Mixing Color Basics
The primary
hues are red, yellow and blue. Mix two
primaries to get the secondary hues – orange, violet and green.
Organize
your palette by the color wheel will help to quickly mix secondaries.
Complementary
hues are hues on opposite sides of the color wheel. Painted side by side, complementary hues make
the strongest color contrast. Mix them
together to make grays.
The three
properties of color are value, hue and intensity. Value is the lightness or darkness. Hue
usually means color. Intensity is the brightness or grayness.
Every brush
stroke contains all of these properties, but they can be adjusted
independently. As you mix, choose the
value first, then chose the hue, and adjust the intensity last.
Temperature
changes are used to show the effect of light.
The warm colors are red, orange and yellow. The cool colors are green, violet and
blue. Yellow is the warmest and blue is
the coolest.
When
comparing two hues, the color closet to yellow on the color wheel is
warmer. The one closest to blue is
cooler.
Everett’s
Watercolors
www.everettswatercolors.com