UGH POOPY GREEN (haha)
I finally solved a mystery that's been plaguing me for years! Red, Blue, Yellow, is not a good "primary" color set to have. I disagree whole heartedly with it and I'll explain what colors I think should be used/sold instead (at least with paint). Orange usually turns out fine in mixes but Green and Purple always look muddy - grey, poopy and not as bright as I want so I wanted to figure out the issue.
Background and Material Specific Deets:
I've been on the digital art train for a while now (for reasons enough to be another post of it's own). It's been wonderful to be able to pick juicy bright colors to use in my works. Recently I decided to get back into painting - Gouache to be specific. It was a medium I've always wanted to try but avoided mostly due to cost but $ drains fast no matter what so I figured why not right? I was so excited to receive my "basic gouache set" and splurged on Black Friday to get a deal on a professional artist level gouache after researching on youtube. Specifically found @sarahburnsstudio on youtube with her video https://bitly.ws/34e2m (Comparing 8 Professional Gouache Brands - Which Will Surprise You?) - thanks Sarah! Super helpful!! Check her video out if you're interested in hearing more on pro gouache brands.
I ended up choosing M. Graham Gouache because I was excited to see how smooth and spreadable the gouache was. I admit I was more disappointed to find it wasn't as - flat? I think that's the right word because I think I like the "chalky" non transparent look since I previously had the Holbein Acrylic Gouache (behaves more like acrylic paint btw). Regardless, M. Graham is still a wonderful paint but more of an opaque watercolor and I'm excited to continue exploring and working with it. It's also made in the PNW and I moved up here recently so it's neat to support my (now) local to me businesses!
The Problem
Most artists of varying levels are familiar with the "primary colors" you use to mix the secondary and tertiary colors. Embarrassingly, I could never get juicy greens and purples to mix correctly. I thought for years I've been mixing paint wrong. Yes - I know it sounds silly but when I come against problems I don't know how to solve - I blame myself. Trust me, I've been working on that one in therapy haha. THIS TIME, I saw what happened - the poopy green and grey purple and decided to investigate further. I mean how do you mix paint wrong for so many years anyway?
Here's that mixed spectrum from the basic set again, you'll notice how quickly the red takes over the blue on the left and is grey towards the center. On the right, the green is poopy green. This means that the blue that was given to me actually has a warm tinge. To make brown you mix all the primaries, so this means either our yellow or our blue has red in it. My bet was on the blue since yellow gets overtaken by blue so easy.
I thinned out the blue for a closer look - looks blue. Oooo Suprise (not really haha). Sometimes you can't believe your eyes because of color relativity though. I mixed up a very light yellow-orange and thinly painted it near it. Now I could believe it, these could be opposite on the color wheel. It could still be a trick but I think my "blue" is more of a blue-violet.
This means my color spectrum would be shifted and naturally not mix secondary and tertiary colors like I wanted. Over the years I've worked with several paints - sometimes I had okay luck with mixes and other times it would be the same or even worse just with primaries. Orange works, purple always seemed to have a red shift, and the green - sad story. So what's the deal? A permanent special interest I've always had is color (I love rainbows) and part of the reason I abandoned paint so many times is this problem and I was determined to solve it. I could always buy secondary and tertiary colors pre-mixed but it really felt like a personal failing whenever I couldn't do it myself.
The Solution
During the time I have been hyperfixated on digital art I've also gotten into printing. Again with my permanent special interest, I have a 10 color printer to get the colors most like the colors on my screen. Even with this printer, it has Cyan and Magenta, NOT red and blue. As artists, we're taught to use the RBY color mixing - which is true to a point. Printers use CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black). Screens use RGB (Red Green Blue).
During my time working with my professional printer and other printers in the last two years - I've noticed they seem to have a broader color range compared to paint. So why do artists use the "primary colors." Well it matches the color theory so that's why. At heart I'm a bit of scientist.
"A theory is a well-supported explanation of observations. A scientific law is a statement that summarizes the relationship between variables." So color theory means it can be broken.
So let's pretend I'm a printer. I wouldn't use RBY - I would use CMY. This paint company boasts strong pigment mixes - my printer I currently have is also pigment. If my printer can mix colors like a champ so can I. It's time for an experiment. I'm going to stick with the Azo Yellow that came in the basic set so I'm not changing too many variables and if you reference our different types of color wheels - yellow is pretty standard in them all so I don't think it's usually the problem.
I went into the store and found that there was no colors in M. Graham Gouache named "Magenta" and "Cyan." However, there was "Phthalocyanine Blue" - you'll notice it says "(primary)" isn't that interesting? I also picked up "Quinacridone Rose" which seemed pretty close to a Magenta from their swatches. Now for the spectrum!
WHOA
Check out that green! Huge difference! The purple is also different too - but not as much and that I did expect since the last blue (Cobalt Blue) had a red tinge so naturally mixing red with red won't show as much. The spectrum itself also seems brighter and I think that's because our blue showed here is a true cool color - no trace of red so it would make our warm colors pop more naturally.
Doh - sorry I didn't put the blues closer together on the swatch test. Anyway - the lower blue is my "Cyan", upper blue is the "Cobalt Blue" included in the primary set. Now I can absolutely tell the upper color is more of a blue-violet for sure.
On the left is the "basic/primary" color mix and on the right is my Cyan x Magenta test. I admit - I mixed all these on the paper since I'm using Gouache and should have added some more cyan to my right mix. BUT you can still tell that the one on the left is more grey in comparison and the right mix is more juicy. Right on!
Now the greens. Ah! I'm in love!
The left is the Cyan x Yellow mix and the right is the "basics x primary" mix. I'm so relieved I looked into this further. I'd of settled for poopy green and been unhappy with my paintings otherwise. I'll still use the cobalt x yellow colors but for my BROWN mixes like where it belongs.
One other slight thing about this spectrum that I noticed - the Quinacridone Rose doesn't appear to have a "Deep Red" and I ended up realizing I want to put Red in-between the Quinacridone Rose mix. Unfortunately the camera couldn't pick it up as easy but I'm so picky with colors. I'm not sure if that's just the paint I'm using (especially since the color I chose is just the closest magenta I could get) or if it's across the board. I also really dislike that Cobalt blue - so I'll just stick with my Phthalocyanine Blue as my "Blue".
So RBY color theory is now a MYTH in my mind. Or maybe just needs slightly modified. RCMY is what I'm going to be using when I'm using my Gouache paint moving forward. I'll likely never buy a basic set again and will chose my own colors to mix here forward with everything. Cyan and Magenta for the win, boo blue and red. So now I'm THAT artist. Haha.
Hope you learned as much as I did or if I completely missed the memo all these years - had a laugh lol? Better late than never! Thanks for sticking with me this long, I'm a rambler and terrible about prioritizing speech thanks to ADHD. I will be in speech therapy soon though and I'm excited to improve!
TL:DR
Blue and Red sucks for mixing with paint.
Use Cyan and Magenta instead (like a printer).
Recommend red in-between magenta for deeper red hue
Creative Day #3
