White (the absence of color) is a tint that lightens. Black (the inclusion of all color) is a shade that darkens. With these 9, you can mix any color you want.
Hue is the color itself. Saturation is the intensity or purity of the hue versus the dullness or greyness of the hue. Luminance is the amount of light (white) or amount of darkness (black) in a hue.
Monochromatic or Ombré is created by adding white or black to a midtone. The three resulting colors are values of a hue. It begins with a midtone. That hue + white is where the color fades. The midtone + black or grey is the depth.
Gradation is created by placing one color on the left end of a palette and its adjacent color on the right end. Place equal amounts of the left and right colors in the next well and mix. Place a small amount of this color in the next well and add a small amount of the right color to it and mix. Continue in this manner until you have as many variations as you want.
Realism combines the shadow and highlight of ombré with a gradation.
When we match fashion and makeup, we're working with opposites. These are complementary colors. Copper eye shadow looks best with blue eyes because copper is in the orange spectrum which is the opposite of blue. This is where the color wheel is most useful. It helps you find the opposite of your midtone.
These colors must be of the same saturation to truly match up (pale on pale, or midtone on midtone). Bright orange and pastel blue don't go together. Red and green don't match either, but magenta and green does. This is where paint chips come in handy.
Paint chips are helpful for lining up color pairings and matching them. Place your midtone on a piece of plastic wrap and find the matching color chip. Now, locate the complimentary color. Mix that color to correspond with the color chip. Place the mixed color on plastic wrap and place the wrap on the color chip for comparison. Now, you may add white or black to either color. I'm using green for the leaf and magenta for the veins.
I mixed one drop of Violet Pansy with one drop of Cardinal Red to get magenta. I added five drops of white to get the lighter value. I added twenty drops of white to one drop of Kelly Green for the pale value.
I split the leaf to show how the two pairings look.
Analogous consists of three colors that are beside one another on the color wheel. Place your midtone on a piece of plastic wrap and find the matching color chip. Now, locate the two colors on either side of your midtone. Mix the analogous colors to correspond with those color chips. Place mixed colors on plastic wrap and place the wrap on the color chips for comparison.
True Blue is five degrees to the right. Bright Yellow is seven degrees to the left. I mixed five drops of blue to one drop of green, and then seven drops of green to one drop of yellow.
I want you to think of color in terms of warm, cool, and neutral. You may be more familiar with these terms from the fashion and makeup industry, but they also concern light and shadow.
Incandescent light is warm and yellow. Fluorescent light is cool and blue. Sunlight and moonlight are both white. When light casts a shadow, it's gray.
Warm = Red-Orange, Orange, Yellow, Yellow-Green, White
Cool = Teal, Aqua, Blue, Purple, Fuchsia, Carmine, Black
Neutral = Brown, Gray, True Green, True Blue, True Red
Mixing direct complements will always neutralize one another resulting in a neutral brown or French Grey. Orange + blue + white = taupe. Add more white for a lighter tone. Add more blue for a darker tone.
Gray mutes a color and that muted tone can be warm, cool, or neutral. Rose contains red; Terra Cotta contains orange; Burnt Ochre contains yellow; Sage contains green; Steel contains blue; Mauve contains purple.
I also want you to think of mixing color in terms of percentages. Prismacolor categorizes its Greys by percentage, such as Cool Grey 10% up to 90%. This means that Cool Grey 10% is 10% black and 90% white. Cool Grey 90% is 90% black and 10% white. The range is 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%, 70%, and 90%.
Any color can be mixed by percentage and it's a lot more precise than dripping and guessing. You can reproduce the exact color consistently by following a measured formula. That's where these little drop-tad measuring spoons come in handy. They're used in the DIY cosmetics industry for measuring minerals and additives.
If you're measuring two colors, you're dealing with ratio. Any size spoon will measure ratio. Cool Grey 70% is 7 spoons of white and 3 spoons of black.
Paint formulas consist of three colors and maybe a touch of another. A Touch of paint is measured by dipping a toothpick or nail dotting tool into paint. You'll probably only use the Pinch and Dash spoons.
Touch = 1/32 ml (3.125%)
Drop = 1/16 ml (6.25%)
Smidgen = 1/8 ml (12.5%)
Pinch = 1/4 ml (25%)
Dash = 1/2 ml (50%)
Pinch + Dash = 3/4 ml (75%)
Tad = 1 ml (100%)
Burgundy is 25% violet, 50% brown, and 25% black. I can mix this color using my spoons.
There is an online mixing tool that will help you predict the outcome of mixing specific colors so you won't have to guess at it. It also measures in percentage: trycolors.com. There are 11 colors (blue, green, red, brown, orange, yellow, green-cyan, blue-cyan, violet, black, and white) plus water to create transparency. You can save your palette and look up formulas for colors that other people have saved.
The best paint mixing book available is 1500 Color Mixing Recipes for Oil, Acrylic & Watercolor.
This is all you need to know about color theory and mixing. Now, play and have fun.
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