I would not be too concerned about whether to use RYB or CMY until you get more art experience. A lot of people have strong preferences for one or the other (and, given time, so might you!). Many artists eventually include both red and magenta, as well as both blue and cyan (or light blue), on their palettes, but you can start out with either one. I think most people start out with RYB just because this is how most people are taught in school. Your RYB primaries should work just fine.

That is normal for your paints to appear duller before you add white to them. Most, if not all, colors work this way, and each will “peak” at its highest chroma when a different amount of white has been added.

P.S. – Welcome to WetCanvas! If you haven’t done so already, go over to the New Members section to say “Hi” to one of the WC guides. (Don’t forget to come back here, as I’m sure you will get other replies.)

Hi, im totally new to wc and to oil painting, but i like it so if sb can help me with my questions i’d be grateful and excuse me if my questions are dumb…
in ryb (or cym) is there a red red? i mean a pure red out of the tube, not leaning to yellow or blue? what about yellow and blue?
in terms of color accuracy does one of these systems have advantage over another?
i was making my first color wheel today using cad red, cad yellow and pht blue and all colors in between red and blue showed very dark and dull then i added white and it got better but i think its not proper since the tone is changing and im not sure where i get a purple or magenta without tint and shade? i get orange by r+y (might my orange be also tinted or shaded using equal amounts of r & y ?)
thanks for your help.

Hi, Basalsa!

First of all, don’t worry too much about asking “dumb” questions. If there’s anything we can help you with, we will.

Regarding paint suggestions, I think people here gave you really good suggestions. Here are mine.

The red you asked about is a spectrum red, that is: an ideal color that will only reflect red wavelengths to your eye.

Unfortunately, as opainter suggested, pigments are not perfect. In practice, it means we don’t have a perfect spectrum red. The closest we have is Cadmium Red Scarlet, Light or Medium (PR 108) and Pyrrole Red Light (PR 255). Of course, we might have other ideal paints too, but I don’t really know much about them.

If you want to go for a Cadmium pigment, you must check which tube is the closer to a spectrum red. In Winsor & Newton Professional Acrylics, this would actually be Cadmium Red Medium, but in other brands, it could actually be Scarlet!

If you want to learn about color mixing with only 5 tubes, here’s an essential palette to start with. The names may vary, so follow the pigment code (in parentheses):

[*]Quinacridone Magenta (PR 122)
[*]Lemon Yellow (PY 3)
[*]Phthalo Blue Red Shade (PB 15:1)
[*]Titanium White (PW 6)
[*]Ivory Black (PBk 9)

In addition to this palette, I also recommend an earth color, such as Transparent Red Iron Oxide (PR 101), or Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide (PY 42). If in doubt, get Transparent Red Iron Oxide.

If you want to have a bigger range of colors, you might also consider opainter’s suggestion of complementary colors.

Hi Gigalot, I hope I didn’t mislead in my response to basalsa. I only meant to show how to adjust the referenced palette to avoid the dull mixtures that were obtained.

For composing a proper basic palette, I fully agree with you. Some earth colours would be useful. In addition to the split-primary I quoted, I also put out earth colours namely, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, transparent oxide red and raw umber. I do this very much for the reason you suggest – to cut value and/or chroma while holding hue constant. However, the issue in basalsa’s post was the elimination of dull mixtures when constructing a colour wheel.

If I were to advisebasalsa on a learner’s palette, I would say adjust the split primary by dropping the thalo blue. It’s hard to handle because of its high intensity. Also drop the cad. lemon yellow, change the cad yellow to cad yellow light and add viridian so as to obtain a green component. This palette can produce a wide gamut. Learn to handle it, then add a few earths and, with experience and knowledge, readjust the palette to suit your particular needs.

Suppose I have pure red, yellow and blue, because red is naturally darker than yellow and blue is the darkest I have to add white to secondary and tertiary colors and this will change the chroma/value. by adding earth colors to this mixture I’ll again get mudd (is it right or wrong?)

Not necessarily. Adding an earth color will help you getting soft mixes when you need a brown hue or a more muted yellow (as Gigalot said).

Here, the transparent oxides are the most useful, since it’s hard to get mud with them!

Here is what really kills chroma (makes “mud”). This is a simplified explanation, so it’s not 100% accurate.

[*]Overmixing paints with their complementaries (e.g: Phthalo Blue [PB 15:1] + Cadmium Orange [PO 20]).

[*] Overmixing paints with white (especially Titanium White [PW 6])

[*]Overmixing paints with black pigment (any black: Ivory [PBk9] Mars [PBk 11] Lamp [PBk6], etc).

so how can I find out my orange or violet is almost correct and on the same chroma level as my primaries?

What do you mean by chroma level? Saturation? Color gamut?

If you are talking about saturation, pigments are subtractive: that means an orange you get by mixing magenta + yellow will never be as bright as those pigments.

If you are talking about “color gamut”, i.e: the sensation that all colors belong to the same group, mixing your orange from magenta and yellow will also help.

Cadmium Red gives a restricted range of colors when mixed: it cannot give you magenta nor bright purples. If you want an all around “red”, you can pair your cadmium red with any magenta. The most lightfast and versatile magentas are Quinacridone Magenta (PR 122) and Permanent Rose (PV 19-gamma).

Again thank you for your time and help

No problem, basalsa!

I mean that all mixed colors (and primaries) fall on the same ring between shades and tints in a wheel that includes shades and tints also.

And for the record I’ve got following ryb colors :
Cadmium red hue
Cadmium red deep hue
Permanent alizarin crimson

Chrome yellow hue
Cadmium yellow pale hue
Cadmium lemon hue

French ultramarine
Phthalo blue
Cerulean blue hue
Prussian blue

Oh, so it’s really the color gamut.

Your palette seems fine, basalsa. Check out the pigment codes of your palette, though. It’s the pigment code that really matters, not the paint name. Depending on what your Permanent Alizarin Crimson is, you might want to use that as your magenta, and Cadmium Red Hue as your your red.

It’s also important to choose your paints according to your subject. You might use all of them in one painting and be restricted to 2 or 3 tubes in others.

You should also read what Gigalot, opainter and oddman99 said. They gave you some interesting advice!

Some further comments basalsa. Your palette has all the colours needed for a split primary, and then some. A possible tweak might be to get a deeper cad yellow. Cad yellow and cad red should give you your best cad orange equivalent. Pthalo blue and Cad lemon hue should produce a bright green. Permanent aliz crimson and fr. ult., being dark colours, produce an accordingly dark violet. It will need a bit of white in order to show hue.

Because your cadmiums are hues and not pure single pigments, they do not have the inherent chroma of the pure versions. Also, if you are using student grade paint they are generally weaker than artist’s grade. If this is so, you could be expecting too much.

If you are using student grade paints, get what you can out of them but consider replacing them, if you can, with artist’s grade when the time comes. With their higher pigment load and single pigment formulation artist’s grade will go much further and produce more brilliant colours. This will have some economic advantage over first cost.