In painting with oil, it’s standard to use white to lighten mixtures. White (whether lead white, titanium white, or zinc white) is incredibly useful as there are many colors that can’t be obtained without it. Contrariwise, there are also colors that can’t be mixed if you use white. White lightens, but it also cools (in most circumstances), decreases chroma (except when applied in small amounts with some cool colors), and increases opacity. There are some circumstances in which you want to lighten (increase the color’s value) without the other effects of adding white. For example:

• In traditional oil painting technique, it is often appropriate to keep shadows transparent. That basically means mixing shadow colors without any white.
• Because white usually decreases chroma, mixtures involving white can be lower in chroma than you want. As a result, painters sometimes complain of paint mixtures that are too “chalky.” They get lights that have a pastel look with low chroma. While that is sometimes exactly the right color (in which case no one complains) we sometimes want lights that are as high in chroma as possible.

While oil painters don’t generally depend on white-freen paint mixtures to nearly the degree that watercolor painters do, it’s important to know how to paint without white when you need to. If you just need a dark color, that’s easy. If you need to paint a range of values, then you’ll need to find mixtures that achieve that value range. The ease of doing so depends on what part of the color wheel you’re working with.

There are plenty of high-value yellows, for example. If you need to lighten a yellow or brown mixture, you can usually do so by mixing in a lighter yellow (I like lead-tin yellow for this purpose, or a cadmium yellow if I’m looking for higher chroma). Reds are more difficult—it’s hard to mix a light red without dropping the chroma (i.e., making it pink). Genuine vermillion is sometimes useful because it is somewhat light and doesn’t drop chroma in mixtures the way cadmiums of similar color can do. Oranges can be lightened by adding a lighter yellow and then, if necessary, adjusting back to the right hue with a bit of red. A yellow green can similarly be lightened with yellow.

Cooler colors (blue, green, blue-green, purple) are more difficult to lighten, since the tube colors in this range are often pretty dark. Some cobalt blues can be relatively light and therefore quite valuable (although they are also opaque, so they don’t help as much if you are looking for transparency).

The other solution, of course, is to paint thinly onto a white surface, just as in traditional watercolor. The method used by Ted Seth Jacobs and his students such as Tony Ryder, for example, typically begins with a “color wash.” That means applying the first layer of paint very thinly, mixed with dilutant. While wet, the color can be lightened by wiping away paint with a dry rag or brush; or one dipped in dilutant. In this method, the initial color wash layer is later painted over with opaque paint mixed with white. A similar method can be used with traditional glazing technique or when a certainly watercolor-ish look is desired.

If you’re not used to painting without white, a good exercise is to try to complete a painting while using white only when absolutely necessary. That can generate an overall range of value and chroma that is markedly different than a painting in which white is used liberally. If you struggle with “chalky” mixtures, a minimal white approach can really help.

The portrait from the first week was pretty awful. Last night’s was not exactly good, but not nearly as bad. Maybe I’ll post them when I have something a little better to compare them to.

This is the first work I’ve done with portraits or figures in about three years, so I am not surprised that some of my skills have gotten rusty. One skill that has improved, however, is mixing flesh tones. I remember, when I was taking figure painting classes, having a heck of a time getting flesh tones that looked even approximately convincing, even when I could take my time over a multi-session pose of 9 or 12 hours. The poses I’ve been working from lately are only 2.5 hours, but I now find paint mixing to be relatively straightforward.

Because these are pretty short poses, I have not worried too much about getting exactly the right hue, instead choosing to concentrate of value, chroma, and shape. I’m working with a very limited palette in which flesh tones are mixed from lead white, raw sienna, burnt sienna, and raw umber. (I’ve also used some black and some ultramarine for dark hair and background.) The flesh tones are basically convincing, however: others at the session have remarked on it and my wife, who remembers my previous struggles, has mentioned that these flesh tones seem better. I should note that, thus far, the subjects have been Caucasian, although I don’t think I would have any greater trouble painting folks of less pallor.

I’m not sure why this aspect of painting has become easier, except for all the practice I’ve put in mixing still life colors over the last couple of years. The very simple palette seems to help as well.

Now if I can just get the shape of the head down correctly in paint, I’ll be just fine.

Update

7 May 2009: On further reflection, I think that one of the things I’ve learned over the last couple of years, even with a very limited palette, is much better control over chroma. Many artists mix overly intense skin tones. Most people’s skin is very low in chroma. Even when using relatively dull earth colors, you often need to cut the chroma of your mixes to get accurate color. For these portrait studies, I’ve been using raw umber for that purpose, as it’s chroma is very, very low.

I’ve recently added a light over my easel that provides more illumination than anyone would actually shine on a painting that was being displayed. I tend to keep it off much of the time while painting, but turn it on periodically to check my work. Under a higher level of illumination, I often catch problems, especially in the deeper shadows. Without enough light, it’s easy to miss inaccuracies in value, hue, chroma, or gradation. These problems might not show up too strongly when the painting is displayed, but can be significant enough to cause noticeable errors.

Of course, the color of the light shining on your painting should be neutral enough that it does not itself introduce distortions and thereby lead you misunderstand hue relationships while mixing paint.

The whitest white I’ve been able to find is “radiant white” by Gamblin. It’s titanium white in poppy oil. Most of the time I prefer paints ground in linseed or walnut, but for this purpose it makes sense to use the whitest possible pigment and the most colorless binder available. I’m still painting out test strips on a neutral gray background, but I’d guess it’s a quarter Munsell value step than the next brightest titanium white I’ve played with. I’ll use it only when I need a very light highlight.

The darkest black I have is Williamsburg intense black. The pigment is listed as “carbon from gas flame.” The back label says: “warning: very slow drying.” It is just noticeably darker than bone (“ivory”) black. The slow drying can be compensated for somewhat with a drier such as lead napthenate. I will use it only for dark accents at the very last stage of painting, so drying time for this particular paint is not that important for me.

Update

2 May 2009:_ There’s a small highlight that I had previously painted in Old Holland titanium white. It’s light reflected from the shiny metal part of a clothes hangar. In real life this highlight is very noticeable, but on the painting, surrounded by relatively light tones, it did not stand out at all. I recently painted it in using pure Gamblin radiant white. It is noticeably brighter than before—giving an effect that is much more like what I was trying to depict.

I posted a swatch yesterday with vermilion and lamp black. Although vermilion and cad. red look very similar, they mix quite differently with black. When mixed with black, cad. red makes dull purples rather than dull mauves as vermilion does.

When mixed with black, vermilion tends toward a dull mauve, which can be quite useful.

I mix these two often. They are not exact complements, but they form a useful set of neutrals. It is particularly helpful that you can get a very dark neutral from them, which I often find to be a good substitute for black.

Update

21 June 2008: For lighter neutrals (grays) I tend to use ultramarine and raw sienna, which makes a more pure neutral. But for darks, burnt sienna and ultramarine is the way to go.

To help you find the color harmonies most natural to you, take a rectangular surface, either canvas or paper, and divide it into twenty-four equal parts. Now squeeze out a full range of colors on your palette. (It is easier to do this in oils, but pastels or even poster colors will do.) Fill in each square with a color which seems to harmonize with both your wishes and with the other colors. The colors may be various shades of blue, if you have a very decided preference for blue to the exclusion of other hues. Or they may be fifteen squares of different hues, with nine squares of brown, red, or gray. Or they may all be primary colors.

No one can help or guide you in this exercise; you must reach down into the inner recesses of your mind’s eye, and record the colors you find there. It might be wise to repeat this exercise a number of times over a period of weeks, and average out the results. You will be surprised how constant your choices of colors will be, and how unlike any one else’s they are.

Once having found out which colors come naturally to you, be careful about departing too far from these combinations in your paintings. This constitutes your norm, and if you go outside it you will find that your personal delicate balance of harmonies will be upset, and you will be dissatisfied with the results.

—Hereward Lester Cooke, Painting Techniques of the Masters, New York: Watson Guptill Publications, 1972.

This book is not in print, but worth tracking down.

That’s not too surprising, because color mixing is kind of complex. I have a whole article on the subject, but it’s pretty long and not really something a new painter is going to be able to digest easily. So here I’ll try something a little different. This article is about how to start learning how to mix paint. It’s for people just starting to paint and people who may have learned some other aspects of painting, but find mixing paint to be an exercise in frustration.

• Practice. Lots of artists have learned how to mix paint without any clue about color theory, through simple perseverance. Keep painting and over time you’ll get better at mixing.
• Simplify. Cut down on the number of paints on your palette. Try two or three. That won’t let you mix any color you want, but that’s a good thing. Until you can control three or four colors, it won’t help to squeeze out 20 colors that you don’t know what to do with. (And by the way, many of the greatest old master paintings were done with six or seven pigments. Total.) Only add colors to your palette after you’ve learned to control those that are already there.
• Simplify some more. As a beginner, you will learn more by spending five hours painting five small simple paintings than by spending five hours mucking around with one big complicated painting. Don’t try to make the kinds of paintings you want to be doing a year from now, make small paintings of just one or two things. No portraits.
• Throw away reference photos and work only from life. It’s hard enough learning to mix the right value, chroma, and hue without the distortions introduced by photos. Later on, once you really know what you’re doing, you may be able to paint convincingly from photos. I’m still pretty bad at that, myself.
• Learn to see color. Any color has three properties: value (lightness or darkness), chroma (intensity), and hue (where the color falls on the color wheel). Always think about colors in terms of those three properties. If you don’t know what color something is, you can’t mix a color that matches it. Value is most important, then chroma, then hue (that’s not an aesthetic opinion, it’s how your brain prioritizes color information). If you’re having trouble mixing the right color, stop chasing the hue. Get the value right, then the chroma. It’s OK for now if the hue is only approximately correct.
• Avoid pretty colors. Go for dull earth colors. Pretty, high-chroma colors are harder to control. You want to start with easy colors, then work you way up to the powerful ones. Especially avoid pthalo colors and other modern high-intensity organic pigments.
• Before you start a painting, you should know what the color scheme is going to be. It’s a great idea to do a very small, very loose color sketch beforehand. Only paint the big masses and don’t try to make a pretty color study. Don’t blend—just paint flat areas of color. Ted Seth Jacobs calls these “poster studies.” They make the final painting much easier, because once you’ve done the study, you know how to mix 90% of the colors you are going to use in the final painting.
• Mix slowly and deliberately. Much of the time spent painting is observation, thinking, and mixing. Application is a small portion of the time you spend painting.
• Figure out what color you want and have a plan for how to get it. If you have no idea how to mix a color, then stop working on your painting and figure out how to get an approximation of the desired color. Again, if you can’t get it exactly right, go for the right value.
• As soon as the mix goes wrong (turns to “mud,” becomes something you never expected, etc.) then scrape it off your palette. Think again, then start over. Don’t keep chasing the color.
• Learn what the paints on your palette do. If you don’t have a good idea what color you will get when you mix two of your paints together, you aren’t ready to make a painting. Practice mixtures until you understand your paints.
• Mix with a palette knife, not a brush. Keep your paint piles uncontaminated.
• Add small amounts of paint at a time.
• Most of the world is lower in chroma than the paints that come out of your paint tubes. Get used to adjusting the chroma downward unless you have a specific need for high chroma in a particular passage. Fortunately, when you mix two paints together, the result is usually lower in chroma.
• Don’t be afraid of strong value contrasts. Let your darkest dark be very dark and your lightest light be very light. A strong contrast of values allows strong modeling and convincing depiction of dimensionality.

I could go on and on, but I’m trying to keep this very simple. Perhaps later I’ll post some more suggestions.

Related posts and articles

• So you’ve decided to try oil painting
• The core palette
• Color and color mixing

I agree that indiscriminate reliance on high chroma leads to discordant, brassy, loud paintings. But the alternative of matching the chroma of nature is not, in my opinion, the best solution. Since paints have such a limited range of value and chroma compared to nature, painters who try to match nature’s colors exactly wind up with a dull, dim picture. This is most evident in a clear blue sky. No paints can mix a blue that is as intense and yet as light in value as that sky. Only by selectively and artfully exaggerating the chroma relationships and value differences observed in nature can a painter approach the color relationships we see in nature. I’m not speaking here of the expressive exaggeration of color for emotional effect, but simply of painting a realistic picture of the scene before you.

I don’t think there’s much disagreement between us. My objection is to artists who use high chroma thoughtlessly, because they think that a painting that consists entirely of intense colors is “prettier” or more “exciting” than one that is more modulated, or because all of the paints they own are high in chroma and they never learned how to mix them to get a desired chroma.

If I might be indulged in quoting myself, here’s what I wrote in an article on color mixing:

Let me give you an example. I was browsing through art books in a bookstore the other day and found one about the painting techniques of the impressionists. It’s a very well written book, based on lots of research on the individual methods of many 19th century artists. There are a number of demonstrations in which the author copies a section of an impressionist painting, using the methods of the original artist. In every single case, throughout the entire book, the author gets the chroma badly wrong and pretty much everything else right. In particular, almost every color is one or two chroma steps higher than the corresponding color in the original. Impressionists were not known for making dull pictures, but the author felt the need to “improve” the originals by bumping the chroma, even though she was clearly making a serious attempt to use the same or similar pigments and techniques. What’s more, I don’t think she knew she was doing it. I think she believed she was doing precise copies, but failed to see chroma differences right in front of her face. That’s just a guess on my part; some of the pigments used in the typical impressionist palette were fugitive, so she might have been deliberately compensating for their tendency to fade. But if that’s the case, I couldn’t find where she told us that, and she was certainly increasing the chroma even in areas corresponding to those painted with lightfast pigments. So either the reproductions in the book are badly messed up (and no one caught it) or this artist has a remarkable insensitivity to chroma.

I see similar errors on internet forums in which amateur artists post copies of old master works. The chroma is usually too high—often much, much too high. That might have something to do with how the work has been photographed, digitized, and presented on computer monitors, but in case after case, the posted copy appears consistently more chromatic than the original, even when the artist has shown them side by side. The artists usually seem unaware of this difference, and sometimes have trouble seeing it even when it is pointed out to them.

Decker’s example of pushing the chroma in the sky because you just can’t capture the chroma and value in paint at the same time is an excellent one. It makes me think of Maxfield Parrish, who painted skies with high chroma, but never cluelessly.