- There are so many videos on color mixing,
I honestly don't know if I can give you more
than what's already out there.
And yet, I got questions about color constantly.
What colors do you use?
Which color go well together?
Why is my color dirty?
So, let me see if I can help you with that today.
Hi, this is Eric from Cafe Watercolor.
Watercolor without color is just water.
So, unless you are doing a value study,
which is still important, check out my last video,
you will want to know how to mix good colors.
That being said, I never want to go too technical on things,
I want to provide you something practical
that you can apply almost immediately.
So, let's talk about some practical ways
for you to mix some nice colors for your paintings.
Number one, consistent wash and mixture.
Dirty colors, muddy colors don't come from the color itself,
most of the time.
It might be because of your wash lack consistency,
when you paint on wall was a consistent layer of white,
it is a white wall,
but you don't have consistent paint, it looks like a stain.
And there's nothing wrong with the paint itself,
but the way you apply the paint on the wall,
and it doesn't matter what color, even brown or gray,
it can still look good if you apply them right.
The same thing goes for water color,
a consistent clean wash is the key
to a nice, vibrant, painting.
If your washes not clean and your mixture is too watery
without enough paint, your painting is going to look dirty,
doesn't matter what color you use.
Number two, color is light,
take a white paper out on a sunny day or a cloudy day
under indoor light, or just different lighting scenario,
that white is going to look different.
The lighting plays a huge role in color.
You need to train your eyes to see
and train your mind to analyze.
If you compare the same white building
in the broad daylight, and in the sunset,
the color look vastly different.
But the color of the building never changed,
the light changes the color we see.
So, study and think about the lighting your subject is in,
what color is the directional light,
and what color is the ambient light?
This is the type of study Monet has done,
and what you and I should aspire to.
Numbers three, think of warm and cool,
rather than specific color.
Color is a spectrum, we paint watercolor, not a wall.
So, don't think about swatches in specific color
when you mix your colors.
What I like to do is to start my color with a neutral gray,
and I start to shift the balance between warm and cool
from there.
This is probably the easiest way to have a harmonious color
in your painting.
Because they are from the same base color,
you are not mixing separate colors for different swatches,
you are mixing warm and cool variations of the colors,
and because they're all from the same starting point,
the color will work well together.
Okay, as always, we will apply
what we learned in a painting.
It is important for me to put things in context for you
to see, talk the talk, paint the paint.
Before we start, give this video like
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So, I'm going to paint this scenery from Greece.
But here's the kicker.
I'm going to paint the same scenery twice,
one in an afternoon lighting
and one in post sunset sort of an evening lighting.
I believe this is a great way to compare lighting and color
because it's essentially the same subject.
Okay, let's get started.
Okay, so I skipped the drawing in this video
because it's not the point of the video,
and I want to move into painting rather quickly.
So, here's a value study I did for this image,
I found a value study quite helpful
because this is somewhat of a complicated scenery.
Even though the colors are pretty simple,
the structure the buildings are all over the place,
so doing a value study helped me to group the value
and simplify the subject a little bit.
So, I will be starting by pre-wetting the paper
with a sponge, I will start with the afternoon one.
So, I wet it pretty much all over the place,
except certain areas where I want the highlight to be,
like the light side of the buildings.
Now, I'm going to pre-mix some colors
to paint some warm light.
Even though the building is white under the sunlight,
the sunlight is warm.
So, give it a little bit of the warms in some of the area.
And I also the pre-mixed a color for the sky.
And as you do the wash down,
overlap your brush stroke a little bit
to get some smooth transition.
You want a nice, clean wash.
Remember what we said, clean color come from clean washes.
So, make sure you use a nice big brush,
have plenty of mixtures,
and really do a nice gradation down.
And now I mix a deeper, slightly greener blue,
a warmer blue for the ocean,
a little bit thicker,
you don't want to be as watery,
because I want a little bit of definition
for the ocean line.
I paint that while it is still wet,
so it will fuzz a little bit.
So, it's going to have a slightly soft edge,
just like the one in our photo.
So, the wash for the sky is done.
I'm going to let it dry,
and start to work on the sunset one.
So same thing, I wet the painting.
And for this one I'm going to start my first wash
with the building because the building
is actually the lightest thing in this scenery.
And even though it is the lightest thing,
it is not pure white because the sun is set.
So, our main light source is the sky, which is really warm,
nice warm pink sky, and the ambience is quite cool
as well inside the shadow area.
So, we got this warm color on top and cool on the bottom.
So, I did an overwash for the building itself.
And I let it dry,
and I come back to the afternoon scenery.
Now, we're going to paint the shadow side of the buildings,
and I'm going to mix a variety
of warm and cool darker tones for the building.
So, let's start with the windmill.
Because it is a cylindrical shape,
we want a little bit of transition from dark to light,
so I'm using a damp clean brush to soften the edge,
and we'll continue to wash down,
and try to connect all of the shadow shape on the building.
We'll skip around some of the highlight, like the umbrella,
and some light side of the building.
But a key is to connect as much as possible.
And while we're connecting a shape,
we'll paint with a variety of different grays that we have.
So, some may be a little bit more purple,
some may be a little bit warmer, but it's mostly cool color,
and a variety of bluish gray, because the sky is blue.
So, even though there are parts of the building
in the shadow,
they still receive the skylight, which is blue.
So, during a sunny day,
this shadow area is usually cooler color.
Keep it loose and simple, don't worry about a detail,
that's why I did value study.
And this painting is mostly for exercise anyways,
it's not really for big, refined finished painting.
So, just kinda have fun with it, play with the color.
Now the second wash is done, we'll wait for it to dry,
and move back to the sunset one.
And I will start to mix the gradation on my palate.
And notice with each new color,
I use a little bit of color that I already have
to mix my next color,
so that every single color is related to the color
that I already have,
that will make a nice, natural transition.
So, after I put the wash down,
and I notice my sky isn't dark enough, isn't intense enough.
But I already started the wash,
so I decided to just finished the wash,
and I can come back and glaze it later.
I don't want to disturb the wash.
Keep the wash clean, that is still very, very important.
And the oceans, the same thing, I want a nice, soft edge.
So, I mix a drier, more intense color.
This is more of a cool blue, more towards the violet,
rather than green, so different from the daytime one.
While I'm on my second wash,
I mix a darker warm gray color,
use the existing color that have on my palette.
Just adding a little bit warmer colors,
and I just starting to paint some dark shadows
in the building.
So, places like the balconies,
things under the roof, the door, the windows,
places like that.
This evening lighting is actually quite flat,
because there's no directional light source,
which the sun,
and the sun is actually under the horizon already.
So, our only light sources the sky light.
So, the lighting is almost 100% ambient light,
so the value changes in the buildings are very subtle.
So, now we're back to the afternoon lighting.
And now, we're starting to make some nice,
warm dark gray.
The third wash is mostly just to give us some dark punches.
So, we start with the roof.
Get a nice clean wash in.
Do a little bit of wet on wet,
just to give it a little bit of volume,
and a roof is casting a little bit of shadow here.
And then, we start to go really dark and painted the window.
Inside a window is almost completely dark.
So, the doorway,
and some of the recess details on the building.
So, we start to paint windmill,
it's kind of like a rusty red color,
so we just add the red and colors like Burnt Sienna
into our existing gray color.
So, like what I mentioned,
we are mixing a different variety of grays.
Just because we're introducing a new color
doesn't mean we start from scratch,
use what you already have on your palate.
Adding some dark in the windmill.
There a little bit of a shadow side there.
And I decided to add a little bit of the warms
next to the windmill
because the windmill should bounce off some nice red colors.
So, even though it's pretty faint,
we just have a little bit more suggestion of the lighting.
And now, we're painting some dark areas
in the balcony, under the roof.
These are pretty dark compared to the dark side
of the building,
because they're pretty much inside
so they don't get any sunlight,
and they get even less ambient light.
So, adding these little dark details
just going to make the painting look
a little bit more complete.
Finishing up the roof on the right here,
and painting around the umbrella,
we want to keep that highlight.
And I noticed the sky is, again, kind of weak,
but also the camera is washing out the colors.
So, once we finished the painting,
I actually come back and glaze over the sky again
to make it a little bit more intense,
that actually helped quite a bit.
So, I'm adding a little bit more detail here and there.
In this stage, it's very easy to just suck in
and start to do a lot of details
because there's actually so much detail in the picture.
Again, even though the color is really simple,
there's an enormous amount of details,
architectural details, in this photo.
So, I try to keep it loose.
Now, time to come back to the evening light again.
So, again, the third wash is the dark.
So, here we're painting a roof again,
but notice how much warmer it is
because the local color is sort of this gray,
warm color already.
But on top of that, we are adding more colors from the sky.
So, it is actually quite a bit darker,
and also redder than the daytime one.
So, again, thicker.
Make sure when you are painting dark,
especially when you're painting dark,
you don't want a very watery mixture,
you don't want to paint with dirty water.
So, this is the stage you really want to watch your mixture.
Quite a few student have this problem,
they don't have the confidence to paint
with thicker mixture.
So, they paint was a lot of watery mixture.
And the result is too many layers,
and then actually stuff showing underneath.
So, the wash started become very, very dirty,
because it's not covering enough underneath painting,
and you are showing a lot of different values
all over the place, and the whole thing become very dirty.
So, avoid doing that, make sure you mix enough mixtures.
The sky is really bugging me
as I'm looking at the replay right now,
the sky is really just too weak.
But I'm trying to finish up the dark details
on the building first,
and then I'll come back and glaze over again.
And I'm trying to learn to do things right in the first time
but sometimes I still don't mix enough paint,
and result in a very weak wash.
So, I still make that mistake myself.
Fortunately, I am able to mix a darker mixture
after it's completely dry,
and to glaze to intensify the sky.
You do want to make sure it's completely dry too,
otherwise if you melt other paint,
is going to become very dirty.
So, I'm pretty much mixing the same color,
just a little bit less watery
by the same time
because we already have a water underneath,
so doing a glazing is going
to intensify those color a little bit.
I also carry over the glaze on to the building,
just a little bit.
So, I can start to darken some of the buildings.
They are a little bit too bright.
It is in evening lighting,
so the building shouldn't be that bright.
So, I'll edit, I'm mixing some really dark gray,
really dark warm gray
to give it just a little bit more value here and there,
but I'm use mostly left over colors,
maybe I'll add a little bit of neutral tint
or ultra marine blue, cobalt blue, something like that.
But I'm use mostly left over colors to do the job.
But again, they are from the same base color that I have,
so no matter what color I use,
it's not going to look too off and too awkward.
It's still gonna feel like it's belong to the same painting.
So, I'm try to add some darker values here and there,
very subtly because all I'm trying to hint
are some ambient shadows
when there's less ambient light going into some corners,
some places behind other buildings,
some places under the roof, and things like that.
So, it's very subtle stuff.
I'm adding those just so that this evening scenery
can look a little bit more complete.
Personally, I really choose this type of lighting
because there's very little contrast,
and the lighting is actually not really helping
to describe the structure and the form,
but it is a fun painting,
just trying to mix different variety of colors,
which is the point of this video.
It's all about the color and their relationship
with the lighting.
So, even though it's just white building,
under different lighting they have very different color.
And here is the finished painting.
The final photo shows the color a little bit better.
And I also went back and glazed over to blue sky
to make it a little bit more intense.
That makes the painting look a little bit better.
(placid music)
So, that was interesting, for sure.
And again, the focus of this exercise
is the color and lighting.
So, both painting are very loose,
but I certainly hope it is helpful for you.
My watercolor essential course goes into depth
about color mixing, check it out if you are interested,
I put the link down below.
That being said, the core concept is always the same,
train your eyes and your mind.
If you liked this video,
please like and consider subscribe to my channel.
If you haven't, do so,
sign up to get my fast track watercolor PDF guide.
I'm Eric from Cafe Watercolor.
See you next time.