Decided to do painting or paint furniture? But don’t know how to get different shades? Paint mixing tables and tips to help you do this.
Basic concepts
Before you start studying paint mixing tables, you should familiarize yourself with some definitions that will make it easy to understand new material for yourself. Below are explained the words used in the theory and practice of mixing shades. These are not scientific encyclopedic definitions, but decryption in a language that is understandable to an ordinary beginner, without the presence of complex terminology.
Achromatic colors are all intermediate shades between black and white, that is, gray. In these colors there is only a tonal component (dark - light), and as such there is no "color color". Those where it is are called chromatic.
Primary colors - red, blue, yellow. They can not be obtained by mixing any other colors. Those that can be composite.
Saturation is a characteristic that distinguishes chromatic color from an achromatic shade identical in lightness. Next, consider what a paint mixing table is for.
Spectrum
Ink mixing tables are usually presented as a matrix of rectangles or squares or as color combinations with numerical values or as a percentage of each color component.
The underlying table is the spectrum. It can be depicted as a strip or circle. The second option is more convenient, visual and understandable. In fact, a spectrum is a schematic representation of a ray of light decomposed into color components, in other words, a rainbow.
This table contains both primary and composite colors. The more sectors in this circle, the greater the number of intermediate shades. In the figure above, there are also gradations of lightnesses. Each ring has a specific tone.
The hue of each sector is obtained by mixing the neighboring colors in a ring.
How to mix achromatic colors
There is such a painting technique as grisaille. It involves the creation of a picture using gradations of exclusively achromatic colors. Sometimes a brown or other shade is added. Below is a table for mixing colors for paints when using this method.
Please note that when working with gouache, oil, acrylic, a more gray shade is created by not only reducing the amount of black, but also by adding white. In watercolor, professionals do not use this paint, but dilute the color with water.
How to mix with white and black
In order to get a darker or lighter shade of the pigment that you have in your kit, you need to mix it with achromatic colors. This is how work with gouache goes, mixing acrylic paints. The table below is suitable for working with any material.
In sets there is a different number of ready-made colors, so compare what you have with the desired shade. When adding white, you will get the so-called pastel colors.
The following shows how the gradation of several complex colors is obtained from the lightest, almost white, to very dark.
Mixing watercolors
The table below can be used for both painting methods: glazed or single-layer. The difference is that in the first embodiment, the final hue is obtained by visual connection of different tones, superimposed one on top of the other. The second method involves the mechanical creation of the desired color by connecting the pigments on the palette.
How this is done is easy to understand by the example of the first line with purple tones from the figure above. Layer-by-layer execution is done like this:
- Fill all the squares with a light tone, which will turn out when using a small amount of paint and enough - water.
- After drying, apply the same color to the second and third elements.
- Repeat the desired number of times. In this version, there are only three color transition cells, but there may be more.
When working in the technique of glaze painting, it is worth remembering that it is better to mix different colors in no more than five layers. The previous one must be well dried out.
In the event that you prepare the necessary color immediately on the palette, the sequence of work with the same purple gradation will be as follows:
- Move the color, taking a little paint on the wet brush. Draw on the first rectangle.
- Add pigment, fill in the second element.
- Dip the brush into the paint and make the third cell.
When working in a single layer all the colors you must first mix on the palette. This means that in the first method, the final shade is obtained by optical mixing, and in the second - mechanical.
Gouache and oil
Techniques for working with these materials are similar, since pigments are always presented in the form of a creamy mass. If the gouache has dried, it is pre-diluted with water to the desired consistency. White is always present in any set. They are usually consumed faster than others, so they are sold in separate jars or tubes.
Mixing oil paints (table below), like gouache, is a simple task. The advantage of these techniques is that the next layer completely overlaps the previous one. If you made a mistake and after drying you didn’t like the resulting shade, make a new one and put it on top. The previous one will not work if you work with thick colors without diluting them with liquid (water for gouache, solvent for oil).
Pictures in this painting technique can even be textured when a thick mass is applied pasty, that is, in a thick layer. Often a special tool is used for this - a palette knife, which is a metal spatula on the handle.
The proportions of the mixed paints and the necessary colors to obtain the desired shade are shown in the previous chart table. It is worth saying that it is enough to have in the set only three primary colors (red, yellow and blue), as well as black and white. Of them, in a different combination, all other shades are obtained. The main thing is that the colors in the jar should be exactly the main spectral tones, that is, for example, not pink or raspberry, but namely red.
Acrylic work
Most often, these paints work on wood, cardboard, glass, stone, making decorative crafts. In this case, the mixing of colors occurs in the same way as when using gouache or oil. If the surface has been pre-primed and the paints are suitable for it, obtaining the right shade will not be difficult. The following are examples of mixing shades with acrylic.
Acrylic paints are also used for painting on fabric (batik) , but they are sold in jars of liquid consistency and look like ink for a printer. In this case, the colors are mixed according to the principle of watercolor on a palette with the addition of water, rather than white.
If you understand how to use paint mixing tables, you can easily get an unlimited number of shades by working in watercolor, oil or acrylic.