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Oil paint mixing guides
Colour theory for painters
The colour wheel for oil paintersHue, value and chroma, and why the paint wheel is not the screen wheel.Colour bias and the split-primary paletteEvery tube leans warm or cool. Six tubes that mix almost everything.Value and chromaThe two dials that matter more than hue, and how to turn each one.Warm and cool: colour temperatureTemperature is relative, light and shadow disagree, and how to use that.Simultaneous contrastWhy a mixed colour changes on the canvas, and how to judge it fairly.Colour harmony schemesComplementary, analogous, triadic and split schemes, with palettes for each.
Mixing specific colours
How to mix greyComplement greys, value control, and why black-and-white grey looks dead.How to mix skin tonesA light, a halftone and a shadow from three or four tubes.Why your greens go muddyTinting strength, the Viridian problem, and how to grey a green on purpose.Clean oranges and purplesWhy secondaries go dull, and which pairs stay bright.Browns and earth coloursWhat the earths are, mixing brown from complements, and warm vs cool browns.Darks without blackChromatic blacks from two tubes, and when tube black is the right choice.Complementary colour pairsWhich pairs neutralise cleanly, which turn to mud, and the ratios that matter.
Pigments, paint and practice
Reading a tube labelPigment codes, hue vs genuine, series, lightfastness, opacity.Whites: Titanium, Zinc, FlakeWhich white for mixing, which for highlights, and why white cools a mix.Opacity, transparency and glazingOpaque, semi and transparent pigments, and mixing optically on the canvas.Tinting strengthWhat a 1:1 mix really means when one tube is five times stronger than the other.Measuring ratios in partsPalette knife, syringe or teaspoon: a repeatable 4 : 2 : 1.Limited palettesZorn, earth, split-primary and three-colour palettes, and what each can and cannot mix.Colour mixing mistakesThe ten habits that make mud, and the fix for each.
Recipes by paint set
Winsor & Newton WintonAll 26 colours as Winton recipesGamblin 1980All 26 colours as Gamblin 1980 recipesMagicfly 40All 26 colours for the Magicfly setAll colour recipesBrowse by colour
