Color mixing of pigments, order makes a difference??
rwe...@gmail.com
My instructor said last night that the *order* in which paints are
mixed can give very
different results.
I asked her to confirm: you mean the same exact amounts (ratios) of
colors, but mixed in a different order, can give different results?
And she says yes.
Is that right?
It rocks my foundations to the core, since color mixing will be very
complex
if I have to remember the order as well as the ratio of colors...
Thanks
Russ
Terry
I've never noticed a difference. Perhaps your instructor was referring
to the way that one responds to the colours as they are mixed: adding a
little of this and that to try and make minor adjustments / corrections
in hue and value. In that case, the order might make a difference, but
only in regard to the amount of control one has over the outcome of said
mixing.
Cheers,
Terry
http://www.treynoldson.com/
lolasc...@yahoo.com
Lauri Levanto
rwe...@gmail.com wrote:
I can see a difference *while mixing* but not in the end result.
Say you make a green from blue and yellow. Then you want to turn it down
with a bit of red. Starting with the blue and red makes it more
difficult to guess the proportions.
A different question is overpainting. If you start with umbra shadows
and paint a glaze skin color over that, the result is different from
starting with skin color and adding shadows on the top.
-lauri
Al B. Traus
rwe...@gmail.com says...
>
>Total painting newbie here...
>
>My instructor said last night that the *order* in which paints are
>mixed can give very
>different results.
It depends on how many colors you're mixing together.
For two colors, it makes no sense of course.
For three or more colors, it does. Here is a very
simplistic example. Suppose you have pigments that
react perfectly to the color theory that primaries
mix to form perfect secondaries.
Let's create an example: Mix a red
with a yellow to get orange - and mix in just a touch
of blue to create a dulled orange (shade) following the rule
of "complementary colors."
Now let's start with a "touch of blue" and add
it to the same quantity of yellow we used in
the first example, above. You will have a weak
green color. And if you add to that the amount
of red from the example above, you will NOT
end up with a dulled orange shade. Try it yourself.
Mani Deli
wrote:
>It depends on how many colors you're mixing together.
>For two colors, it makes no sense of course.
>For three or more colors, it does. Here is a very
>simplistic example. Suppose you have pigments that
>react perfectly to the color theory that primaries
>mix to form perfect secondaries.
Baloney!
Take any number of colors in set amounts. Mix them in different
orders. You will get the same result in any case.
Paul Mesken
>Total painting newbie here...
>
>My instructor said last night that the *order* in which paints are
>mixed can give very
>different results.
>
> I asked her to confirm: you mean the same exact amounts (ratios) of
>colors, but mixed in a different order, can give different results?
>And she says yes.
>
>Is that right?
No. As a matter of fact : I've never heard such drivel.
I've never encountered a difference due to the order of mixing nor
have I ever read about such a thing.
rwe...@gmail.com
The "no difference" folks are confident in that answer,
but I don't see why some other people do have the impression
that order makes a difference, if it is "baloney" and "drivel" .
What makes some people think order matters?
Maybe what the instructor means to say is that color mixing
in one order is much EASIER and likely to come out RIGHT,
as in the example one person gave below.
I'm hesitant to ask the instructor to elaborate cuz I don't want to
appear to be challenging her.
Anyhow thanks! And if anyone else cares to comment I'm still
reading...
Russ
Electric Nachos
rwe...@gmail.com says...
Wonder if the method of mixing is a factor. I use colored pencils and
have noticed that if I don't lay down colors in the same exact order as I
started off with, bizzare things happen. Eg: coloring an area w/ sienna
brown, peach, ochre yellow, and then white looks noticeably different
than if I started that combination w/ peach or yellow.
Maybe the composition of the pencil lead... maybe the way a color reacts
with the paper... or maybe the way the light penetrates each layer
affects the final color.
I don't know - but I do know that I have to keep them in order.
NightMist
At first I thought, "What rubbish!", then I thought some more.
More likely, your teacher is referring to a condition that is limited
strictly to oil painting. That being how absorbant various pigments
are. There are extremes, for example flake white needs notably less
oil than average to turn it into a satisfactory paint, while cobalt
blue needs notably more. Some people take this to mean that colors
such as cobalt blue should not be used in the initial layers of an oil
painting, and flake white should only be used with the addition of
medium in succeeding layers, or that colors that require much oil
should always be mixed with colors that require little and such
combinations should be made prior to the addition of any other colors.
I consider that such notions are foolishness. Though when working in
any medium one should generally be aware of how the pigments interact
with each other and with the medium. Noodleing about with colors is
generally a fun pastime and you can see how each reacts with the
other. I play around with various mixing experiments whenever I
aquire a new color, which generally happens only with acrylics
anymore. That is really one of the funnest things about that
particular medium, new stuff is almost constantly being added.
Barbara
--
"To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge
it, requires brains." -Mary Pettibone Poole
Erik A. Mattila
grenade. But if you mix magnesium with talc first, to get Milk of
Magnesia, and then add aluminum, you get light weight plaster patch.
Seriously, I think there might be two things going on. I might be cheap
paint w/ fugitive pigments, and the other might be that you can "SEE"
better if you're mixing three colors by going in a specific order (when
mixing by eye.)
Paul Mesken
<e...@nospamimpix.com> wrote:
>Oh, you know...if you mix aluminum w/ magnesium you get an incendiary
>grenade. But if you mix magnesium with talc first, to get Milk of
>Magnesia, and then add aluminum, you get light weight plaster patch.
Yeah, it's amazing but one can buy all the ingredients for several
explosives at Kremer (which is the single best painting stuff
supplier). For example : Toluene is a brush cleaner but also one of
the ingredients of TNT :-)
They also sell quite pure nitric acid (for cleaning, apparently) and
glycerol (which keeps jars with water colors wet for longer). The two
of them together (with some sulphuric acid for the reaction, which is
also sold) produces (tri)nitroglycerine, the explosive in dynamite.
A bit hazardous to make though. I've read somewhere that when red
fumes start to appear, one has about 3 seconds to maximize the
distance between the mixture and oneself :-)
>Seriously, I think there might be two things going on. I might be cheap
>paint w/ fugitive pigments, and the other might be that you can "SEE"
>better if you're mixing three colors by going in a specific order (when
>mixing by eye.)
Yeah, I guess it must be the last one. I can't imagine any art
instructor believing that the order of mixing (given the proper
ratios) can have any effect on the resulting color.
Erik A. Mattila
> On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 14:33:46 -0700, "Erik A. Mattila"
> <e...@nospamimpix.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Oh, you know...if you mix aluminum w/ magnesium you get an incendiary
>>grenade. But if you mix magnesium with talc first, to get Milk of
>>Magnesia, and then add aluminum, you get light weight plaster patch.
>
>
> Yeah, it's amazing but one can buy all the ingredients for several
> explosives at Kremer (which is the single best painting stuff
> supplier). For example : Toluene is a brush cleaner but also one of
> the ingredients of TNT :-)
>
> They also sell quite pure nitric acid (for cleaning, apparently) and
> glycerol (which keeps jars with water colors wet for longer). The two
> of them together (with some sulphuric acid for the reaction, which is
> also sold) produces (tri)nitroglycerine, the explosive in dynamite.
>
> A bit hazardous to make though. I've read somewhere that when red
> fumes start to appear, one has about 3 seconds to maximize the
> distance between the mixture and oneself :-)
There's some sort of iodine compound (search the
ganglia...searching...searching...searching...nope, can't remember) that
is inert when wet, but when it dries it's as unstable as hell, and quite
powerful. So a friend knew a chem student who used to come over to play
guitar to another friends, but if he parked in front of the neighbor's
house the guy would turn his yard sprinklers and flood out the car's
interior. Perfect revenge situation. The sneak over at night and pack
his pop-up sprinklers with this iodide stuff, and next morning they
parked the car in front, windows down and all that. Legend has it that
it was quite a show. No more pop-up sprinklers.
Oh, now I remember: potassium iodide. Here's how to mix it up:
http://www.totse.com/en/bad_ideas/ka_fucking_boom/contact.html
But toulene - that's nasty stuff. I got poisoned once...doing screen
printing. I took precautions, washed the screen outdoors in a breeze,
but after a couple days of printing I started experiencing strange
symption that lasted for about three weeks. I felt fine in the morning,
but around early afternoon I felt wiped out. Zero energy, but next
morining I would feel fine. I didn't make the connection for a long
time, until I was talking to a friend who was an industrial painter and
he described the symptons.
david
something new every day. LOL.
Andrew D
rwe...@gmail.com wrote:
> Total painting newbie here...
>
> My instructor said last night that the *order* in which paints are
> mixed can give very
> different results.
>
> I asked her to confirm: you mean the same exact amounts (ratios) of
> colors, but mixed in a different order, can give different results?
> And she says yes.
>
> Is that right?
Perhaps if mixing watercolours on the paper rather than on the palette.
Otherwise, 50% Ultramarine plus 50% Cadmium Yellow is going to give the
same colour no matter whether you start with blue then yellow or yellow
then blue of blue then yellow then more blue then more yellow.
Of course if you want a light pinkish tint, it would be wise to start with
a good dollop of white (I'm talking oils/acrylics here) then slowly add
touches of crimson to it - but the result would still be the same as
starting with a small amount of crimson then adding dollops of white to it
- but the latter is less predictable in terms of the final amount of paint
you'll end up with.
Ask her to explain and demonstrate it and let us know the outcome.
--
Andy D.
Al B. Traus
>Maybe what the instructor means to say is that color mixing
>in one order is much EASIER and likely to come out RIGHT,
>as in the example one person gave below.
I don't know if I was the "one person" who you refer
to, but that is exactly what I was driving at in my reply.
In a truly literal sense, if you think about how
paint is mixed by a paint store nowadays, they have
a way of precisely measuring the amount of each
colorant that is added to an entire gallon of
the base white. Artists don't usually mix by the
gallon, nor do they have a "precise" means of
measuring each colorant in a tri-color mix. So
it's much easier to arrive at the desired color if
you mix three or more colors in conformance with
the rules for creating secondary, tertiary and
complementary colors.
the_...@yahoo.com
rwe...@gmail.com wrote:
> Total painting newbie here...
>
> My instructor said last night that the *order* in which paints are
> mixed can give very
> different results.
>
> I asked her to confirm: you mean the same exact amounts (ratios) of
> colors, but mixed in a different order, can give different results?
> And she says yes.
>
> Is that right?
The only interpretation I can give to her statement is that it causes a
lot of trouble when you mix a strong color with a weaker one so the
color you use as the base can save you time in mixing.
For example--if you want to darken a yellow with black, you can see
gradations easily and adjust how much black you add. But if you want to
add black to blue, you will find that blue can turn into black very
easily. In either case, I would add the black to the luminous colors in
very small amounts.
On the other hand, if you add white to yellow, it may take you a
longter time to achieve a noticeable tint because yellow naturally has
a lighter value than other colors. But if you add white to blue, which
has a lower natural value, i.e., it is naturally darker, then you must
add much more white to achieve a noticeable tint.
This may be what your teacher meant.
But in any case, you will never learn if you refuse to ask your
teacher to clarify her statement for fear of challenging her?
the sarp
Mani Deli
>
>rwe...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Total painting newbie here...
>>
>> My instructor said last night that the *order* in which paints are
>> mixed can give very
>> different results.
>>
>> I asked her to confirm: you mean the same exact amounts (ratios) of
>> colors, but mixed in a different order, can give different results?
>> And she says yes.
>>
>> Is that right?
>
>
>The only interpretation I can give to her statement is that it causes a
>lot of trouble when you mix a strong color with a weaker one so the
>color you use as the base can save you time in mixing.
The only interpretation I can give to her statement is that she is
full of crap. Nothing special about this, most art teachers are.