As children we are taught that the primary colors are yellow, red and blue. That we can get all the other colors by mixing the primary colors. And that it is impossible to obtain yellow, red or blue from the mixture of two colors. We, who work with colors, notice some inconsistencies in what they teach us. If we mix green with violet, the mix gives us blue. We know that the primary colors are yellow, red, and blue. By mixing the primary colors we get the secondary colors. Green, purple and orange. We call complementary colors to those two colors that, when mixed, bring together the three primary colors. For example, yellow and purple are complementary colors. Because violet contains red and blue and the primary color that complements them is yellow. So does green and red. And orange and blue. When we mix the three primary colors we get a gray or black. The same happens when we mix two complementary colors, because we are actually adding the three primary colors. Going back to our first example, what happened there? A simple way to understand it would be to think that green is made with yellow and blue. Violet with blue and red. And when mixed, the green cancels the red from the violet, because they are complementary colors. Violet cancels yellow from green and we are left with blue. It is the same with purple and orange. Violet cancels yellow from orange. Orange cancels blue from violet and gives us red. Green cancels red from orange. Orange cancels blue from green and gives us yellow. It is not entirely correct to say that green is a mixture of yellow and blue. This green is green itself. This paint is not made by mixing yellow and blue. A green pigment is used in its manufacture. Why is it green? We know that white light, or sunlight, is made up of different wavelengths. Objects absorb some wavelengths and reflect others. Green paint absorbs red wavelengths and reflects green and blue wavelengths . Violet paint absorbs green wavelengths and reflects red and blue ones. It is correct to think that there is a cancellation effect when we mix violet with green. Violet absorbs green wavelengths, and green absorbs red wavelengths. Resulting in blue. It is possible to obtain yellow, red or blue by mixing two colors. Of course, the resulting color will not be very intense. Since the waves that are canceled become a gray that dulls the color. But the summed waves reflect enough color to appear blue. Let's stop to explain what a primary color is. A primary color is part of a system we use to represent the colors we see. There are different systems. The one already mentioned: yellow, red and blue. Another would be CMYK which is used in printers. CMYK uses four primary colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. How are these two systems different? In that CMYK covers a wider range of the spectrum. And therefore it can represent some colors with greater intensity, for example pink and purple. In the case of the traditional color wheel, the violets are very muted. Another system, which uses light instead of pigments, is RGB. In this one the primary colors are red, green and blue. This system works by adding lights of different colors. Instead, what paint does is absorb and reflect light. But it does not emit light. What does "primary color" mean in these systems? It means that no mixing of the colors within the system will result in a primary color. For example, in the case of yellow, red and blue. By mixing yellow and blue we will obtain green. But no mixture of these three colors will give us yellow, red or blue. What if our primary colors were green, purple, and orange? In this system, the mixture of green and violet will give us blue. But no mix is going to give us green as a result. The primary colors in a system are the colors that the system cannot obtain as a result of mixing. For example, in the case of yellow, red and blue, yellow ocher can be mixed from the three primary colors without any difficulty. Yellow ocher is not a primary color in that system. As I mentioned before, by combining red with blue we do not get a vibrant purple, but a grayish purple. So if we add a vibrant violet to our system, this violet will be a primary color of that system. Because that vibrant violet cannot be mixed by combining the colors of the system. That is the main difference between paint and three-color systems. An art supply store doesn't just sell yellow, red, and blue paint. There are hundreds of different pigments. Because when mixing one color with another, some intensity will always be lost. It is not the same to mix a green from yellow and blue than to have a pigment that is green itself. The CMYK system used in the printing industry is chosen to reduce costs. Any printing press operator knows that extra inks are required to bring out certain colors. A professional printer does not use four inks, it uses 6, 8 or more inks. Three colors is a minimal system, which will be unable to represent all the colors we see. Since paint works with pigments, Bruce MacEvoy developed this pigment color wheel. He has a website handprint.com from which you can download this material. This color wheel is more useful for mixing colors than the traditional color wheel. Let's see how to use it to facilitate our color mixing. Going back to our first example. The mixture of phthalo green with dioxazine violet does not cross through the gray, which is the center of the circle. Rather, it crosses near the Indigo Blue and Prussian Blue zone. The mixture of these two pigments will give us blue. But when mixing phthalo green with quinacridone magenta we will cross the gray. When mixing dioxazine violet with sap green we observe that they are complementary colors. Like pyrrole red and cobalt turquoise, their mixture crosses the center. If we mix phthalo green with dioxazine violet and add cadmium orange the result will be increasingly gray. And by adding more orange, the mixture turns brown. The pigment color wheel is an indispensable tool in our studio. Here we can observe the range of a palette. For example: lemon yellow, ultramarine blue and cadmium red. The colors that are inside the triangle will be the colors that we can mix with these primaries. The earth colors can be obtained easily. But very intense turquoises and greens are outside this chromatic circle, as well as the more intense violets. The palette that I recommend, of 6 primary colors: cadmium lemon yellow, phthalo green, phthalo blue, dioxazine violet, quinacridone pink and cadmium orange, gives us a much wider range. With very intense colors. Of course, if we add a pigment that is outside the circle, our range will expand. Actually 6 colors are too many. We've already talked about the Zorn palette. Yellow ocher, scarlet red and black. It is a very narrow range. The advantage of this is that our color mixes will always be harmonious, and they will not contrast too much. If we add an ultramarine blue to it, the range expands towards violet tones. And if we add a green, like phthalo green, we can get very intense greens. All this, of course, will depend on what we want to achieve and our way of working. We don't really need that many colors. I am currently working on some portraits made with burnt sienna and pyrrole red only. It is a very small range. But it is enough to paint a portrait. And the advantage is that the colors remain close to each other. And with fewer options, you can better control your mixes. See you in the next one!
