I get many questions about the colors that I use,
and it is in my "Fast Track Watercolor" PDF guide,
but then some people also ask me
exactly what color that I use to mix a specific color.
And that's not something I can easily answer
because I mix the color with my eyes, not formulas.
Hi, this is Eric from Cafe Watercolor.
Let me make this clear.
Colors are important.
If your a painting has harmonious colors,
it can look very pleasant and natural.
So the key here is harmonious colors, not pretty colors.
Any color can be beautiful in the right context.
That's why I don't really have a favorite color.
But even if you do have a favorite color,
I'm sure you have seen that color in the wrong context
and it doesn't look that appealing.
There is a very simple approach to mix harmonious colors,
and that is to start with a neutral gray.
And here is why.
Number one, neutral gray is a great starting point.
From neutral gray, you can create warm and cool grays.
And from there, you can expand the colors of your painting.
This will make it much easier to create harmonious colors
because they all have the same starting point.
It'll be more about shifting the balance of warm and cool
rather than thinking about a specific formula.
Number two, your color will be more stable.
With grays, you won't have oversaturated colors
that become a distraction.
It will be more stable at first.
You can then add more saturation to your painting as needed
rather than try to dull things down later.
Because saturated color paintings are very strong
in the palette,
it can knock your color off balance very fast
if you don't start with neutral.
And number three, it's easy to mix a neutral gray.
Neutral gray is easy to mix, I only use two colors,
which I'm going to show you very soon.
It's much easier than start with 12 or more colors.
Even if you paint a whole painting with just two colors,
it can still look very good.
Remember a good painting is all about good shapes
and values.
Good colors can certainly assimilate a painting,
but that's not the first thing you want to worry about
in a believable painting.
So make this part as easy as you can.
So all that being said, let me show, is a quick demo
on how I mix my neutral gray.
After that, I will show you the process of this painting,
painted with mostly different shades of grays.
Okay, so let's talk about neutral gray,
so for my usual mixture for the neutral gray,
I use cobalt blue and burnt umber.
Burnt umber over here, okay.
So let's just start with the color by itself.
So we'll have cobalt blue here.
And that will be our cool color
and burnt umbers is like a dark brown color,
and that will be our warm color.
So if we mix these two together,
we get somewhat of a neutral gray over here.
Now,
maybe a little bit warmer, just a little bit, okay?
I think that's neutral enough.
Now, from here, we'll shift to either cool or warm.
So if we just add more burnt umber into the mixture here,
we get warmer
and warmer.
Eventually to very warm as far as gray goes.
And if we add more cobalt blue,
a little bit more blue here,
we get cooler and cooler and eventually to our blue color.
So cool to warm, and everything in between will be cool gray
to warm gray, and here's a neutral color,
it's as simple as that.
So instead of thinking about what color do I use,
this is my default go-to color,
so every time I mix a gray color,
I start with these two colors.
From there, I look at the palette
and I look at my picture,
does it need a little bit warmer?
If that's the case, I will add more burnt umber,
and that give me more of a warmer gray.
If I see I need a cooler gray,
then I'm just gonna start adding cobalt blue,
I haven't even washed my brush yet, okay?
Now I get a cooler gray.
Now, of course, the thickness,
the consistency you have to make sure
also come into play when it comes to the value.
So if I don't add a lot of water,
now I'm just gonna keep adding these two colors together
and we gonna have a neutral gray, maybe a little bit warmer.
We're gonna have a neutral gray, but it is a lot darker.
And add some more blue.
You get a darker, cooler gray.
And add more burnt umber, we got a darker, warmer gray.
Okay?
It's not that difficult, okay,
the only thing you need to know is the ratio
between cool and warm color, and you judge that
by looking at your palette,
and looking at your palette, look at the color
that's coming out from your mixture,
and looking at your painting,
decided what type of gray you want,
and that's just two colors.
And with that two color, you can mix a variety
of warm and cool gray, and also the value of it,
here's a very light, transparent, cool gray,
and if I just add more water, add some more burnt umber,
warmer and lighter gray here.
So we got two factor,
which is warm and cool and light and dark,
so play around with it, just have fun with this two paint,
and that's not really complicated, but with that two paint,
you start from a neutral gray
and you expand your warm and cool and value from there.
And the thing about this is that it always originated
from, like, a neutral gray,
so even if you add some more color,
if you want to make this gray a lot warmer a lot faster,
then you can start to add some more saturated color
and that give you a warmer gray a lot faster.
But it's also going to speed up the mixing process,
so with just cobalt blue and burnt umber,
the color is a lot more stable that way
and it'll be easier for you to handle in the beginning.
Okay, so I hope that is helpful for you.
With two colors,
you can create a variety of warm and cool grays.
And now, I'm going to share with you the process
of this painting using just cobalt blue and burnt umber.
Before we start, if you like my video,
please consider, give it a like and subscribe.
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Okay, let's get started.
Okay, so let's take a look at this painting.
This is a very small painting on a relatively cheap paper.
Since this is more like an exercise than a proper painting,
I didn't really care that much.
That being said, I still want to start
with a proper drawing.
This photo was taken in Victoria, BC.
I really miss the city, I miss Canada a lot.
I haven't been able to visit the place
because of the pandemic, they closed the border.
Hopefully I can visit the place soon
if they open the border up again.
So for this specific drawing,
I eyeball most of the perspective,
I didn't pay that much attention to it
because it's all about a big shape,
so as long as the shape, the silhouette,
and the scale looks somewhat okay,
I think this will be fine.
The road is also curved,
that makes the perspective a little bit more tricky,
so I just focusing on the big shape,
not worry too much about a perspective
and the other technical things.
I picked this specific scene
because this is actually the good one
for these kind of exercise,
which is just focusing on the big shape,
and paint the whole painting using different varieties
of gray.
And also, this scene is back lit.
So the buildings on the right,
or even the buildings on the left
and the little bit of distant,
they are mostly just a big shape, just a silhouette
because you don't really see
a direct light hitting the building,
it's all in the back.
So you just focusing on the big shape.
So now that I'm finished doing the drawing,
time to start doing the painting.
So just pick out the cobalt blue and burnt umber,
work some of the color out, and I start to pre-wet the sky
'cause I do want a little bit of blue sky
and some soft clouds.
So here, I just paint in the cobalt blue.
I don't have other blues to work with,
so cobalt blue is the only blue that I'm going to use here,
which works pretty well for a sky like this.
And as it comes down,
I start to grab a little bit of burnt umber,
neutralize that blue a little bit
as it goes down to the horizon.
The atmosphere got a little bit warmer,
so as I come down, I start to warm things up a little bit.
And I also give the building their first wash as well.
The buildings on the right is closer to us,
it's bigger and it's a little bit warmer,
and the buildings on the left,
they are more into the distance,
so they are a little bit cooler.
So I give them their basic color temperature,
and as I come down, I skip around,
save some of the highlight,
but the road itself is mostly warm.
It's actually pretty warm because of the sunlight.
So I use a lot more burnt umber
to make that really warm gray.
So the first wash,
we established the basic warm and cool relationship.
The sky is definitely very, very cool.
Then the distant buildings, it's a little bit more gray,
not as blue, but it's a little bit cool gray,
so it has a little bit more blue in it.
And the buildings on the right and the road,
they are a lot warmer, so more burnt umber.
And now we are painting the second wash.
The building, once again, is a lot warmer
and a lot darker as well, so less water, more burnt umber,
and a little bit of cobalt blue
just to neutralize that a little bit.
Again, it's all about balancing the warm and the cool,
and if you want warmer gray,
you add a little bit more burnt umber,
if want cooler gray, you add a little bit more cobalt blue.
So the concept is very, very simple, it's just two colors.
You're just shifting the balance between warm and cool,
and the other thing you need to pay attention to
is the value.
So by looking at it this way,
we notice that there is a lot go into a single painting.
We got our basic perspective, drawings,
and things like that, and then we have value.
And on top of the value,
we're also worried about warm and cool, and then colors.
So a complete painting is definitely made
with multiple skill building on top of each other.
So while I'm trying to break it down to you,
sometimes I share with you the values that is,
sometimes share with you just a drawing.
At the end of the day, we need to understand
that they all work together.
So I finished the building on the right
and we're painting the building on the left.
And they are a little bit more cooler,
so we have more cooler grays,
especially the buildings in the distance.
That being said, note as I still use some cool colors
on the buildings on the right
just to balance it out a little bit,
even though majority of the grays are warm
in the right building since they're closer to us,
I still use a little bit of the cool colors
just to balance it out.
And while the wash is still a little bit moist,
I started going with thicker mixture,
paint some details, wet onto wet.
We got a little bit of window openings,
we got some dark details and things like that.
Those are perfect when you paint them wet onto wet
because they are within the same value range.
So when you do wet onto wet detail like that,
those detail will be softer
and they will be, kind of have this lost
and found quality to it.
And I connect the shape of the buildings on the right
to the cast shadow and also to the car in the front.
So everything is connected together,
we don't really need a separate them just yet,
we can do that when we are painting a dark value.
So we connect that to the car in the front on the left.
That car is a blue car so it's actually good
because I can use more cobalt blue
to establish that sense of color.
So now when you look at the painting, just by looking at it,
you might not able to tell I only painted with two colors
because the variety of warm and cool and the value,
it gives the people the illusion that there are more colors
when really I am just painting with two colors.
So you don't need a lot of color
to make a painting look rich,
to make a painting look believable.
Now I'm starting to paint my third wash,
which is the dark value.
And I start while the second wash
is still a little bit moist here and there
so I can have some wet onto wet soft shapes.
So as simple as the color in this one,
there's still lot of variety in terms of the shape
and the value and also the edges.
So color is not the only thing you can play around with
when it comes to the painting.
Very simple, almost monochromatic painting like these
can still feel very complex and rich.
Painting some trees in the foreground
just to give it a little bit more sense of depth.
And lastly, the road feels a little bit too bright,
so I just glaze it over with burnt umber
just to keep that warmth.
And we are finished.
A quick, small painting with only two colors.
I do hope you give it a try as well,
this is a great exercise.
I really like to make things as simple as possible
because I believe it's easier to enjoy painting
when the process is simpler.
Now, if you think painting
with just two color is too easy for you,
check out my video right here
to learn about how to paint with a limited palette.
You can also click here
to sign up for my "Fast Track Watercolor" PDF guide,
where I share all of the colors that I use
if you still really want to know.
I'm Eric from Cafe Watercolor.
See you next time.