Muted colors are more natural! How to desaturate colors. Color mixing with acrylics for beginners.
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- čas přidán 9. 02. 2023
- Most colors we see are quite muted, while the colors we buy often are very saturated. In this video I show a few ways to mute colors.
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Have fun painting!
Damn dude…this video was so freakin helpful! I’ve watched a handful of videos trying to understand color theory better. And this was for sure the best one I’ve seen where I understood it enough to apply it to my work.
Hell yeah, man. Thank you for your content!
Great that I could help a bit, enjoy painting!🎨👍
I’ve been struggling mixing colors. My brain is old and have some short term memory loss after chemo so as soon as I would watch videos about mixing I’d forget as soon as the video was over. Until I found you!!! I’m getting it. Your method of explaining is so good. Something you do just made it click in, maybe it’s the antics to make you breath and relax without having to say it. Just a tremendous big thank you 🙏🏻
❤
My pleasure, that’s so great to hear!👍👍👍🎨
Also I have Parkinson’s so I need all the help I can get lol
@@KatBrand420 then I hope you can get a lot of joy out of painting, wishing you all the best❤
I feel your pain!@KatBrand420 I made a ton of color chips.Kind of like the color chips you get at the paint store.
I was able to practice mixing while creating a reference for the future.
I put the brush brush down for years and am picking up right where I left off because of this.
I just pared my palette down to 5 colours. Red, yellow, blue, burnt umbar and white. Then I went to town mixing colours and values just to see how they all interact. Then I swapped out for different primaries to see variations. Your video does a very good job of demonstrating a lot of what I got to by tinkering and I think that just playing with the colours and variations without having an actual painting in process is a very important exercise.
I think you're absolutely right, so glad you mention that! When we want to learn to play an instrument, we find it normal that we practice things 'out of context', in painting I almost never see people do that and it's very beneficial to do that and also fun.👍👍
BEST color theory in practice I have ever seen!
Thanks, enjoy painting!
This is so refreshing. So many art teachers fear monger mixing with white and black in fear of “muddy colors”. It’s like they forgot about the color theory class they taught days prior.
Yes, that's what I also noticed, I've had a lot of teachers that prohibited the use of black😅🎨
Whats a muddy color and why would black and white cause that? Most art teachers dont want you to use black so you can learn to make black from other colors. There is no pure black in nature, especially shadows, so they want you to learn to mix your own black.
@@Angie_flores Yes, I do that myself as well with students: for a good understanding of color mixing/color theory it's essential to learn how primaries and complementaries etc. work. There are a lot of great art teachers that will explain that in the correct manner. Problem is however, there are also a lot of art teachers simply say: you must never use black. And that makes absolutely no sense at all.
I think they heard a lot that "don't use black" and they forgot what that meant. That black is a color in itself. So if mixed with yellow, you get a darker shade of green, not a dark shade of yellow. So it was never about don't use black but rather know how and when to use it.
@@TheMediaMachine Spot on! Also, not all black pigments are the same, there are black pigments with cooler or warmer undertones etc.👍
Loved the paper towel roll! Humor is good.! Thanks so much for making mixing colors more understandable.
You're welcome, enjoy painting!👍
This paper towel is quite a fighter, glad you survived because you have so much to teach my dear friend!
🤣🤣thanks!👍
The struggle with the paper towels is real, I feel you 😂 Very good video, thanks for sharing!
😂😂Glad I'm not the only one with that struggle!👍
This has been the most helpful color tutorial I have seen! Thank you so much! And I love your comedic side…very informative and entertaining! God bless!
Glad to hear it was helpful, enjoy painting!👍
This was fantastically helpful, thank you! I'm colour blind and have always struggled to understand how colour moves from one to the other. This is a great system that even I can use, thanks again!
You're welcome!👍👍👍
Wonderfull teacher very patient and sensitive. Very good lesson from you to become master of color . Thanks
That's great, you're welcome!
Wonderfully useful tutorial, and so well explained and presented. A painting is already finished once you've chosen the right colour , hue and chroma etc. I subscribed on the basis of this video alone. Looking forward to your other videos. Thanks so much, Too. Greetings from Scotland, my friend 👍
You're most welcome and enjoy painting!
This is a fantastic video! I’ve never heard color theory explained so clearly. I’m looking forward to watching more of your videos.
I'm glad it was helpful, enjoy painting!🎨👍
Dank u wel voor de tijd dat u in deze video heeft gestoken. Ik heb behoorlijk wat geleerd. Het is prettig om naar uw duidelijk uitleg te luisteren.
Graag gedaan, veel plezier met schilderen!👍🎨👍
This was a masterclass!
Very helpful video on color saturation. 🙌🏻♥️
I suck with identifying muted colors in general. So this video is very insightful. I also find it hard to place a name on muted colors at times.
Glad I could help a bit, and your comment just made me think that it would be good to make a separate video on that topic (how to identify colors when they're not that obvious). Have fun painting!👍
@@toonnagtegaal_en sounds like a wonderful idea! One that I rarely see too
I loved watching you mix these matching colors so perfectly.
Thanks👍 it's just a matter of practicing combined with some basic knowledge of color theory. If I can do it, you can do it as well!👍👍
True. We may sometimes want to paint how we imagine and perceive, vivid colors, or, more real then real life :). And, in reality, the colors often are very vivid, it's the lighting that makes them look duller. It can be seen when taking pictures with polarisation filter, which can take away some of the "bad" lighting.
Anyway, great lesson, than you.
Yes of course, the local colors of objects can be very colorful, but due to light/shadow/atmosphere they're presented in all kinds of variations and that's what we deal with when painting from life. 👍
Absolutely incredible video. It's 3:33AM and I am on the edge of my seat learning about colour theory. Thanks!
😅😅😅Glad you liked it!👍
Great video! Thanks for sharing your knowledge, and for throwing in some fun 😄
You're welcome and enjoy painting!👍
Wow, this is just what I was looking for! A lot of my acrylic paintings seem to have a "shrill" quality to them probably because I try to compensate for my red-green colour blindness. But that most colours we see are naturally quite muted is a revelation to me - as beginners we tend to paint what we think a subject should look like instead of painting what is in front of us. Now that alone is a valuable lesson in itself! As usual, great teaching and very encouraging!
I completely agree. And it's one of the things I personally like most about painting: it literally opens your eyes. Learning to paint from life has little to do with learning to do tricks with brushes and paint, it's more about learning to observe. 👍
Such a beautiful and helpful video. Thank you!
My pleasure, have fun painting!👍
Wow, this video was perfect! It helped me so much! Thank you 👏🏼
That's great, you're welcome!👍
I enjoyed the comedic relief in between all the informative goodies.
Thanks, that's exactly why I do these weird things 😂👍
Wow!! It only took two minutes to answer so many of my questions. The teaching method, video and commentary are EXCELLENT! Thank you for sharing!
My pleasure, great that it was helpful!👍👍👍
Great video ! I've learnt so much. Thank you 🌹
You're welcome, have fun painting!
Fantastic.You've explained things that have perplexed me ,for years.Thankyou.
That's great to hear, enjoy painting!👍🎨
This is great! I've been getting back into painting and I don't remember too much from my art teacher back from 10+ years ago. This was a great refresher
That's great! Nice that you started painting again, enjoy it!👍
Great video i learn much from you with this , love the way you teach please keep doing these videoa you are an exellent teacher .
Thanks! I will go on, but sometimes (like now) I don't have the time, so I'm a little bit inconsistent with the upload scheme 👍
Great video, very good instruction. Also loved the little bit of comedy
Thanks, enjoy painting!👍👍
I really enjoyed your video so helpful watching you get the colours right 😊
I'm glad it was helpful!🎨👍
Perfect video about what I was looking for. Thank you so much.
My pleasure, glad it was helpful!👍
First time I've watched you and found your instructions to be very good...especially for this somewhat beginner. I've subscribed and look forward to learning more!!
Welcome to the channel and enjoy painting!👍
wow this is sooo good thank you.
Glad it was helpful!👍
THIS SOMETHING I WAS LOOKING FOR !!! I AM BLESSED TO CLICK ON THIS VIDEO !!
That's great, glad it was helpful!👍🎨
That s fantastic!
This is extremely well explained, thanks!
You're welcome!
Great video. I didn’t understand how to desaturate a color correctly until I watched this video. Thank you so much
My pleasure, I’m glad it was helpful!👍🎨
I haven’t painted in a long time, but I’ve done a lot of digital art and your frame of reference for color was very informative and I really appreciate your video.
That's great! 👍🎨
Much appreciate your extremely helpful teaching and sharing! It's just marvellous! And BTW, you are cute!
You're welcome, enjoy painting!👍🎨
Thank you, so much. The video was so enjoyable, from start to finish, that it did not feel at all like a lesson. But, boy did I learn! You make it seem so easy. I am now subscribed to your website, and I'm looking forward to learning how to work with acrylics. With regard to your "adversary," the roll of paper towels, the only thing I can say is: I hope you folks have better medical insurance than we do here in the U.S. (ha, ha). Thank you for your wonderful and playful sense of humor.
I'm glad it was helpful! Luckily the medical insurance here is great. If I'm not wrapped in kitchen paper, then I'm wrapped in plaster.😅😅 Enjoy painting!
super helpful and clear thanks!
You're welcome!🎨
Brilliant. Thank you. X
My pleasure!👍
Excellent video! I'm new to acrylics, having come from watercolors, so some of this is familiar but so much is new and you did a great job helping me to understand. Thank you!
That's great, glad it was helpful and I hope you enjoy acrylics! 👍👍
This was really help - thank you very much!
That's great, you're welcome!👍
very helpful! Thank you so much!
That's great, you're welcome!👍
Excellent Video!!! Thank You!!!
Thanks and you're welcome!👍
This video explained the true concept of color mixing for me! Thank you sir
That's great, glad it was helpful!👍
You're so much fun to watch+ I ve been more and more interested in color. Though I find it hard as to how to apply all that knowledge.
That's great! Don't worry about applying it. That will come naturally as you go along. Rome wasn't built in a day, we learn step by step. I learn everyday as well and that's one of the things that makes painting so much fun.👍🎨
this video rocks! thanks!
Thank you!👍🎨
very good demonstration of color mixing, thanks a lor
You're welcome!👍
It was perfect 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Great surprise with the paper towel comedy, thank you :D
😂a bit of realitysoap of my daily struggles here and there!
Such a helpful video, thank you!!
That's great, have fun painting!👍
Wow now I have to rethink my entire style lol
Please don't!🤣🤣🤣🎨👍
Very nice video. Thank you
You're welcome!👍👍
THANK YOU!
Thank you so much!❤
You're welcome!🎨👍
very helpful ... many thanks...
You're welcome!
10/10 video
New to this channel and the break effect when you tossed the pallet knife caught me so off guard hah. Great great great content! New sub here
I did that to test if you were still awake!😂Welcome to the channel, have fun painting!👍
Wonderful tutorial...! Liked n subscribed❤🖌️🎨
Glad it was helpful!👍
Very useful thanks❤
You're welcome!
Thank you this was so useful
You're welcome!
Best way is to add the opposite color from the color wheel. Ex.. blue and orange. Red and green. Yellow and purple.
Ooooo dont do that
Thank you 👍👍👍
You're welcome!🎨
Por dios, la comedia slapstick....💀 Gracias por compartir! Muy instructivo.
You're welcome!👍🎨
As a bigenner, I appreciate this very much, thank youuu
You're welcome, have fun painting!
Very helpful..thank you
Glad it was helpful, you’re welcome!👍
wise and funny, thanks, I've understood!
that's great, have fun painting!
Thank you so much ! Very helpful !
Très intéressante vidéo , très bien expliqué , rien a dire , c est parfait !
Je m abonne
Merci
Merci et amusez-vous bien à peindre!👍
Great thanks
You’re welcome👍
thank you master ;)
I like how you are able to make jokes on yourself
I have to, otherwise I take myself too seriously!😂👍
Thank you for this tutorial. I was wondering how you get the color swatches for your painting?
I used Photoshop, but in every drawing software or photo editing program there's an eydrop-tool.Then I've made some rectangular shapes of the picked colors. Normally I just check with the mixed color on the backside of my palette knife, hold it in front of the photo or subject, but I must say the eydropper tool is very fun to play with, you can learn a lot about colors just checking at various spots in a photograph. 👍
loved the keukenrol-jokes 😂
Lol met de keukenrol! 😂👍👍👍
I have a photo of my son when he was very little, he was having the same issue with the paper towels, you brought back so many funny memories with your video.
My question is, I do watercolors not acrylics, so what do I do when you use white? If I use a gouache with my watercolors I lose all the translucency, which is what I love about the watercolors.
If I add more water, it becomes more transparent but is the same hue. I can use black I can mix or layer colors I can use them straight from the tube or diluted but white is the white of the paper .....
That's the big difference between watercolor and paints like acrylics and oils. With watercolor your white is the white of the paper indeed and most of the times people gradually build the colors from light to dark and when something needs to be very light, you just reserve these spots (sometimes done with masking techniques as well). For me it's ages ago since I last used watercolor, so I don't remember it too well. maybe you can find videos of others that can show you the process. 👍🎨
Ahhhh nu snap ik het! Tnks ik ga eens aan het mixen!
Top, succes ermee!👍
👍❤️
i've never understood how to mix colors like this . thank you so much . can you make a video about sunset shades or ocean ?
Good idea, I've put it on my list! May take a while before I can shoot the video, but I won't forget!👍👍
Excellent! (except for the silly antics). Question: Can we apply this to oils? Thanks in advance . . .
Absolutely! The pigments are the same 👍
@@toonnagtegaal_en Thank you! Your explanation and demonstration is one of the best I've seen on the topic on CZcams. Subscribed :)
💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
In art school we were not allowed to use black to mute our colors. We were taught to mix the primary colors with the color opposite in the color wheel. Black is used very sparingly and in most cases Never used. 6:16
Yes, that was the same at my art school. And it's fine because that way you can learn that black isn't necessary. It also provides for a better understanding of color mixing when you mute colors by using three primaires. But at the same time I dislike rigid rules, using black can be fine as well but most beginners tend to overdo it. Another example is the use of an eraser, that was also forbidden at my art school. And that's fine as well for a while, but in the end erasers have their use as well. 👍🎨
Thanks
You’re welcome👍🎨
*Thank you* for showing how to mix saturated colors.
Interestingly, two complementary colors make for a desaturated color but three primaries make for a grey. A secondary color is made of two primaries. Easy to remember and use as 1-2-3.
New to your channel. Will look for any videos on how black & white tones relate to hue, i.e. Goethe's Colour Theory.
Noticed magenta is named instead of red, as in Red, Yellow, Blue. Associate magenta with CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) printing optical colors mixing. Any reason or, it a European convention ?
You're welcome! The reason I like to explain and work with CMYK in mind (you're right there) is because when I mix magenta with yellow I can make red. In general in Europe we are taught from young age that in painting yellow, red and blue are primaries. But they always showed a fire engine red and a purple kind of blue. I always struggled with color mixing, until I learned from other artists that that system doesn't make practical sense. For example, I couldn't make bright greens with the blue and yellow that I was supposed to use. Turned out the blue wasn't neutral enough. And in the end it doesn't matter that much, because for instance now I use ultramarine blue + yellow on purpose to get a desaturated green. But the point is, now I know what I'm doing, because the purple kind of blue + yellow is in fact a combination of yellow, magenta and cyan. So, first step is: think like a printer, that really helps, and then the second step: do you now have to buy magenta and cyan (or phtalo blue, because cyan is phtalo blue with white)? Not necessarily, that depends on how often you need a very vivid green or purple.
@@toonnagtegaal_en
*"Think like a printer"* , pragmatic advice.
Watched the video a second time, probably more to get familiar moving between CMYK (pigment), RGB (optical) and RYB (what was taught) and, what the pigments can do.
Appreciate your reply, thanks.
Will watch your other videos
Like the line "if you get a color closer to the tonal value it gets easier to see what is lacking". Good if you're familiar with drawing and want to start using colors. Reverse engineering ? :)
Also, like the edge colors when two colors are next to each other, i.e. yellow-green next to yellow will empathize the green since the yellow in yellow-green is joined to the yellow highlighting the edge green.
Yes, that's true, the role of tonal values is very important. So much so, that a lot of painters used (and still use) to start with a grisaille (layer in grayscale) to focus on the values first and add color in next layers. And indeed, with drawing you also develop this skill as well!
I have been, said that I'm colour blind. That I can't see colours behind colours. But I must say you have put it in such a way that I can see it. I'd like to ask do you know what colours can make purssian blue, is it more like phalo blue or ultramarine blue?
I will like to see more of your CZcams in colour mixing. Thanks
Phthalo is definetly closer to Prussian than ultramarine, but depending on the brand Prussian blue can sometimes slightly lean more towards green. Prussian blue is even darker than phtalo, so you could add a slight touch of black or brown to the phthalo. It's always a bit hard to tell, because in the end it's always the question of what subject you're painting, with specific lighting conditions etc. 👍 And as for the color-blindness remark, I don't know that of course, but even if it's true, it doesn't matter, painting is fun anyway. And if the remark is more meant as in: you're not litarally color blind, but you maybe find it hard to judge colors, than that's no problem either. You can improve on that everyday step by step. So please don't be discouraged and just continue.👍 To be complete, here is the link to the color mixing playlist: czcams.com/play/PLeIqGpmPcp53gLufPzGEzVCCAQTm0y_qs.html
The complementary color of yellow, is it purple or blue? I assumed the CYM color wheel didn't work for making greys because mixing blue and yellow makes green, not grey, right? But then you made grey with green and magenta (instead of the red from the RYB color wheel) and now I don't know what to think.
Because we're working with pigments and they don't always work exactly 100% as the theoretical color wheels like RGB and CYM. Still I think (but some people argue over it all the time) that CYM is closest to the thing that I see happening on my palette whith pigments.
The complementary of yellow firstly depends on which kind of yellow you use. If you have a very neutral yellow, the complementary would be a neutral purple. In case you use a more orange kind of yellow, the amount of magenta in the purple needs to be less, which means you use a purple that's more towards blue.
And so, that's why for instance ultramarine blue (a blue that theoretically contains quite some magenta) mixed with yellow already gets rather dull/grey. If you mix cyan (which contains no magenta) with a neutral yellow you get a very vivid green.
And with green and magenta it's the same. A very neutral green (so no bias towards yellow or cyan) mixed with magenta will get grey, but if the green is slightly towards blue (so more cyan in it), then we shift the complementary color more towards red (so theoretically we add some yellow to the magenta, but usually we just grab a tube of red).
I hope it makes sense, but the fun part of it is: you can try it yourself and that's the most important thing, because there's also the problem that one pigment can be different depending on which brand you use. So it would like that makes things very complicated, but on the other hand: when trying yourself with your own paint, and adding a touch of white to your mixtures, you can see and test with your own eyes what the exact balances are.👍👍👍
When you create your palette, what do you do to avoid your colors from drying?
I try to decide which colors I need for the part that I want to paint in a particalur timespan. So, for instance if I want to paint a background sky first, I only put the colors on the palette that I need and I try to guess how much I need of each color.
Then I premix the most important colors in piles with a palette knife. Piles of paint dry slowly and you can paint faster with premixed colors. When I'm satisfied with the sky and I've got time for another part (for instance some mountains in the background), then I repeat that process.
So I don't do much to prevent the colors from drying, it's more that I adjust the way that I work. However, other artists use things like sta-wette palettes, retarders, slow drying mediums etc. One thing I do when it's very warm and dry, then I use a mist sprayer every 5-10 minutes or so, to slow drying time down.
@@toonnagtegaal_en lovely, thanks
I initially tried slipping on the paper towels but found out later that it is actually possible to mix the correct colour without doing that.
🤣🤣🤣O wow, you should show me how to do that!😂🎨
Do you know how to make colors more vibrant? Because i draw more of a illustrated style but i hate using watercolor because i can't get vibrant colors from it
I don't have much experience with watercolor, but in general you get vibrant colors whenever you mix no more than 2 true primaries. However with watercolor there's another thing, watercolor is very transparant. So if you paint on a white paper, the white of the paper shines through the color and white desaturates colors as well. So try adding more layers of the same color to make it more opaque and more saturated.
But since you want to go very vibrant and you're more into illustrations, than may I ask if you've ever tried gouache? Watercolor is very transparant and usually people slowly build from light to dark. Gouache is very opaque and is used a lot for illustrations.
With gouache you very easily get very vibrant colors. It's mostly suited for smaller work and on paper. So when compared to watercolor it's very opaque, but there's another big difference: dried gouache can be reactivated when you make it wet again. It takes a bit of practice to get used to, but it could very well be that you like it more than watercolor.
Hope it helps a bit!
Some good pigments to look for would be quinacridone magenta (PR122), quinacridone violet/rose (both PV19), dioxazine violet (PV23) , cadmium orange (PO20), and pthalo green blue shade (PG7). You can mix some especially interesting colors with the quinacridone magenta, dioxazine violet, and the pthalo green. For example, you can mix the pthalo green with the violet and get a really nice transparent slate blue.
Sir, may I know how did you pull out the exact colour from the image on the printed paper before matching the colours?
Yes of course you may know! I do that with Adobe Photoshop, but there are a lot of drawing/photo editing programs that you can use. You can use the eye dropper tool and then you can make a color swatch with that picked color. Then you can print it out and try to match the color with paint. 👍
@@toonnagtegaal_en thankyou so much for the info.
I still prefer the vivid colors, but it depends on the composition.
Yes of course! Out of context I also prefer vivid colors. But it's also funny how less saturated colors when put together look vivid. 🎨👍
Muting colors mean that when you decide to paint saturated zones, they will pop up much more
Complicated but keep trying
That's the way to go about it: trying, it's just the same for every new thing we learn in life 👍👍👍
oops! kol
Oops..oupps , oops, oops 😂
😅life is a struggle sometimes!
Oops! Oops!! Oops!
Paper towel syndrome
@@toonnagtegaal_en haha my studio has the same syndrome, must be catching in the artist community!
@@curiouslittlefrog 😅😅😅😅😂😂👍👍
The fauve painters didn't pay attention to muted colors.
No they didn't!😂👍
@@toonnagtegaal_en please explain.
Well, if you want to work with vivid colors, then of course you should avoid muting them. It's a matter of style and taste. If you want to paint from life (more or less realistically) then you often need to mute colors.
@@toonnagtegaal_en Of course. What I mean is that painters who used vivid colors were succesful too. Matisse, Derain, for example
@@miguelsuarez8010 That's what I meant too 👍
Adding black or grey. Dulls color too much. Kills it
This is a common misconception.