A new painting experiment.

[vcina]

So in trying to help myself around my color blindness and painting figures I came across the book and my experiment in the blog post.

https://operationwargaming.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-new-painting-strategy.html

[Ray Rivers]

Hope this works out for you!

Photos... or it didn't happen! 

[vcina]

I'll post photos, don't worry!

[Momotaro]

Thanks for that - an interesting experiment.

Here's a fantastic Youtube channel on the subject of colour theory:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKT4wTDASG8SGqK1Ww_rYxP3qqLP0lSxP

[vcina]

thanks for the link.

[Major_Gilbear]

Did you try mixing the "wrong" colours together to see if you could tell the difference from those colours mixed from the "right" ones?

For example, the four oranges made from equal mixes of:

1) Warm red + warm yellow
2) Warm red + cool yellow
3) Cool red + cool yellow
4) Cool red + warm yellow

I would be interested if there is an appreciable difference, between the various oranges (or at least, if they look any different to you), or if there is any difference between (2) and (3) as these are both a cool colour paired with a warm colour.

With respect to mixing colours in general, I saw a very interesting piece of advice from an extremely talented painter a few years back: avoid mixing more than three colours together if you ever can, and the fewer colour mixed together the better.

He explained that even muted or military colours were more eye-catching if they were made fewer rather than more colours, because the more colours you mixed together, the closer you got to a muddy dull brown-ish colour.

This is because despite the ideals of colour theory, the realities of paint pigments and such makes it hard for the colour to remain "bright" once you mix too many different colours together.

I have noticed myself over the years that his advice has proven to be surprisingly sound, and that as soon as I veer into 4+ colour mixes, the results always seem to lack the impact that similar colours made from fewer constituents did.

So whilst I do still err sometimes and make a mess of a colour, I am quite a bit more aware than I used to be, and actively try quite hard to test a variety of different mixes out before starting a news project/scheme. In doing so, I have often been pleasantly surprised at the amount of work saved and consistency gained.

[vcina]

I am going to do what you suggested, mixing the different hues and see if I can see a difference. I just haven't had a free moment.

The one thing that has eluded me so far is being able to mix like a Khaki or Olive Drab.  Not sure what to mix using this system to achieve those results.