Matching a previously mixed color is one thing, but what about matching the color of a subject a sky, a face, a piece of fruit? The disadvantage in this case, is that the artist cannot always touch their color mixtures to their target colors.īut I have good news – it is the twenty-first century. Subtle differences are revealed as soon as two colors come together. *PRO TIP – To better judge whether two colors match, those colors need to “touch” one another, whether on the palette or the canvas. Complementary pairs are red/green, blue/orange, yellow/purple. The ability to use complementary relationships to control color intensity is the single most important skill to learn as a colorist. Once the base hue is identified and mixed, use the complement of that hue to manage/reduce the brightness of the mixture until reaching the desired color.As required, use white in your mixture to reach the approximate value of the color target.That is, don’t use both Cadmium Red and Alizarin Crimson in the same mixture. Don’t use both the cool and warm options of a single hue in your mixture. Mix the hue that you see from the primaries, if it is not a primary.So if a brown leans toward orange, it is an orange in my mind. Forcing myself to name the hue that I see gives me a starting point. Grays sometimes lean toward blue, green or purple. Often browns lean more toward orange or red. Even brown and grey colors lean toward a hue. Each color is more or less like the 12 colors on the wheel. Identify the hue of a color from the color wheel.It is better to waste a little than a lot. Attempting to “bring a color back” often results in even greater waste. If, while attempting to match a color, the mixture becomes markedly duller than the target color, then the mixture is likely a failure and the artist should start over. *PRO TIP – each color added to a mixture results in a duller mixture. Cool Primaries: Alizarin Crimson, Chrome Yellow and either Cerulean Blue (for landscapes) OR Phthalo Blueīesides these primary colors, I keep Titanium white (the whitest white) on my palette.Warm Primaries: Cadmium red medium, Cadmium Yellow Medium and Ultramarine blue.Using primaries simplifies the process and is a key to becoming a master of color control. A combination of warm and cool primaries offers enough options to match nearly any color. What works for me is using both warm and cool primary colors.

This improves my chances of matching a color. Less colors means that I am more likely to remember or even guess what I mixed together in the past to arrive at a certain color. I like to have as few colors on my palette as possible. Starting with the right pigments is essential to matching colors through mixing. (I use oil paint in the video below.) Choosing Pigments Wait for test swatches to dry before making adjustments to the mixture.ĭry acrylic and oil paint colors more closely correlate with their wet counterparts so they are less frustrating to match. If that’s not possible (in the case of retouching), then expect more trial and error with theses paints. When using these paints, I prefer to repaint passages with a fresh mixture over trying to match wet color with dry color. This characteristic complicates color matching. For example, tempera and gouache paints dry lighter in value than they appear when wet. The first variable to consider when matching a color is the paint itself.

The subject of a painting has a distinct and familiar color.

To match colors from an observed subject.

To complete an unfinished area from a previous painting session.

There are several reasons a painter might need or want to mix an exact match. My hope is to share both what I learned then and what I’ve learned since about matching colors below. It was like an oil painting assembly line but the experience I gained was invaluable. The colors had to match perfectly from week to week.

I would then paint all week, remixing those same colors the next week, until the order had been filled. Using the original painting as a guide, I premixed 15-25 colors in large quantities and saved those colors in metal tins. My work week would start with about three hours of color mixing and matching. These “enhanced” prints were sold around the country in art galleries and boutiques. We would create 200 copies, hand-painted on top of Giclée prints. With connections in the art-print-industry, he had received a contract to paint copies of a popular artist’s work. I was a college student at the time – a studio art major. In the late 90s, I got a job matching color.

Photo edit color match app