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April 8, 2020 at 8:20 pm #486394
Hey y’all,
I am stranded without any art supplies. As I am cash strapped, I have decided to buy some subtractive colors that I don’t already own.
If I wanted to use Cyan, Magenta and Yellow alone to see what I can get, what brands/colors do you recommend? I’ll probably add an Umber and Sienna, and of course, white.
Stay safe and stay home.
Janne
April 10, 2020 at 12:03 am #972576I’ve been using Jerry’s Soho Urban Artist’s Oils for the last year or so, they’re an affordable, decent student-grade oil paint and a number are single pigments. Though I use a hybrid of Carder’s Geneva and Zorn palletes, they do offer the true primaries;
Primary Cyan (PB15:3, PW6, PW4) Phthalo Blue GS and White
Primary Magenta (PR122) Quinacridone Magenta
Primary Yellow (PY3, PW6) Hansa Yellow and White
And they’re earths are hues of PR101 and PY42.They offer a complete starter set for a hundred bucks; paints, medium, brushes and table easel if you’re stuck away from your usual supplies and stuff.
In the current unpleasantness I don’t know how their shipping is right now, …but the website is up.
Radical Fundemunsellist
April 10, 2020 at 2:08 am #972574Ted, the only thing with those paints is that they have white in the cyan and yellow, so won’t be a true subtractive palette.
April 10, 2020 at 9:07 am #972572The most simple cmyk palette I know is composed of Prussian blue, cad yellow medium, Alizarin (or a good substitute), and white. These colors are recommended in Jose Parramon’s book, The Big Book Of Oil Color. In the color section of his book, he presents a couple paintings and a couple of pages of recipes for various colors. This palette is an excellent opportunity to learn to mix color.
April 10, 2020 at 9:52 am #972569I second Richard’s caution: if the CMY colors are intended to be used as the 3 main mixing colors, it’s not a good idea to get ones which contain white because you won’t get the full value range (darks) and mixes with all 3 will tend to be greyed. But as supplementary colors, mixes with white can be useful.
April 10, 2020 at 9:17 pm #972573what would you suggest for 3 opaque primaries?
http://s3.amazonaws.com/wetcanvas-hdc/Community/images/18-Sep-2019/1999899-sigsmall.jpg
STUDIOBONGOApril 11, 2020 at 12:57 am #972577That’s why I gave the pigments, they contain white. I totally agree that he’d be better-off with “clean” paints. But he asked about tubed primaries… He can always add White himself.
I don’t think any of the commonly-available blues or magentas are opaque…
The Cad Yellows and Cad Reds are typically opaque.
The Earths range from semi-translucent to opaque.
Titanium White and Lamp Black are opaque, Ivory Black is transparent.Radical Fundemunsellist
April 11, 2020 at 5:38 am #972575For blue you could use a heavily pigmented Phthalo Blue, as it will be almost black in masstone, but will keep it’s chroma very well when mixed with white.
April 12, 2020 at 12:53 pm #972578It wouldn’t be cheep but if you really need an opaque blue you could try one of the cobalts.
April 12, 2020 at 4:13 pm #972570I like to use these as primaries:
Prussian Blue PB 27
Quinacridone Rose PV 19
Indian Yellow PY 110Each color here has a specific reason for the choice and inclusion. First, the “blue” is more like a cyan in usage but has a very real blue look with just a tiny touch of white, but with lots it will go all the way through to slightly muted cyans. This allows a lot of versatility in usage.
The Rose functions as a vibrant and intense Magenta but leans slightly more toward a red, this allows it to mix good violets mixed with the “blue” but also allows it to mix excellent oranges with the yellow.
The yellow specifically leans orange, but the tiniest touch of the “blue” will also allow it to make more neutral yellows (though less vivid than say a Cadmium Yellow). The key is, the most important ranges of colors are very mixable with it, greens with more of the cyan/blue or oranges with the Rose/red. This gives it a wider range, where a cadmium yellow mixed with most magentas will give much less vibrant orange mixes than this.
Transparent pigments provide a much wider range of possible hue intensities where opaque pigments (like cadmium yellows) will reduce the mixing range. This means that if one is using opaques, they should have a wider range of pigments available so they have greater mixing range to work with.
Good luck with your limited palette of colors. If you can afford a 4th color, adding in an orange leaning red like PO 36 or PO 73 will allow you to switch to a green leaning yellow like Cadmium without loss of the orange/red range of color mixes quite well.
- Delo DelofashtApril 12, 2020 at 5:20 pm #972571I just got Lukas 1862 Primary triad. Cyan (PB15:3,) Magenta (PR122,) and Lemon Yellow (PY3) I have not had time yest to do much more than a few swatches and just a few mixes. So far I like them. All three are transparent, but the Lemon and Magenta are hard to wipe out. They say the Cyan will lift, but I haven’t tested that yet. All the mixes I did came out very well, but no mud.
Yes, I know I spelled Magenta wrong.
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