One of the reasons I wanted to create the painting I have in progress at the moment (scroll down) was the challenge to paint many variations of the colour gray. A trivia email going around states that the human eye sees 500 shades of gray. In trying to confirm this online, I have found the human eye sees 500, 700, 256, a dozen and less than 16 shades of gray. Whatever the true answer is, it is a lot more than I normally mix in my standard palette, and in the creation of this painting I hope to illustrate as many variations as I can. Normally, I use the following standard palette -
- cadmium yellow pale
- yellow ochre
- cadmium red
- alizarin crimson
- viridian
- olive green
- chrome green
- cerleum blue
- cobalt blue
- ultramarine
- burnt umber
- titanium white
I create black from mixing equal parts burnt umber and ultramarine and my grays from adding white to that mixture. (see lower right of palette above)
So how to expand on my knowledge of creating grays?
I turned to the terrific book I bought recently Color Mixing For Artists Minimum colors for maximum effect using watercolors, acrylics, and oils by John Lidzey, Jill Mirza, Nick Harris, and Jeremy Galton. Barrons Educational Series Inc. This is one of the most readable, portable, helpful and affordable color books found in our local stores.
This is the starter palette from Color Mixing For Artists
- titanium white
- lemon yellow
- cadmium yellow
- yellow ochre
- cadmium red
- alizarin crimson
- Winsor violet
- French Ultramarine
- raw umber
- Payne's gray
The book has a whole section on mixing gray as well as sections on mixing most other colors
Palette 1. Using Alizarin crimson, viridian, ultramarine, lemon yellow
Left: 7 parts viridian, 1 part alizarin, 2 white
Centre: 3 part viridian, 1 alizarin crimson, 6 white
Right: added some more viridian and white to left mixture
Ignore blue blob
Palette 2
Left: 2 parts French Ultramarine, 1 alizarin crimson, 2 lemon yellow, trace white
Centre: 4 parts French ultramarine, 1 cadmium red . White.
Right: 20 parts viridian, 1 part crimson, white, and more white
Palette 3
Top left: 4 parts cerelean blue, 2 camium red, 1 lemon yellow, 2 white. And more white.
Bottom left: Mixtures of ultramarine and alizarin and white.
Bottom right: cerelean blue, burnt umber , white
Top right: 3 french ultramrine, 1 alizarin crimson, trace lemon yellow, white
Of course what I am really doing for much of this painting is creating the illusion of white painted surfaces- the railing, painted walls, white flowers on the t-shirt- in shadow and reflection. One of the great joys of painting is learning to intrept just what it exactly what we are seeing. When asked what colour are the walls, we would answer white, but what we paint is another story.
An additional note. A couple of years ago I enjoyed a show entitled "White" at the the Abbozzo gallery in Oakville. Examples of the interpretation of white from all the gallery's stable of artists wwere on display. This show was a great example to all painters and students on the myriad of ways to paint white (and its grays) - whether in abstract. realistic or illustrative painting. To see a few examples from this show click here.