Painting: Colours

[ailbhe]

I'm learning a good deal about me and painting. One important thing is that I don't LIKE having lots of colours available in tubes, particularly; what I love most is mixing colours and creating the right ones, especially when it happens on the brush and on the canvas (mm, lovely oils; I painted something red and yellow today which I very nearly ate, it was so gloopy and colouredy and downright sensual. Omnomnom).

I'm looking at buying more acrylic paint - I've been using Daler Rowney in tubes of 120ml and am looking at Winsor and Newton in tubes of 60ml, hoping they're thicker - but the sets all seem to have 10 or more colours. Same with Gouache starter sets. Too many colours. I would like to start with the RIGHT shades of red, yellow, and blue, and some white, and go on from there.

I also want to find a palette to use with my acrylics; I got one which looked very useful but is actually rubbish and irritating. I think that for oils I may well end up using a classic flat lump of wood wiv a hole in, but I don't know what's best for acrylics. I hate cleaning up after them. Must buy some chemical wipe things.

But mixing colours as I paint is the best thing in the universe ever. That, and secret things around corners.

Comments

[supermouse]

Why not buy large containers of red, yellow, blue, black and white? If you get the top-quality stuff, you can mix to your heart's content. This place is an example but searching on 'bulk acrylic paint uk' should get you some choices. Or ask the local college where they get theirs, since they'll need robust, cheap, useful colours and a reliable supplier. Here's a suggested list of colours. Starter sets are for starters, and you're not.

For acrylics, you can use glass tiles. Scrape clean, then wipe over with acetone - nail varnish remover. Or scrape clean and recycle. I've used shiny paper from junk mail, and plastic plates. Or - and this might well suit you best - you can use a moisture-retaining palette. It allows you more thinking time. You can also coat the palette in clingfilm for a break.

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

The Stay Wet pallet is good for acrylics, alternatively, spare lumps of perspex also work in a pinch.
http://www.discountart.co.uk/search.html

Limited colours but the right ones make so much difference. (At this point I could waffle at length about this gorgeous orange I found in a big tin at the back of the cupboard in the print studio and how, when done as a colour blend between magenta and ultramarine, it made the most amazing winter sky...)

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

Cover whatever you're using for the arcylics with cling film + then throw the cling film away rather than cleaning it? I know it's not very green (har har har, see what I did there???), but you'd not be using much.

[mrscosmopilite.livejournal.com]

When Kate was doing a lot of work in acrylics through gcse and then BTEC she would use scrap cardboard as a a palette then bin it when she finished a session of painting.

[liasbluestone.livejournal.com]

Kate always used bits of corrugated cardboard for acrylics.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I used to use a tile that I picked up from Just Tiles' "free please take" pile out the front. It is *designed* to wipe completely clean. I also have a set that contains: blue, red, yellow, green, black, white, but I got it >10 years ago now so don't know if they still make them. Think it came from that art shop near the back entrance to the Oracle with the lights, if it hasn't been pushed out by some chain store yet.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I learned to do oils by having a selection of warm and cool red/yellow/green. plus white & black, and transparent medium for acrylic.

I used either an old glass pane, or a china plate (probably corningware, actually) and enjoyed scraping off dried paint to clean it...

[heraldis.livejournal.com]

but you don't have to buy in sets, do you? If you only want a few colours, then big tubes of just the ones you want would be more economical, and you can spread the cost out :)

[ai731.livejournal.com]

I agree, don't buy a set if you don't like / aren't going to use some of the colours. When I did Set&Prop Design college, we started with primary red, yellow, and blue, plus black and white. The only other colour I have that I use often is a raw umber (warm lightish brown). Mixing paint is the best. One of my favourite things is mixing the exact colour I want to paint a room in the house (or sometimes just one wall) and then taking it to the DIY shop and getting them to mix gallons of it for me.

[sshi.livejournal.com]

This. We were taught that all you needed was primary colours, white and black, and the ability to mix them, to get any colour in the world. See if your library has Johannes Itten's book 'The Art of Colour' - it was written in Germany in the 30s iirc, but he's *amazing* on colour (as are his paintings).