I have been thinking about colour mixing lately. I am trying to be more systematic with it, because my nature is quite slap dash. That’s close enough, I’m going with my gut instinct (i.e. being lazy!) ~ they’re the phrases that go through my head.
Then I read Jane Blundell’s blog and see all the fantastic experiments she does with so many different brands of paints, and I want to be systematic like her! I looked at Shevaun Doherty’s Instagram post where she identified a huge range of colours in her divine lavender, and I want to see colours like she does! But I know I never will be like that.
However, I can try to understand colour, and I can be far more systematic in thinking about colour before I start to paint.
Colour is a very interesting, but complex topic. There are many things to think about and it would be easy, for someone else 🙂 to overthink it. Overthinking colour is not my problem! (See the first paragraph.) YouTube is over endowed with videos about the colour wheel, how to mix colours, instructional videos and so on. However, I recently found Robert Gamblin’s videos. He is an oil painter and has a company that produces oil paints in America.
His series of videos that have really helped me understand the colour wheel because his colour wheel is 3D, instead of the usual 2D ones. That allows him to explain tones, hues, chromatic intensity etc while demonstrating it visually on his wheel. He calls it “Navigating colour space”. He also uses his 3D model to explain why the palettes of the Old Masters (Rembrandt etc), the Impressionists (Monet, Renoir etc) and modern painters are so different. Worth a look if you are interested in understanding more about colour.
There are three videos to be watched in order.
What did you think of the videos? Do you have any recommendations for me to watch or websites that are useful?
Anne Lawson Art 
6 replies on “Colour mixing videos”
Fascinating stuff. I learned the old hue, tone and saturation stuff at college, but this has moved on so much. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
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It seemed to me to be a good way of explaining theoretical ideas to people who are visual learners. I assume that most visual artists are strong visual learners.
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I’d say that was right. In fact, I can’t conceive of an artist NOT being a visual learner. Mondriaan, perhaps?
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Thanks for the videos — great minds think alike! I’ve been doing color mixing, and now am about to play with part two of my fooling around with color. Love this one.
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So glad it fits in with your current needs, Katie. I thought that if I found it useful, then others would too. I love colour mixing, and would like to understand it better. These videos have helped, even thought they are aimed at oil painters.
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I hadn’t watched them when I commented — how did I miss they were Gamblin’s when I read this? Robert is local and amazing, and he created a line of conservation colors for conserving the masters. He also helped us tremendously and saved us a fortune in paint by assisting me in the first passes at the paints I needed to buy in the National Park’s pieces. You might enjoy seeing pics: http://www.mpfconservation.com/Monterey-Colors-Gamblin.html
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