To continue our discussion of warm and cool colors, I present: Green. For those interested, here are Parts 1 and 2.
This one gave some interesting results. The warm blue and warm yellow provided a nice, clear, warm green. It looks like it’d be good for grass that needs watering (a common sight in Atlanta recently). However, the cool blue and cool yellow gave me a brownish mess. Since the cool blue and warm yellow gave a similar shade of mud, I’m guessing it’s the fault of the common element, ultramarine blue, although I’m not sure why. Any suggestions? I’ve only mixed it with browns (to make dark, blackish colors) and reds to make purples.
The warm blue and cool yellow created a surprisingly pleasant mix. It reminds me of what grass is supposed to look like. I’ll actually get to see some of it during my road trip to Iowa next week. Which, by the way, is the reason I won’t be posting for the next week and a half.
In conclusion, I still have no idea what I’m doing with color mixing, and nothing consistent has come out of my experiments yet. Next installation: purple in all its glorious mystery.
I am a fan. Uplifting but not sappy. Go see it!
First, happy Independence Day! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. My country isn’t perfect, but I sure am glad to live here and be able to paint cephalopods in my free time. Speaking of which, there’s new content up at MegLyman.com.
Today I’ll explore more warm and cool colors. See this post for the introduction to the experiment. I will attempt to draw conclusions. You are welcome to chime in.
Here’s my first experiment: red and yellow together. Also known as orange: the color of construction, and when put next to navy blue, the colors of the Chicago Bears. GO BEARS! Ahem.
On the left, I mixed oranges with “like” primaries - that is, I mixed warms with warms and cools with cools. On the right, I combined warms and cools.
The orange in the upper left corner is the most vibrant. It’s certainly a warm orange, and has the most life to it. If I wanted to paint a vibrant giant pacific octopus, I’d use that combination.
The orange at the lower left is more muted. It’s definitely more muddy and cool than the warm/warm orange. I think there are two reasons for that: first, orange is generally a warm color, so making a cool orange is a bit difficult. Second, the cool red I used has a lot of blue in it (you know, its being “cadmium red purple” and all) and that means there were really three primaries in the mix, making it more brown and muddy.
The orange on the lower right is an interesting one. It’s fairly vibrant and light; I think it is the most successful cool orange I mixed. Using the warm red instead of the cool one really gets rid of the brown look. It’s sort of pastel orange, almost peachy, and I like it.
The orange in the upper right is the muddiest of all. I think this is because it mixes warm and cool AND it includes all three primaries. But it’s orange mud, for sure. In fact, if it ever rains again in Georgia, this is will be the color of my yard.
In conclusion, the warm/warm mix created the most vibrant orange, and the warm yellow/cool red created the muddiest orange. But the most important conclusion is that you should do your own color tests, because I still have no idea what I’m doing. Check back after a few more posts.
