today we're going to talk about color
theory
a topic that can be very confusing for
beginner painters
including myself when i first started
learning to paint so let's first take a
look at the color palette that i use
i started with the winsor newton
introductory
set of 10 colours the only colour i
would add
is burnt umber now technically i don't
need the
yellow ochre the permanent middle green
or the burnt umber
because i can mix them from the
primaries but for convenience purposes
i like to have burnt umber because i
often reach for it
so it's just much easier and faster if i
have it as a pre-mixed tube
and same with the yellow ochre and the
permanent middle green
i can mix them from the primaries as
i'll show you here
these ones i don't reach for as often so
i don't need them
as part of my starting palette so
i would start off with a cool and warm
of each of the primaries
black white and burnt umber just for
convenience
so what does cool and warm actually mean
we'll take a look at that now
this has to do with human psychology so
i have here a color wheel that i've
split in half
into cool and warm now generally we view
the colors yellow orange red as
warm colors because we associate them
with things like the sun
and fire and we view the yellow greens
blues and violets
as cool colors because we associate them
with cool things like
winter snow and ice now the confusing
part is
that each of these colors can have a
cool and warm so you could have a cool
blue
a warm blue a cool yellow a warm yellow
and so on so if i gave you the
ultramarine blue here
and asked you whether this is a cool or
warm color
you might look at it and think well it
looks like the blue on this color wheel
which is on the cool side so
it must be a cool blue or you might have
no idea
well the best thing to do is actually to
compare it to
another blue because color temperature
is also relative
when we look at two blues and we compare
them side by side
then we can say which one looks cooler
and which one looks
warmer compared to the other color for
me i view the primary blue as the cool
blue because it leans more towards a
blue green
and i view the ultramarine blue as a
warm blue because it leans more towards
purple
so this means that the primary blue has
a yellow bias in it because it leans
more towards that side and the
ultramarine blue
has a red bias towards it because it
leans towards
the other side now i'm going to write
this down on the color swatches because
we'll need this piece of information for
later so we've got a warm blue with the
red bias and a cool blue with a yellow
bias
now we can repeat this exercise with our
two yellows so which one looks cooler
and warmer
to you the permanent yellow deep looks
warmer to me because it leans more
towards orange and red
and the yellow leans more towards green
so i view it as the cooler yellow
so our cool yellow has a blue bias and
our warm yellow
has a red bias and let's repeat this
again with our two reds which one looks
cooler and warmer
the spectrum red looks warmer to me it's
leaning more towards
orange and the primary red is leaning
more towards
violet so i view it as the cooler red so
again
our primary red which is our cool red
has a blue bias
and our spectrum red which is our warm
red has a yellow bias
so why does all of this matter well i'll
show you with an example
let's say you want to mix a purple so
we'll use blue and red
and there are four possible combinations
you can mix a cool blue with a cool red
a cool blue with a warm red and so on
and i've also written down the biases
now you can see
in the first combination that cool blue
has a yellow bias
now if you want to mix the most vibrant
purple the aim is to
avoid having that third bias color in
there
because if you mix blue red and yellow
together
you'll get brown which is what's going
to muddy the color
so by avoiding the yellow bias you only
have blue and red in the mixture which
will give you the richest and most
vibrant purple
we can see that combination is in the
warm blue
with the cool red which doesn't have a
yellow bias
so i'm mixing each of these up and you
can see for yourself
which purple is the most vibrant and
which is the most dull
i've also added a little white to each
of them just so
you can see what it looks like when it's
a little bit lighter
so far the cool blue and the cool red
mix
a somewhat vibrant purple the cool blue
and the warm red on the other hand mixes
a very
dull purple it almost looks like a very
gray
purple and you can also see that both of
them
carry the yellow bias so it makes sense
that they're more muddy
and i think that the warm blue and the
cool red by far
mixes the most vibrant purple now let's
repeat this
with green so we'll mix our yellow and
blues and again we've got
four possible combinations and to mix
the most
vibrant green i want to choose the
yellow and the blue that don't have the
red bias in them in this instance it's
the cool blue and the cool yellow
i also forgot to mention that when
you're mixing blue and red for purple
it also makes sense that yellow muddies
the purple because
yellow is the complementary color to
purple it's on the opposite side of the
color wheel
so adding yellow to purple will
desaturate
or mute the color and same with the
greens when you're mixing
blue and yellow for a green the opposite
of green is red
so if you have more red bias in your
blue or your yellow
that red is going to mute the green and
make it
less vibrant and less saturated and we
can very clearly see it here
the warm blue and the warm yellow which
both carry the red bias
mixes the most dull green out of the
four possible combinations
lastly we have orange which we use
yellow and red to mix
now i find that with orange it's not so
much about
a vibrant or a dull orange i feel like
the yellows and the reds
all mix quite a vibrant orange it's more
whether i want
a warmer orange or a cooler orange if i
want a warmer orange then i'll use my
warm yellow and if i want a cooler
orange then i use my cool yellow
other than using the primaries to mix i
also like to use black
and my favorite way of using black is to
mix it with yellow
you can take a quick guess as to what
happens when you mix
yellow and black a clue is that most
black paints come with a blue undertone
so black and yellow actually mixes green
and it gives quite a
natural olive green i often use this
when i'm painting
grass or just anything else that's a
very natural shade of green
you can also mix black and red and the
blue undertone in the black will push
the red towards purple
next let's talk about muting colors
which we briefly touched on before
so complementary colors which are colors
on opposite ends of the color wheel
will mute each other and this is a very
important piece of knowledge to have
because
it is a very common mistake among
beginner artists
to use colors that are too saturated
take the color green for example out of
the four greens that we mixed i would
say that the first one which is the most
vibrant one
is the one i use the least and the other
three and the olive green
the black i use most often because in a
natural world when i'm painting grass
and trees and foliage the green is a lot
more muted
now let's quickly look at how we can
mute the colors so if you're trying to
mute your red
then you want to go for green which is
on the opposite side of the color wheel
so i'm mixing blue and yellow for a
green and i can mute the red and it's
the same with the opposite so if i'm
mixing up a green with the yellow and
blue i can mute my green
with red and with yellow i can mute my
yellows with
purple i just need to mix red and blue
together and i can mute my purples by
adding yellow to it
for blues i prefer to mute my blues with
black
or burnt umber for ultramarine blue i
prefer to mute it with burnt
umber because i feel like i have more
control over it i can also mix up
a cool gray or a warm gray depending on
how much burnt umber i add
if i'm using black i have to be more
careful with my control of black because
a little bit of black will just kill the
color and you can see over here i've got
ultramarine blue with black and
ultramarine blue with burnt umber and
below each of them
i've just added white so you can more
clearly see what is happening to the
blue
when i'm adding black or burnt umber for
primary blue i prefer to use
black to mute the blue or to mix a blue
gray
because i find with the burnt umber it
pushes the blue
more towards green and i believe that's
because primary blue
is more of a blue green so it has a
yellow bias in it and burnt umber
is like a very dark yellow so the more
burnt umber you add
the more you're pushing the primary blue
towards green
so unless i want a greenish blue gray
i will go for burnt umber if not then i
will go for black
because that will give me less of a
green blue
so i hope that all made sense and i hope
it gives you more confidence
when it comes to color mixing if you're
feeling overwhelmed because you have so
many colors
then just bring it back to the basics
and pick out your cool
and warm in each of the primaries and
your black white and burnt umber and
just practice mixing with those
and practice understanding your cool and
warm colors
lastly i just want to let you guys know
that if you're looking for
more real-time gouache tutorials i have
them over on my patreon
and i take you through the entire
painting from the initial sketch to
blocking in to painting the final piece
and i share lots of techniques and tips
over there
so if you enjoy my real-time tutorials
and you're looking for more to
practice with then you can head over to
my patreon i'll have the links down
below
and i'll also have the link where you
can browse the available tutorials on
there
here's a sneak peek of some of the
february tutorials that i filmed and
have already uploaded on my patreon
your support there will mean that i can
continue to make these videos so i'm
really grateful
if you even consider joining and i
really hope to see you over on there
but otherwise i will see you in my next
video bye bye