You want to unleash your inner Monet, but you don’t know the differences between shades, tints and colors? Here is a quick guide that will help you understand and get started with your 和諧粉彩 painting.
Shades and tints
Tinting (leads to white)
Shade leads to black
Toning (desaturating). – Leads to gray.
Toning is the process of converting an image from colour to grayscale. It is not that the original colors are darker or lighter. They have simply been replaced by tones ranging from light to dark gray.
Colours and Colour Work
We read shapes, tones and lines in a painting – but not the color.
e.g. A purple tree can be read as easily as a sage tree.
To tone down a color you can-
Add black. Sometimes you are left with no choice.
Darken the color with something closer to purple or blue. You are changing the original color by adding another. Dark green will result if I mix dark blue with yellow. Black can also change yellow to green.
Buy a tube with a darker mix (e.g. Cadmium Yellow + Raw Sienna/Yellow Ochre/Sepia, Umber etc.)
You can only add black to blues or purples if you add dark earth colours (ie Vandyke Brown or Sepia), or if you buy them with the black already in it (ie Prussian Blue or Indigo).
Add white/water or yellow to ENLIVEN (to make it appear like sunlight striking it), or move up on the color wheel toward yellow.
eg:
To Ultramarine Blue add Alizarin Crimson
Add Sap Green to Phthalo Blue
You can add white, water or lighter yellows to yellows.
Red + Yellow = Grey
The mixture will be muddier and darker/lighter if the color that you add crosses one of your lines.
Use your favorite colors.
All paints are subject to the rules listed above. This means that the results should be similar whether you use acrylics, oils or watercolors. (Adding water to oil colors will not work.)