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1. Basic colours |
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Sometimes, I heard from some amateur artists that they merely used the three basic colours: yellow, red and blue. Apparently, if they painted in oils, they would also use white. | |||||||||||||
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Honestly, I think this is a mistake. It's true that mixing yellow and blue you get a beautiful green, and with a bit of red and yellow you obtain a good orange. But certainly you will never achieve a colour in the violet range with red and blue, just because red is carmine and yellow. | |||||||||||||
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In the graphic arts industry four inks are used: yellow, carmine (magenta), blue (cyan) and black. With these inks and the white colour in the paper, they get the rest. However, the opaque oil colours do not work as the transparent printing inks. | |||||||||||||
| 2. My usual palette | ||||||||||||||
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After many years painting in oils, I concluded that it was much more useful for me to mix the colours starting from the basic ones, but also have a few already manufactured to ease the work. My palette is made of the following eleven colours: white, vermilion, yellow, orange, yellow ochre, bluish green, deep green, Prussian blue, violet, carmine and ivory black. Please bear in mind that some paints are more transparent than others, and we should look for opacity. I use cadmium red, yellow and orange colours because they are very opaque. Regarding white pigments, I prefer titanium white for it's very brilliant and quite opaque. |
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| 3. Some basic shades | ||||||||||||||
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Reds and oranges with white are a good ground for flesh shades, that can be next toned with greys. Black added to orange, with other shades, will provide the classic sienna and umbers. |
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Emerald green with black is very useful for seascapes, but unfortunately it results also quite transparent. Sometimes it's better to prepare green colour mixing blue and yellow. | |||||||||||||
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Blue colour is a delicate choice: it must be intense and clean. Ultramar blue is a little reddish and avoids achieving clean sky blues. Prussian blue doesn't work for violets and that's why I use prefabricated violet. If you cannot find the ideal blue colour, you can have both and also Cobalt blue. | |||||||||||||
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Yellow ochre is ideal for golden shades, adding white and yellow. | |||||||||||||
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I use black colour a lot. Spite some opinions, I think that the grey range can be perfectly made with black and white. You only need then to add a bit of another colour to change the tone. It is a very interesting range to practise with, for I believe it provides consistency and richness to the painting. | |||||||||||||
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Colours, ones more than others, look matt when dried. Varnishing will not only protect the painting but also make colours brighter and unify the whole. When the artwork is to be reproduced, brilliant varnish is not recommended since it would bother during the scanning or photographic process.
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