The basics
Will Kemp is an award-winning professional artist
and teacher. He studied in Italy, ran his own art
gallery, taught in museums and schools, and now
runs his own online art school, where he shares his
professional secrets with aspiring artists.
Learn more at http://www.willkempartschool.com.T
he colour wheel
may remind you of
school and seem
too academic or
complicated. In practice nothing
beats actually mixing colours.
However, if you have a basic
knowledge of the colour wheel
you can always find your way out
of a colour mixing corner!
The three primary colours
Blue, red and yellow. These are
the colours that are impossible
to mix from a combination of
other colours.
The three secondary colours
Orange, violet and green. These
are a mix of two primary colours.
For example, mix primary
yellow and primary red to make
secondary colour orange.
These three primary and three
secondary colours make up the
basics of the colour wheel.
The six tertiary colours
These are the mixtures between
the six colours (primary and
secondary). To start with, don’t
worry about them!
Learning how to mix
colour can be daunting, but
understanding the basics is key
when starting to paint.
Have you ever seen someone
try to cover their blond hair with
brown home dye and end up
with khaki green undertones?
The hair colourist will put on
a red-based rich colour to
counteract the green.
So if your trees in your
painting are unnaturally bright
green, add a little red to the mix
to make a more subtle shade.
Complementary colours help
tone each other down and are
the simplest colours to start to
understand colour theory.
This is where theory hits
reality and the colour wheel
should be used only as a tool to
learn about colour, rather than
a guide for choosing paint as all
paint colours have a colour bias.
For example: Cadmium Red
is an orange-red and will have
a bias towards yellow. Alizarin
Crimson is a blue-red and will
have a bias towards purple.
So it is not just as easy as
buying a ‘pure red’ and a ‘pure
yellow’ they don’t exist.
As a beginner, learn the theory
and start simply.Three properties of colour
To accurately mix or match
a colour you need to analyse
its properties. This takes
years to master so don’t feel
overwhelmed if you don’t get it
straight away.
The three things to remember
are hue, value and saturation:
OHue – simply translates as the
colour e.g: ‘that vase has a red
hue‘ literally means if you had
to mix that colour in paint what
is the closest pure colour you
can think of, as in red, orange,
yellow, etc... but not necessarily
bright red.
OValue – how dark or light the
colour is if you took a black and
white photo of it. This is one of
the most important factors in
mixing accurate colours, but
one of the hardest to master.
(Try squinting while looking at
colours to determine their value.)
O Saturation – how bright, or
intense the colour is, sometimes
called chroma or intensity.
Once you understand the
basic principles of colour theory
you’ll grow in confidence and be
able to mix the right colours!How to mix colours
Be patient while you develop your artist‘s eye, says Will Kemp.
Often a colour looks
wrong on canvas. It‘s
only when surrounded
by other colours, that
it balances.complementary
complementary
complementary
primary
primary
primary
greenbluepurplered