This Post provides a link to “Colour mixing by layering”, Chapter 15 of my book “Painting with Light and Colour”. It is the last and longest of the five chapters devoted to colour mixing. Below is a slightly edited reprise of the “Introductory” to the chapter. If its contents make you want to find out more, click on the link beneath to obtain a .PDF version of the whole chapter.
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Introductory
This long and important chapter deals with the practical problems and opportunities that arise when coats or washes of one pigment colour are layered or otherwise superimposed on coats or washes of other pigment colours. In particular it is about how outcomes are influenced by the degree of translucency or opacity of the pigment-colours used. An important conclusion is that many of the same factors that are at play in colour mixing by layering are also at play in colour mixing by stirring.
The chapter starts by using the example of oil paints to illustrate general principles that apply to all colour mixing. It progresses to an analysis of ways in which colour superimpositions play out in the cases of watercolour, gouache, acrylic and dry pastel. The chapter concludes with some supplementary remarks on the use of scumbling and glazing in oil paints and acrylics.
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CHAPTER 15- COLOUR MIXING-LAYERING
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The five colour mixing chapters
- Chapter 11 : Colour mixing – definitions and misconceptions
- Chapter 12: The colour circle: Misunderstandings
- Chapter 13 : Finding a maximum of colours
- Chapter 14 – Colour mixing made easy
- Chapter 15 – Colour mixing by layering
Other chapters from “Painting with Light and Colour”
- Introduction: the little known Science behind many of the original practical suggestions.
- Chapter 1 : The dogmas
- Chapter 2 : Doubts
- Chapter 3 : The nature of painting
- Chapter 4: Renaissance ideas
- Chapter 5 : New Science on offer
- Chapter 6 : Early Modernist Painters
- Chapter 7 : The perception of surface
- Chapter 8 : Seurat and Painting with Light
- Chapter 9 : Seeing Light
- Chapter 10 : Illusory pictorial space and light
Other Posts on colour and light in painting:
- What are colourists? (1): Some of the many meanings of the word
- What are colourists? (2): Difference between meaning of the word for Venetian Colourists and for Modernist Colourists?
- What does the word “colour” mean?
Chapters from “What Scientists can Learn from Artists”
These deal in greater depth with subjects that feature in the other volumes
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Go to list of all other contents
This is a wonderfully illustrated and fantastic education in layering with colours of varying mediums. You offer a rare and thorough insight into an important world of colour use that would benefit any painter regardless of the type of work they do. Thank you again Francis for sharing your understandings so generously.
I wish I could read and read again in french all the content of your posts, would make it quicker. Merci Francis
Again, thank you. Especially for very the valuable-to-me section on water colors.