Mixing Colorful GRAYS

Color mixes from my palette

Early in my painting career I used neutral colors to create gray.  I often used Payne's gray to darken or neutralize the bright colors in my paintings.  My paintings were dull and lacked luminosity. After attending several workshops I discovered that I could create my own more colorful grays by mixing all three primary colors in unequal proportions.  For example, mix a primary yellow with a primary red in equal proportions to obtain an orange.  Then add a small amount of primary blue to gray down the orange.  The resulting gray, however, will be a colorful orangish-gray.

Suddenly my paintings took on a new life, and the only thing I had done was eliminate Payne's Gray from my palette. My paintings were more luminous  and pleasing to the eye because I was mixing "primary grays."

To make colorful grays, there are a few other options you can explore.  You can create grays not only from the primaries, but also from complementary colors.  You can lighten grays by diluting the color with water, or make them saturated for darker areas of a painting by using more of the pigment achieving a "darker black."

There are thousands of combination to come up with a colorful gray.  That is what is so fascinating abut mixing color and getting a different result each time. Some of my color mixes for gray are shown in the photo above.

more on Color to continue ...........