Understanding Color & How to Mix It

WELCOME!! I'm so excited you are taking this course. Color is AMAZING. It's all around us and affects pretty much everything we do. It's even in our metaphors.....I feel blue, out of the blue, I'm so mad I'm seeing red, red tape, things are rosy, green with envy....you get the idea.

And while we all see color slightly differently from each other, there are physical laws of color that are pretty simple to understand.

As you go through each part of this course you will not only develop a much deeper understanding of color and what happens when you mix colors, you will also have a much more developed and nuanced relationship with color.

Whether you are a watercolor, oil, or acrylic painter this course will work. While I won't be talking about colored pencils or pastels, some of the information in this course will certainly help you in those other mediums.

If you are a beginner, this is a GREAT way to demystify color letting you concentrate on other parts of your creative process. And if you already are a working artist, this also will demystify and clear up a lot of questions. I've had some really excellent painters take this course and then come back later letting me know just how valuable these classes were.

Primarily I will be working in oil, but you are welcome to use whatever mediums you choose. You may also want to use several mediums to compare them with each other. But no matter if you use oil, watercolor, or acrylic, the same 'rules' will apply. I only ask that you actually take the time to do all the work. I PROMISE YOU it will be so interesting and helpful. And FUN!!

Let's get started!!

In the Resource section you will find 2 Color Wheels. One is the Quiller Color Wheel which was designed by the very well known watercolor artist, Stephen Quiller, and the other is the Color Bias Wheel which was designed by Michael Wilcox.

Please download both of them. You can get them laminated or you can tape them to a piece of cardboard and cover it with a plastic wrap to keep it clean.

In this short video you will see how I set up my palette and how to begin finding the value range of the colors on your palette

Tint: A color that is lightened with the addition of white. They will move toward pastel colors

Shade: A color that is darkened by the addition of black. The color will not only darken but also become duller.

White is a cool color. Not only will it lighten a hue, but it will also cool it and dull it. White is also used to see which direction an extremely dark color is leaning.

Hue: The name of a color, i.e. red, brown, green, etc...

Value: How light or dark a color is. Sometimes the word Tone is used to mean the same thing.

Chroma: How bright or dull a color is. For example the color of rust is an orange hue, middle to dark in value, and dull in its chroma. If something is described as highly or very chromatic it is considered to be colorful and purer in color, therefore not dull.

Color is made up of Hue, Value and Chroma.

Congratulations! You've finished the first part of your course and are on the road to learning about color. In this section you have begun to master 2 ways we 'talk' about color. With words such as Hue, Value, and Chroma you are using the vocabulary that is used to describe color. By mixing various tints of your colors you are learning and seeing the visual vocabulary of your colors. WELL DONE!

In the next section you will be learning about your color wheel and what it can do to help you make the colors you want to make.

Ready? Let's go!!