Today I thought I would go over my thoughts on how I go about mixing colors in my framed oil paintings. These decisions are made mostly from my pigment knowledge that I shared with you 2 weeks ago. For those of you that missed it, please see my blogs "THE PAINT ITSELF" 1,2,3, and 4.

  I started out like most artists learning the "basic palette" of anywhere from 7 to 12 colors depending on the teacher you had. I still feel that artists need to start out this way or color mixing knowledge will suffer. You need to have a basic color mixing structure so you start learning the tendencies of each color. Some teachers start their students with the "raw" basics, a warm blue, red and yellow along with a cool blue, red  and yellow plus white. This approach shows students that you can get close to any color you want, just from 6 colors and is a great way to start. Most art teachers to this will add Burnt Sienna and Umber along with Viridian Green and most likely Yellow Ochre. These are colors most artists use so the idea is to start out with them from day one. Regardless the student soon learns what each tube color is all about.

  I painted for about 13 years with about 12 or 13 colors and was able to satisfy all my color demands in my framed oil paintings. The thing that always bothered me was that some colors took me longer to figure out then I wanted. I would want to mix a certain color and stare down at my pallette for several minutes and I would get it but I always wanted to spend more time putting paint on the canvas then mixing the colors on the palette. I wondered is there a way around this for me?
 
  I was reading one day the latest art magazines at that time as well as a coulpe of art supply catalogs and it came to me. I was reading about a pastel artist that caught my eye and they showed him in his studio with those big open cases of pastels. I felt something inside me as I continued reading and by the time I got to the supply catalog I got it! I decided to go about color mixing the way a pastel artist would. They grab a "stick" that is close to what they need and modify it with a "bit" of another color. I started buying all kinds of colors again making sure that the pigment is lightfast and I haven't looked back since. I have my tubes lined up with all my yellows, reds, blues and so forth like a pastel artist would and color mixing is now a breeze.

  What approach do you use? Please as always feel free to leave me a post and tell me your thoughts on color and mixing along with color mixing questiona as well. Thats all for today, take care and I'll see you on Friday!