what's your preferred method of greying down colors?

[Richard Saylor]

The problem of finding mixing complements is akin to two men without surveying equipment attempting to dig a tunnel, each starting from a different end and hoping to meet in the middle. On the other hand it is a fairly simple matter to mix a neutral gray using any three reasonably spaced colors.

Actually, I'm not enough of a perfectionist to agonize over hue shifts. If I try to tranquilize a garish green by mixing in a little red, and it strays toward brown instead of gray, this may turn out to be the color I really needed rather than the more neutral green originally envisioned, a happy little surprise. Perhaps this is a common experience of those who checked 'add a mixing complement' in the poll.

Richard

[mr.wiggles]

If your painting from nature, or a portrait those hue shifts can make or break a painting. I'm not that much of a perfectionist either, but I do like to have control over what I am trying to paint.

It does depend on what one is painting and what kind of painting you do.
If your doing tight rendering then the hue,value,chroma aspect is equal to the drawing in creating the work.

The analogy of the tunnel is a good one, as it seems that there is a lot guess work going on.
It's just me, I don't like working that way personally, I like my palette to be organized and I am into controlling the HVC of my work.

I have found that I can do this well with the system I have, which is from DuMond and Riley respectively.

[rghirardi]

Originally Posted by mr.wiggles

...I like my palette to be organized and I am into controlling the HVC of my work.

I have found that I can do this well with the system I have, which is from DuMond and Riley respectively.

For someone like me, who was just introduced to the HVC concept, would you explain a little more on how your palette is organized? I've read about Covino's 'Controlled Palette.' Is your's similar?

Thanks for the information.

[mr.wiggles]

Yes I sometimes use the same palette. Its the Frank Reilly palette which is what Covino uses as well. Also Marvin Mattelson the premier portrait painter uses this kind of palette.

I also mix up neutral grays matched to Munsell, nine to be exact.
These correspond to my colors. Basically it's learning to understand how values work with the hue and chroma.

I was taught using what is called the DuMond palette which is similar except you use a full spectrum of colors, I use 3 Yellows, 3 Reds and 3 Blues. I also add some earth colors such as Yellow Ochre.
DuMond used more comes to 10 or 12.

I then have the gray scales mixed to the values of the colors which happen to be very close to the Munsell values give or take a half step.

Hope this helps.

[rghirardi]

Mr. Wiggles:

Thanks, I remember doing color charts many, many years ago in color class. We did them in tints, shades, and tones. However, they were never referenced to Munsell as I recall. But, then again, that's been about 45 years ago.

I like your idea of making charts - runs, or whatever they are called - of a limited number of colors.

Again, thanks.
rghirardi