Cadmium Red Purple

Posted in art supplies on 09/27/2010 03:00 am by admin

Cadmium Red Purple

Painting with acrylic paints can be a joy. There are so many companies making paints with each one making a multitude of colors available by tube, an artist almost never needs to mix paints. But where's the fun in that?

There is no mystery to mixing colors or making a color wheel. You start with the basic three colors, make three more and then the sky's the limit. First a few definitions.

Color Wheel - usually a circle around which are located the colors of the rainbow
Primary Colors - Red, Blue and Yellow - these are basic colors. You can't mix any other colors to get these three colors; however, you mix these three colors to get every other color. One caveat: you can get earth colors that are formulated from naturally occurring sources such as from clays and plants. One example is ochre.
Secondary Colors - Green, Orange and Purple [or Violet, use these terms interchangeably] - these are interesting colors in that each one is a mixture of two primary colors. Green is a mixture of blue and yellow. Orange is a mixture of yellow and red. Purple is a mixture of blue and red.
Tertiary Colors - these are the colors mid-way between a Primary color and a Secondary color. An example would be blue-green - a mixture of blue with Green, that sits halfway between the two on the color wheel. Another is red-purple, and another is yellow-orange.

All other colors fall somewhere in between the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary colors. A word about Black and White: whites and blacks, like the Primary colors, are formulated...they cannot be mixed from other colors. One caveat with black is that you can get some very dark, near-to-black "black" by mixing some very deep, intense colors together such as Prussian Blue with Dioxazine Purple.

Gray is an interesting color. You can mix gray by combining white and black. You can mix interesting grays or neutrals by mixing a Primary color with its Complement [the Secondary color directly across from it on the color wheel]. One example of a good Complementary neutral would be to mix red with green; or blue with orange; or yellow with purple. You can even make an interesting "black" by mixing the three Primary colors together then gray it down by adding a bit of white.

Make your own color wheel. Actually you can make several different color wheels - it will depend upon which reds, blues and yellows you choose to begin with.

One example: begin with Cobalt Blue, Permanent Rose and Cadmium Yellow Medium. Put these at three corners of a triangle [pyramid shape] with Yellow at the top, Blue at the lower right point and red at the lower left point. Draw a circle around this triangle. This is your color wheel shape.

Put in the secondary colors. Begin with green. Mix the Cadmium Yellow Medium with Cobalt Blue in equal ratio. Place this exactly halfway between the yellow and blue on your color wheel. You'll notice that it now sits directly across from the red...green is the complement of red.

Now make the secondary color of purple. Mix the Cobalt Blue with the Permanent Rose in equal ratio. Put this purple exactly halfway between the red and the blue. You'll find that it now sits directly opposite the yellow. Yellow and purple are complements.

To make the color orange, mix in equal ratio the Cadmium Yellow Medium and the Permanent Rose. Place this orange exactly halfway between yellow and orange on the color wheel. It now sits directly opposite its complement of blue.

*If you think the secondary colors you have mixed look too dark...often purple looks dark...add some white to it. Adding white will tint the color and give you a truer "feel" as to the color.

To get the tertiary colors, or third level of colors, go around the color wheel and mix, in equal ratio, each of the colors; place them half-way between each color:

yellow mixed with green to get yellow-green
green mixed with blue to get blue-green
blue mixed with purple to get -blue-purple
purples mixed with red to get red-purple
red mixed with orange to get red-orange
orange mixed with yellow to get yellow-orange

You now have a basic color wheel. You'll get a different looking wheel if you begin with Cerulean Blue, Cadmium Red Hue and Gamboge [yellow]. Or make a wheel using any of these combinations:

Naphthol Crimson, Winsor Blue and Cadmium Yellow Deep
Indanthrene Blue, Primary Magenta and Lemon Yellow

And of course any combination of the above and other blue, red and yellow formulations can be used to make a color wheel. Knowing how to mix your own colors, and experimenting with various combinations of reds, blues and yellows and the colors they create can greatly expand your versatility as an artist.

Linda C Smith, Artist

I am a mosaic artist and home-business owner. I write an art blog at http://lindamosaic.typepad.com and I write a blog about business at http://intlnat.com.

Where can I find info on origins of colors? i.e. bugs were source of purple, royalty wore it?

I am a high school art teacher and just finished teaching about the symbolism of colors, such as yellow being for cheerful, brown for earthy, black for gloomy or dignified, blue for cool, calm, etc. But several students had questions that were more in depth. Like on the source of the dyes and the history of the color, such as why white for weddings, black for funerals, red for a matador's cape. I asked them to research it on the internet, but I am following my own advice and asking for help ! I tried to think of what I already know and saffron might be a source of yellow, cadmiums, as in red and orange, seem to be highly toxic. I want to know MORE ! And about the dyes/color sources too. I bet it would make a fascinating geography lesson. Thanks in advance.

One thing you may want to consider in you teaching is the cultural differences that relate to color. For instance, in the Asian cultures, white is used at funerals., not black.

In the western cultures, white symbolizes purity. Hence the color associated with a virgin bride.

As far as the red in a matador's cape. It's interesting to note that bulls are color blind. The red cape is only for the crowd. The bull is attracted to the movement and attacks that.

So, a very interesting discussion could be developed in how the different cultures interpret the meaning of colors.

New Acrylic Painting: Freedom Pt 4