How I mix colours for a painting

Sometimes I see comments about people not understanding how to start mixing colours for a painting. So I figured I would show my process in a video to help some folks get an idea of how I do it, and it may help them move forward in some of their paintings.

This is by no means THE way to mix colour, but A way.

When I was first starting to learn watercolour, I bought a big palette of colours. They are a Schmincke student grade, but they are excellent quality and light fast. They do tend to be more on the opaque side of things, but sometimes you do want some opaqueness in your colours, so I actually use these paints quite a bit.

I've since expanded my paints to include many in tubes as well. I now pick paints based on their transparency and granulation and how best it suits the painting I'm working on.

When I'm starting to pick colours for a painting, the first thing that I do is that I go to my swatch charts.

It's actually quite important to create a swatch chart when you're working in watercolours. Of course there's a million ways to do them. This is my chart. It gives you an idea of what the saturated colour looks like and how it looks as it thins out. Some colours (especially granulating paints) will split out into several colours, so this is most useful to see what you're working with.

When it comes to my tube paints, I also put abbreviated initials to indicate which brand of paint it is and the boxes represent the transparency.

I created a quick demo today. I just used some cheap and cheerful paper for this - fully 100% cotton paper takes the paints differently, but I didn't have any scraps to use today. The mixing and application process would be the same regardless.

Sometimes I work in layers using paints straight from the pan/tube and sometimes I mix, depending on what my subject matter is that I'm painting. Here's an example of an artist creating a beautiful autumn scene using just 3 colours.

I hope you've found this to be helpful. If you have any questions - please email me or contact me through my instagram.

Thanks for reading.

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