Color Mixing

Art 260 / Greg Clayton

Color Mixing Strategies and Issues

 

Intro

There is no one way to create a color — there are ways. And many of them.
Part of the joy of designing and expressing with color is the rich variety of color experiences that can be created by the mixing, layering and intermingling of colors.

Basic Tactics

Straight-Line Mixing Method

Offers a reliable strategy for selecting colors for mixtures, and for adjusting mixes in process. Its also a very good starting method — learn this before you try other methods. Even if you have good intuitive color mixing sensibilities, add this to you skill set so you can solve still more mixing issues.

Optical Color Mixing

Ala Georges Seurat and the Pointilists, and color television and computer monitors -- also, to a lessor extent, CMYK offset printing involves some degree of optical mixing.

Layered Glazes

Ala Maxfield Parrish and many oil painting traditionalists from the Van Eyck brothers to Rembrandt and Rothko.

Other Issues

[partially mixed color]

[opaque pigments in mixture]

[colored papers/grounds]

[lighting-altered surface color]

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Text (Color 5th ed.)

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Articles and Links

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Glossary | Color Theory Assignments | Course Schedule |

                 

Greg Clayton
2D Design
Color Theory

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