Colour Circle

The colour circle is a tool to help in the combining of colours.

 

Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Colours

The primary colours are red, yellow and blue.

The three secondary colours (green, orange and purple) are created by mixing two primary colours.

The six tertiary colours are created by mixing a primary and a secondary colour.

I have used acrylic paints to fill in my Colour Circle using the following colours:

Daler-Rowney System 3:

Cadmium Yellow Hue (warm); Lemon Yellow Hue (cold)

Cadmium Red Hue (warm); Crimson (cold)

Ultramarine (cold)

Winsor & Newton Galleria:

Cobalt Blue Hue (warm)

Titanium White (tints)

Black (shades)

The colour circle was painted on an A4 cartridge paper.  Mixing the paints on a plate and then testing these on the trial sheet before adding the colours to the circle.  These trials are shown in (46).

The shades on the lower half of the circle (Turquoise through to Violet), I found it difficult not to add too much black and thereby making the shades very dark.

Before filling in the circle I practiced mixing the colours together.  This was a good exercise, because I had not realised how much the colours within the two spectrums of cold and warm could react with each other.  Although they were making a colour with a broad covering name (i.e. green) the diversity produced was very interesting.

I found that in the mixing of the paints I needed to add the darker of the colours to the lighter (therefore needing to use less paint) making the process easier to mix the paints together. A very small amount of black was needed, otherwise the colour was very quickly made too dark.  Whereas with the white more was needed to get a good tint colour.

I wanted to take it further than the Tutor Hints for mixing the Secondary colours, so I worked on the combinations suggested but also a combination of each of the warm and cold colours.

I have included all the trials in my sketchbook, as I feel they are a good reference tool for the future.

Out of all the colour mixing I felt the achievement I enjoyed most was seeing how I could produce such a wide selection of greens. Only needing to have eight tubes of paint is also a revelation to me, whereas before I have always felt I have needed to buy the full range of colours.  It has given me a sense of achievement to see how I can mix these paints and get so many delightful colours from them.