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      Color mixing is an intimidating topic for a lot of students, and a frustrating issue for teachers too, because it really is something that just requires a LOT of practice and patience. This probably explains the popularity of workshops where color mixtures are presented as formulas. While finding the right note of paint might be fairly straightforward if you can locate a tube of color that matches or comes close to whatever you're aiming for, depending on paint companies to create all of the variations in tone needed to complete a painting isn't very practical. Not to mention, to rely on that, or on formulas, means missing out on adventure, originality, and self expression. The only way I've seen people get really comfortable with color mixing is to face their fears, jump in head first, and not worry about wasting paint. For artists who aspire to speak in their own voice there aren't any good shortcuts, but a simple plan can help a whole lot.

       Relatively neutral notes can be some of the most beautiful areas in a painting and also help show off any touches of pure color to their best advantage. One of the ways to combine color that allows for more interesting and lively mixtures is by using a triad. Basically this refers to 3 hues that are roughly equidistant from each other on a color wheel, with the most common triad being our primary colors -- red, yellow and blue. There are secondary and tertiary triads but for the way I work and the effects I'm trying to achieve, the triad of primary colors works well. The mixtures I use can be a combination of any one of the reds on my palette (Cadmium Scarlet, Permanent Rose, Permanent Alizarin or Permanent Magenta), either of the blues (Cobalt Blue or Ultramarine Blue) and any of the yellows (Cadmium Lemon, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Indian Yellow, or Transparent Oxide Yellow). Generally speaking I'll use the lighter value pigments for high tints. For mixing middle to dark values, including many of the shadow areas, the darker value pigments (either Alizarin or Magenta with Ultramarine and Transparent Oxide Yellow) are a more efficient combination but the only rule is finding whatever works. 

     What I like about the triad concept is that there are so many different ways to push the color without resorting to the addition of yet another pigment, so it just keeps things simple. The mixtures, especially in the lighter values, are cleaner and allow for more variation than what I would  get if I used grays or earth colors to modify. Complementary colors work very well to create neutrals but with any given combination there are only 2 directions to push the color. Below you can see a chart I created for my classes designed to illustrate the difference between mixing with a triad vs. neutralizing using complementary colors .

The circle at the top represents the various tints and degrees of neutrality that are possible when working with a triad. The mixtures were all created using Permanent Rose, Cobalt Blue, and Cadmium Yellow Pale.  (White was added to both the red and blue to bring those 2 colors closer in value to the yellow). The bar across the bottom shows an example of neutralizing color using complements, which are found directly across from each other on the color wheel. The orange and blue together produces beautiful nuances in color temperature that would be ideal in some situations, but are limited to leaning warmer or cooler. In the triad example, the addition of one more color exponentially increases the mixing options to include the whole color spectrum.

      When I first started out in art school, I was taught to lay out a palette using strings of nine values for each color and any neutralization was achieved through the addition of grays or earth colors. It was a very academic approach and a great way to gain an understanding of values but my paintings didn't have some of the surface qualities and range of color possibilities I was yearning for. After adopting an open palette approach I then began experimenting with complementary colors and triads. With color mixing there's often several avenues to achieving the same or a similar result and actually all of these methods are now a part of my approach to mixing color. It's not something I think about as I'm working but it's just become more instinctive to use whatever path is the most direct for getting the effect I'm after. Trying to capture subtle color changes on a piece of white china, or indicate plane changes happening in a shadow area ---those are examples of when triad mixing can be particularly helpful. It certainly isn't something I invented and at this point I've been triad mixing so long I can't really recall when or where I picked it up. For the purposes of learning though, I do believe it is a good discipline to follow some sort of plan and not just continue adding more and more colors until a particular mixture is stumbled across and then hope that blob of paint on your palette stays wet until you finish the painting because there's no way to replicate it. The goal is to become fluent in color mixing and be able to match something you mixed previously if necessary. 

      At first it can feel more risky and complicated to mix color using a triad of primaries but there's almost infinite tweaks and adjustments that can be made to get wherever you need to go. A lot of artists today and throughout history have relied on the primary colors as the basis for a limited palette and especially in terms of simplicity I can understand the appeal. For me, working with the vivid colors of the subject matter I'm trying to capture, I find exclusively using a palette of just a few colors results in mixtures far less chromatic and much more opaque overall than what I'm able to get using a broader range of options. Still, if someone is trying to learn basic color mixing skills I can't think of a better place to start exploring than with a simple combination of primary colors. Certainly this approach can help minimize the trouble you can get into and won't require a huge investment in paint. Best of all, when you do hit on the right color, the result won't be due to totally random wandering so you'll always be able to retrace your steps and figure out how you got there.

For more information on the colors I'm working with now and why I've chosen them, check out the May 2022 blog post 'My Palette'.

"Don't try to flatten out one tone to cover the whole surface. Decide on one spot and then don't stop --- look again and then don't go back to the palette and take the same color. Do it entirely again. I want to help you out of making a plaster background."   --- from Hawthorne on Painting by Charles Hawthorne