WELCOME TO MIX GREENS WITH EASE A 5-STEP APPROACH Excerpt from my forthcoming book: I Just Want to Paint! Easily Mix the Colors You Want © Carol A. McIntyre. All Rights Reserved 1 “Greens are so hard to mix!” It’s a lament I hear often from painters. You don’t like the greens that come out of tubes and you don’t like the mixtures that result from sincere attempts of mixing blue and yellow. This e-book Mix Greens with Ease: A 5-Step Approach, will release you from this color mixing frustration. Soon you will love to mix green no matter what your medium is. Sentinels on the Pond, 36x 24 oil, ©Carol A. McIntyre Notice the variety of greens in this painting. © Carol A. McIntyre. All Rights Reserved 2 Why are greens difficult to mix? Here are some possible reasons: • Like candy, tubes of paint are irresistible. There are many tubes of green available. The overwhelming choices available in the art material candy store makes it diicult to buy paint with color conidence. I remember being frustrated after buying several greens and none of them worked for me because they look so un-natural. • Green appears nearly everywhere in our environments. Hence, we expect it to be easy to mix. • Seeing the subtle diferences in a landscape of multiple greens is not easy. • There is little instruction available on mixing green that can be applied immediately. • There is an on-going debate: I hale from the latter school of thought. You are not alone, even Kermit bemoans the challenges of being green, yet ultimately surmises that green is beautiful! Can you mix Kermit’s green? You will be able to if you follow the steps I outline. “Bein’ Green” (also known as “It’s Not Easy Being Green”) Having to spend each day the color of the leaves When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold Or something much more colorful like that It’s not easy being green It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things And people tend to pass you over ‘cause you’re Not standing out like lashy sparkles in the water © Jim Henson 1955 Or stars in the sky But green’s the color of Spring And green can be cool and friendly-like And green can be big like an ocean, or important Like a mountain, or tall like a tree When green is all there is to be It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why Wonder, I am green and it’ll do ine, it’s beautiful And I think it’s what I want to be Joe Raposo, Songwriter, ©1970 © Carol A. McIntyre. All Rights Reserved 3 A 5-Step Approach to mixing greens: 1. Identify the color bias of your yellows and blues 2. Mix bright greens 3. Mix dull greens 4. Mix a variety of natural-looking greens 5. Choose and simplify your tubes of paint Step 1: Identify the color bias of your yellows & blues What do I mean by ‘color bias?’ Color bias refers to the color encroachment into a primary color from a neighboring hue on the color wheel. It refers to the additional color the primary color (in this case your yellows and blues), carries or leans toward. Most primary colors from out of a tube include another color. In other words, they carry a color bias. For example: yellow tubes of paint are either an orange-yellow or a green-yellow and blue tubes of paint are either a green-blue or a violet-blue. There are very few pure colors on the market. Vocabulary note: the adjectives used to describe color bias are the secondary colors of orange, green and violet. Hence, I use violet-blue instead of a red-blue, and orange-yellow instead of red-yellow throughout this e-book. Using the secondary colors as adjectives is easier to understand when looking at the color wheel. As you can see in this color wheel, the primary of yellow can be encroached or inluenced by either orange or green. Blue can be encroached by either green or violet. • How well do you know your tubes of blue and yellow paint? • Do you know the color bias of each? Now is the time to become intimate and fall in love with your blues and yellows to learn their color biases! They come in all shapes, sizes, and brands. I encourage you to treat every tube of paint as if it is a tool, much like you treat your brushes and palette knives. © Carol A. McIntyre. All Rights Reserved 4 To learn how to mix green, start by asking these two questions. • Which ones are encroached by or carry an orange bias? • Which ones are encroached by or carry a green bias? By identifying the color bias of each tube of yellow, you can start grouping them accordingly. The best way to evaluate the color bias of your tubes of paint is by comparing color swatches that are side- by-side. Creating a color chart of your yellows similar to the chart below makes it possible to see the color bias of each yellow. After studying this chart of yellows, can you see their diferences and similarities? Do you see their color biases—they will lean either toward green or orange? It is much easier to see these subtle hue diferences on a chart versus trying to see them on your palette or just looking at the paint tube labels. Regarding your blues, ask these two questions: • Which tubes of blue are encroached by or carry a green bias? • Which tubes of blue are encroached by or carry a violet bias? Here is a sample color chart of blue swatches. As with the yellows, you can see slight diferences as well as similarities between the blues. Color swatch charts are a great way to become intimate with your paints. Surprises and discoveries often appear because you have all of your colors in one place on a white surface. After you create your chart of yellows and blues, let me know what you discovered. For example, you may notice if you have duplicate hues. Color Tip: Unlike the yellow and blue charts I have displayed here, I recommend that you label each color swatch with its tube color name and manufacturer when you create your own color chart. © Carol A. McIntyre. All Rights Reserved 5 When mixing green, seeing the subtle color bias diferences in the yellows and blues is important in order to determine which ones to use. To the untrained eye, this can be a challenge. With practice and study it becomes easier. Seeing is a skill which does not take long to acquire. Soon you will be in a grocery store noticing the variety of greens in the produce section or looking up into an open blue sky and seeing the gradation of green-blue to violet-blue. The more you paint and mix colors, your skills in seeing will increase. Stopping to consciously observe the world around you will also build your skills. When mixing, pay more attention to color bias of each primary tube of paint and less to its name. For example, say to yourself, “I need a green-yellow for this mixture.” Don’t say, “I need my cadmium yellow light.” When you start consciously stating the color bias of primary you need, your color mixing will become more proicient. Disclaimer: Because you are reading this document on the computer, you may not be seeing the colors as I describe them. This is usually caused by an inaccurate calibration of your color monitor. Color bias is the key concept to mixing color because it directly impacts the results of your color mixing. It will make the diference between mixing clean colors versus muddy colors. Once you experience mixing clean colors your levels of frustration will decrease signiicantly. Let me explain why. This understanding begins with remembering the pairs of color opposites: The opposite of Yellow is Purple The opposite of Blue is Orange The opposite of Red is Green What happens when you mix the color opposites of green and red? They start to dull each other, right? The parent colors of red and green decrease in intensity as soon as a bit of its opposite is mixed with it as seen here. Ultimately, they mix into a brown or a black as evident in the middle swatch. © Carol A. McIntyre. All Rights Reserved 6 Next re-visit the adjectives used in describing the color bias of yellows and blues. They are: green-yellow, orange-yellow, green-blue, violet-blue. Herein lies the secret! It isn’t a secret per se, but it is crucial to successfully mixing greens. Color Tip: When the yellow and blue used to mix green carry some red in them, the resulting green will not be bright and clean because you are mixing color opposites. When I learned this secret, I experienced a wonderful sense of relief, release and elation! I never dreaded mixing greens again. As mentioned, comparing swatches of color within the same hue family will further develop your ability to see color. To expand upon this, consider creating a color bias color chart like the one at right. I have grouped my yellows and blues according to their color bias. From this chart, choose two yellows and two blues—each carrying a diferent color bias. Also, the color bias of these paints needs to be obvious—the more extreme the better.