Home › Forums › The Learning Center › Color Theory and Mixing › You can’t compare mixing paint 20 years ago with now.
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Mac Robertson, Moderator, Figure Forum.
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December 30, 2018 at 11:49 pm #466816
Paint mixing has changed. A lot of painters now use organic pigments like azo yellow, phthalo, cobalt hues and cerulean hues…instead of cadmium, cobalt and cerulean.
The differences in tinting strength between organics compared to mineral pigments, has major consequences when you mix paint.
I saw a good example in a classroom a few days ago.
People in class were told they didn’t need to bring green, you could just mix it with blue and yellow.
At that point I already knew this would go horribly wrong for a lot of painters.
The next painting session it, not surprisingly, went wrong.
Many painters had phthalo blue / ultramarine…low pigment student azo yellow…and no green.
Azo yellows are amazing, but they also have much lower tinting strength than cadium. I saw several people struggling to make a green, having to add so much yellow to their phthalo blue / ultramarine, that I think they wnet through half a tube of yellow just to make their greens. Not to mention the giant mess they made on their palette, dirtying their pile of yellow to the point of it being unusable.
Mixing today…is not the same as mixing 20 years ago. I think people and teachers need to take that into account, when they say things like “Oh no, you can just…”.
December 31, 2018 at 12:11 am #753030Btw, I am not advocating that people use cobalt or cadmiums. Quite to the contrary.
But pay attention when you listen to people who talk about certain mixtures, when you read things about certain mixtures.
Be aware of the major differences in tinting stregth, be aware that what worked 20 years ago, doesn’t always translate the same with some of today’s pigments.
Mineral pigments all have quite a similar tinting strength, modern organic pigments can be all over the place, from extremely powerful phthalo to very weak azo. Take that into account.
Some mixing advice from the past translates well, but a lot does not.
December 31, 2018 at 3:29 am #753024Agree with the benefits of traditional colors. Using colors of less disparate tinting strength might sound like a beginnerish thing to do – but it can make life much easier. To me it’s at least as important a consideration as chroma.
Wasting piles of yellow trying to lighten a blue + yellow mixture. Been there many times. Starting with the yellow first and adding the blue a tiny drop at a time helps (and we all eventually learn to do that almost automatically) but it’s tedious. For mixing high-chroma greens with a blue + yellow mix, a viable alternative for Phthalo Blue is a Manganese Blue Hue whose only pigment is Phthalo Blue (no white).
I personally like having a tube of green on the palette even if it’s an unessential, mixable color. Useful for many things other than just making greens.
December 31, 2018 at 3:55 am #753031Starting with the yellow first and adding the blue a tiny drop at a time helps (and we all eventually learn to do that almost automatically) but it’s tedious.
Indeed. It’s still all very risky business due to the large swings in tinting strength.
What usually happens when people add phthalo blue to hansa yellow for the first time:
December 31, 2018 at 5:53 am #753037If you want more natural greens you could try with a yellow ochre which I think has more tinting strength.
January 1, 2019 at 12:18 pm #753032If I were an experienced artist teaching a class to newbies, I would do this:
Lesson 1: No paint. Instead, a saffron-robed monk lights incense, chants some Om, then informs the students that “green” is an illusion. Thus, any attempt to create green, whether mixed or straight from the tube, is bad Karma.
Lesson 2: No paint. A man in clerical vestments (woman, if you prefer) screams at the students, and informs them that “green” is the work of the Devil. Any use of green will result in eternal damnation.
Lesson 3: No paint. Instead, a review of Art History, featuring the works of old masters who did not use green.
Lesson 4: Ready to begin painting.
January 1, 2019 at 3:44 pm #753028Teacher should have explained paint properties first..
Yellow + black is a consideration also..~Joy~
January 2, 2019 at 11:22 am #753033Teacher should have explained paint properties first..
Yellow + black is a consideration also..In lesson 2 you’d get Purgatory.
My point was, beginners often choose a scene with a lot of green, because there’s a lot of it in landscapes. But green is hard for a beginner to handle. Thus, I would recommend that beginners avoid subjects with green until the earth colors and blue are mastered. Doesn’t matter whether the green is straight or mixed.
January 2, 2019 at 12:15 pm #753027I was responding to the OP’s line —
[People in class were told they didn’t need to bring green, you could just mix it with blue and yellow.]~Joy~
January 2, 2019 at 1:59 pm #753034I was responding to the OP’s line —
[People in class were told they didn’t need to bring green, you could just mix it with blue and yellow.]Ah.
January 2, 2019 at 2:40 pm #753036You can’t compare mixing paint 20 years ago with now.
You can compare them, but you can’t equate them.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/wetcanvas-hdc/Community/images/18-Sep-2019/1999899-sigsmall.jpg
STUDIOBONGOJanuary 4, 2019 at 1:02 pm #753035….
January 16, 2019 at 9:54 pm #753039I have a number of books from when my mother was in art school in the early-1950s, and most were still written from the standpoint of pre-war paints and pigments; no Cadmiums or Phthalos, or even Titanium White at that point. Turps and Lead White used in wild abandon… And paint chemistry –and marketing– was not what it is today.
As a landscapist, I’m always interested in low-chroma so the Cadmiums and Phthalos don’t usually play on my palette unless specifically invited. Outdoors the range of “greens” in Hue extends from deep in the yellows into the deep blue-greens. Add the waters of stream, lake or ocean and the “blues” deeply overlap the greens.
The low-chroma reds and oranges are the earth-toned browns, tans and warm grays.
The low-chroma yellows are the olives.
The low-chroma blue-purples are the blacks and cool grays.
…But what are the low-chroma greens?Radical Fundemunsellist
January 17, 2019 at 4:13 am #753038Chromium Oxide Green?
January 22, 2019 at 1:52 am #753040You can’t compare mixing paint 20 years ago with now.
[B][/B]
You can compare them, but you can’t equate them.
You can equate them, but you’d be wrong.
my art page: http://marcfriedlander.com/Art.html
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