to be aware of the staining properties of your watercolors so that you can paint in the correct order (highly staining first, non-staining last).

Remember that with glazing, the more layers of paint you apply, the more intense the hue and value the final color becomes. The whites and light tones in watercolor come from the paper itself. For these reasons it is usually good practice to work from light to dark, applying thin, light washes first and gradually building up the intensity of your painting. It’s easy to add another glaze to make an area of your painting darker, but not so easy to make things lighter!

Finally, glazing is a wet on dry technique. Each layer of paint should be left to dry thoroughly before applying a new glaze. This doesn’t mean you can’t combine this technique with wet on wet painting. For example you could paint a background using wet on wet then glaze the rest of your subject. Just make sure the underlying paint is completely dry before glazing.

If you’re the impatient type, then it’s probably a good idea to keep a hairdryer handy to speed up the drying process. Just don’t use a high heat and burn your paper!

The post How to paint a watercolor glazing chart first appeared on Watercolor Affair.

“ That doesn’t look right ! ”

Purple is one of those tricky colors in watercolor mixing. And to be honest I didn’t always understand why my attempts to make purple turned out so bad. I wondered if it was the quality of my watercolors or maybe something in the paint formula which made my purple so murky.

Surely, achieving a bright vivid purple shouldn’t be so difficult.

After all, everybody knows blue+red = purple… Right?

Purple, violet, magenta, mauve… Call it what you like. A lot of artists struggle to get just the right purple mixture.

So ​how ​do you make purple watercolor?

Mixing intense and bright purple with watercolors depends on the color bias of the paints you are using. All paints have a warm or a cool bias. In short, the best results for mixing saturated purple are obtained using cool reds. 

I honestly didn’t get this for a long time ! But after I gained a little bit of mixing knowledge it became plain and clear.

Here are a few things every watercolorist should know about purple watercolor:

Purple and the color wheel

To understand why it’s so difficult to mix a decent purple color we need to talk about color theory.

Don’t worry… I’ll try to make this as painless as possible !

To illustrate how color theory works we’re going to be using a color wheel. Color wheels are very useful tools to help us understand color mixing.

​The concept of color temperature can be easily seen on the color wheel below. Warm colors include yellows, oranges and reds. Cool colors are comprised of purples blues and greens.

This idea is quite intuitive… For example, blue is easily perceived as cool, and red as warm, etc.

The color appearance of your paints all have a temperature bias. A cool paint color will lean towards the cool side of the color wheel and vice versa.

For example Phthalo blue (GS) has a cool bias because it contains some green. But French Ultramarine has a warm color appearance because it contains some red.

The following color wheel uses two versions of each primary color, both a warm and a cool version.

The color wheel helps us identify the color bias of our hues. If you look carefully Phthalo blue (GS) is closer to green and further away from red. It is closer to a cool color, therefore this ​makes it a cool blue.

In a similar way, French Ultramarine is closer to red and further away from green. This makes French Ultramarine a warm blue.

Complementary color mixing rule

Now that you are able to distinguish warm and cool hues, we need to talk about complementary color mixing.

A complementary color is any color located on the opposite side of the color wheel from your target color. Take another peak at the color wheel, you’ll see that the complementary color of purple is yellow.

The complementary mixing rule tells us that if you mix two complementary colors, they neutralize each other. A neutralized color is a desaturated color such as grey or black.

So in general, when you mix purple and yellow paints you get a neutral brown color which has been desaturated.

How to make a vivid purple watercolor mixture

OK… Now that you have a grasp of color temperature and complementary color mixing we can demonstrate how to create a nice saturated purple with your watercolors.

If you want to mix bright saturated purple you need to mix the two primary colors closest to purple. In this case, cool red (Quinacridone Rose) and warm blue (French Ultramarine).

So why does this combination of warm blue and cool red produce a nice saturated mix ?

Well, if you remember, the complement of purple is yellow.

So the more yellow you mix with purple the more dull and desaturated it becomes.

Cool red and warm blue are the furthest away from yellow. Therefore by mixing these two colors together we keep any traces of the unwanted primary yellow out of our mixture.

​Cool red + warm blue = saturated purple

To mix a very saturated purple you use those primary colors which are closest to purple, and furthest away from yellow on the color wheel, therefore avoiding purple’s complementary neutralizing color.

You’ll find a list of my personal paint recommendations here.

The secondary color purple

Color theory tells us that purple is a secondary color and to mix it we need to combine red and blue.

So much for the theory.

This standard formula is true to a certain extent, but artists mix paints, not colors.

Pigments are the real carriers of color in paints, and each paint produces its own unique color appearance, and mixing results.

As watercolor artists we need all kinds of purples. Dull purples produce beautiful rich shade and shadow areas while brilliant lively purple creates intensity and focus.

The key is understanding how to mix the right purple for the right occasion.

So what are the color combinations for mixing desaturated dark purples or bright vivid purples ?

Let’s take a look at what happens when you mix together different variations of warm and cool blues and reds.

​As you can see the best results for mixing bright purples come from using cool red. But warm reds (because they are closer to yellow), will neutralize the mix.  You will always get a dull color purple using a warm red. These colors are nice in their own way, and can add beautiful richness and dark ​values to your paintings (far better than just using pure black).

The brightest purples come from hues of reds and blues which are closest to purple. So this means warm blues and cool reds.

As you have probably figured out by now,  what is often poorly understood is the concept of color temperature. In practice the results of mixing different red and blue pigments produces a wide range of beautiful purples. But the general strategy of red+blue does not always give us a pure saturated purple.

The colors I used for the above test chart are as follows:

• ​Cool red: Quinacridone Rose
• ​Warm red: Pyrrol Scarlet
• ​Cool blue: Phthalo Blue (GS)
• chevron-right​Warm blue: French Ultramarine

​A quick word of caution.

The color name on a paint doesn’t tell you want is in the paint recipe. Pigments are what produce the final rendered color.

It’s a good idea to get into the habit of learning or at least making note of the pigments contained in your different paints so you don’t get too many surprises when mixing !

Purple direct from the tube

I’ll let you into a secret…

I have a range of purples in my collection for when I’m feeling lazy !

Understanding how to mix different purples gives you so much freedom.

But from time to time you just want to grab a specific purple color directly from the tube – Quinacridone Violet is one of my favorites !

You’ll find many pigment alternatives to choose from if you want a tube of yellow, red or even green watercolor.

But there are relatively few pigment alternatives for purple.

As painters we all want to find the best pigments for specific hues. So if you’re looking for a good purple to use as a convenience color then you can’t go far wrong with the ones I’ve listed below.

Although this list is not exhaustive, I’ve indicated the pigments used in each paint formula to help you identify similar paints from alternative brands.

I try to stick to a set of quality guidelines when choosing my paints, so all of the examples listed here are transparent, single pigment paints, with good or excellent lightfastness ratings. A large number of manufacturers produce purples which are convenience mixtures of two red and blue pigments. For example the Daniel Smith color “Rose of Ultramarine” is a mix of the pigments PV19 and PB29 (Quinacridone Rose + French Ultramarine), which is exactly what ​I used in ​the tests above to make bright purple.

All these highly recommended pigments are versatile, and handle well in watercolors.

If you’re not accustomed to pigment names, purple pigments are denoted as “PV” (Pigment Violet). “PR” means Pigment Red.

Another thing I have noticed, if you like granulating watercolors, a large number of purple pigment paints are granulating…

A few recommended purple paints​

Daniel Smith Quinacridone Lilac ( Pigment PR122 )

An intense red-purple color, and probably the strongest hue of any red-purple pigment available in watercolors. “Quinacridones” are a family of beautiful highly colorful pigments which all share the same excellent lightfastness and transparency. Quinacridones handle beautifully in washes and mix with other paints extremely well.

Daniel Smith Quinacridone Rose ( Pigment PV19 )

This paint is great for mixing very bright warm colors and purples, and as you can see from the tests above, it’s valuable as a “primary” cool red in a limited color palette. This is probably one of the most versatile and widely used rose pigments.

Daniel Smith Quinacridone Violet ( Pigment PV19 )

A darker valued, slightly warmer purple hue. When used wet on wet it is very ‘energetic’ and can produce some interesting blooms.

M. Graham Dioxazine Violet ( Pigment PV23 )

This is a very dark valued slightly dull purple color. The PV23 pigment is lightfast and highly staining. The color appearance is very similar with other brands of paint using the same pigment.

Daniel Smith Quinacridone Pink  ( Pigment PV42 )

Not available from many manufacturers, this color is very similar to Quinacridone Rose. Tests have shown that it is slightly less lightfast, but it mixes wonderful bright purples like the PV19 pigment in Quinacridone Rose. If you have to choose between the two, PV19 would be a better option.

Daniel Smith Cobalt Violet Deep  ( Pigment PV14 )

A medium value purple color, this pigment is non-staining and has excellent lightfastness. When this paint dries it shifts slightly towards red. Apparently this pigment is quite rare, making it more expensive. Beware of cheaper paints with the same generic name, which may not contain the real pigment.

Daniel Smith Ultramarine Red ( Pigment PV15 )

This is a medium to dark purple color. The color appearance of paints with this pigment seems to vary slightly from one brand to another. This one from Daniel Smith is a lovely deep blue purple.

Daniel Smith Cobalt Violet ( Pigment PV49 )

A light purple violet color, probably what some would call “fuchsia”. I quite like the granulating quality of this pigment.

Daniel Smith Quinacridone Purple  ( Pigment PV55 )

This is a lush deep purple color and as far as I can tell, the use of the pigment PV55 is exclusive to Daniel Smith. It’s a rich transparent color almost like a burgundy wine color.

Conclusion

The “purple dilemma” is not really a problem if you can grasp the fundamental principles of color theory and make use of the color wheel to assist your color mixing choices.

For accurate color mixing it is important to understand how the position of hues on a color wheel affect the mixed color appearance. And if you keep in mind the rule of complementary mixing then you’ll find it easy to choose the right pigments for your desired color.

By the way… Purple continues to be one of my favorite colors !

The post How to make a perfect purple with watercolor first appeared on Watercolor Affair.