Accurate colour is one of the most important skills you can have as a realist painter.
Why? Well, being able to mix accurately gives you:
- Believable colour – a natural, effortless look to your work
- Three dimensional form – good colour relationships between light and shadow create form
- Light and depth – believable space and a feeling of light comes from colour, and especially value relationships
- Freedom – Being able to mix colour accurately frees you from the endless frustration of hunt, peck and guesstimate, and allows you to focus on the important, interesting stuff: making beautiful art that connects with people
And also, just by the by, if you can’t match the colours you see, you’ll never be able to paint realistically.
Why is Colour Mixing Hard?
If you’ve ever struggled to match a colour you see, it could have been for three reasons:
- You didn’t judge the colour correctly – mostly this comes with practice, but there are tools you can use that can help you develop this skill
- You couldn’t mix it accurately – again this comes down mostly to skill, and the knowledge you have of what can be achieved with your tube paints
- The colour you were trying to reach was outside the range of paint. Not much you can do about this one. But it helps to know when that’s the case, so you can stop chasing rainbows and compromise intelligently
I’m going to show you a simple method for judging and mixing a colour accurately. One that most art teachers don’t teach. One that’s reliable and repeatable, and will mean you’ll rarely struggle to match a colour again – if you practise it.
How to Mix Any Colour
To learn this approach, begin by picking a colour you want to match. For this example, I’m going to demonstrate matching a very specific colour from the Munsell Student book. This one:
That might look like a pretty non-descript grey-orange to you. And it is, actually. But it’s also the average colour of most caucasian flesh.
In Munsell terms, it’s 5YR 6/4.
Now I know that looks a little confusing if you’re not used to Munsell notation. Scary, even. Scientific. Unartistic. Just plain wrong!
But it’s actually a beautifully simple (and very useful) way to describe a colour.
The first part, 5YR, refers to the hue. It’s a middle Yellow Red.
The next part, 6/, refers to the value. So it’s a little above a middle value, from dark to light.
The last part, /4, refers to the chroma – or the intensity of the colour, from grey on one end of the scale to very intense on the other. Orange can get up to about a chroma /14 in paint, so /4 is pretty close to grey.
I’m going to show you how to mix that colour exactly now. I’m going to do that by starting with a higher chroma version of it, and then bringing the chroma down. So you can see how far I have to take it down (it’s a long way) and also to show you that it really is an orange.
Here are the two colours, the target colour and the higher chroma (more intense) one, side by side on the palette:
You can also see there the tube colours I’m using: Titanium white, cadmium yellow, cadmium orange and yellow ochre. I’ve also got a Munsell neutral value 6 there – the grey colour at the top of the palette – which I’ll use to bring the chroma down.
On the left there is the page from the Munsell student book that those chips came from. All the chips on that page are of the same hue, 5YR. Or, middle yellow-red, if you prefer.
Just in case Munsell is new to you and all this hue-value-chroma stuff makes no sense, here’s a quick video outlining the basics:
All good? OK, let’s get mixing.
Step 1: Bracket the colour
We’re going to use a technique called bracketing to hit this colour.
I first heard about this from Graydon Parrish, who I believe learned it from his teacher, Michael Aviano – who was in turn a student of Reilly’s, who (as far as I’m aware) came up with it.
In a nutshell, you bracket a colour by mixing two colours of the same value, but different hues, one hue on one side of the your target colour and one on the other.
So, if your target colour was a middle yellow hue, you’d mix a green yellow and an orange yellow of the same value.
Then, by mixing the two of them together, you can match the hue of the colour you’re trying to hit with great accuracy. The control you have with this method is amazing.
So, to match this higher chroma orange, I need to mix a yellow orange and a red orange, of the same value. Here’s the yellow orange happening on the palette:
In this next picture, I’m checking my yellow-orange against the chip. I’m doing this by putting a little of it on a small piece of clear acetate, and placing it directly over the chip:
Notice that I’m not trying to match the colour exactly, I just want the value to be the same, and the hue to be more yellow than the target colour.
Here’s the second bracketing colour being mixed, the red-orange:
And here’s that colour being checked directly against the chip. Again, I’m just checking for value and making sure that the hue is more red than the target:
Step 2: Get the hue right
Now that I have two colours of the same value as the target, but on either side of it as you see it on the hue wheel, it’s just a case of mixing between the colours until I hit the hue:
Here I’m checking my mix against the target colour. This time, I’m looking for an exact match.
And I’ve got it. The high chroma colour has been exactly matched, using bracketing to give me fine control over the mix.
The next step is to bring the chroma down to my less intense target colour.
Step 3: Adjust the Chroma
The most effective and controlled way to bring down the chroma of a colour is by mixing in a Munsell neutral of the same value, in this case a value 6. This allows you to drop the chroma without changing the value.
Sometimes when you do this, the hue might change too. But generally, with oranges, the hue shift is minimal.
By the way, if you want to know how to mix Munsell neutrals, here’s another quick video on mixing a single value:
So now to bring down the chroma. First, pick up some of the neutral:
Then mix it gradually with some of the higher chroma version:
Then, it’s time to check the chroma against the target. It takes time and practice to really nail this. But the value of doing it this way is that you can change just the chroma without affecting anything else. You can’t get this kind of fine-grained control any other way.
Colour matched!
Now, I appreciate that this may seem like a somewhat convoluted method if you’ve not come across it before. But there are a few really useful things about mixing colour this way:
It’s reliable. It works for any colour. It gives you incredibly fine control over your mixes. And if you can’t match the colour with your tube paints, it will show you that, and exactly how close you can get.
Still, though, this is a skill like any other. It requires practice to develop. The good thing about this approach is that it exemplifies some of the principles of effective practice:
- Have a clear goal – to mix a single target colour
- Practice a specific skill – by taking a single skill out and practicing in a focussed way (like colour mixing) you make more progress on that skill more quickly
- Immediate feedback – you can check how close you’re getting to your target and see immediately what you need to change to get closer
- Break a complex skill into smaller parts – trying to match a colour exactly is difficult. This way, you break it down into separate pieces, first matching the value, then the hue, then lastly adjusting the chroma, if you need to.
Practise this, and when you come to paint, you’ll find that your sensitivity to colour has improved. You’ll find that your knowledge of what you can achieve with your tube paints is much deeper. You’ll find that you can get much closer to the colours you see much more quickly – even if you’re just mixing on the fly.
Develop Your Colour-Matching Skills
A great way to practise, even you don’t have the Munsell student book, is to pick colours from around you and attempt to match them, using this bracketing method.
Begin with easier, lower chroma colours, and flat surfaces. As you gain confidence and hit more colours exactly, move on to three dimensional objects (like fruit) and higher chroma colours.
Free Video Tutorial
I’ve made a detailed (and slightly longer) video of using this method to match the local colour of a lemon. The actual colour might surprise you!
I hope that was useful. Best wishes and thanks for reading,
Paul
The Keys to Colour - Free 6 step email course
Learn how to:
- mix any colour accurately
- see the value of colours
- lighten or darken a colour without messing it up
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You are great Máster. But over all you are a ver friendly Máster.
Thanks Andrés!
I love what you are doing Paul, and i would like to participate more in your teachings , I work 6 days a week and i paint a lot as well, but i dont have much time for more, but each time i received your email, I would like to spend more time reading and practicing what you teach. Non the less i appreciate that some one is doing it, may be one day I can seat down and read and practice all your what you teach. I am going to recommend your post to my students, I think they are very good. I am also want to get your videos, I hope soon i can get less busy and pay attention to your things.
Time is always a struggle Jesus, for me too. I feel your pain! I’d love to have more time just for practice, and also more time just painting for its own sake. Sadly time for both is limited by the need to make a living and feed the family!
Very interesting, Paul! Any tips to applying when using interior paints? (I am an interior designer/color consultant) and use Benjamin Moore paints.
That’s a very good question! Yes, actually, I do have one recommendation: Spend some time matching the colours of the natural world, and matching them exactly. If you’re in the northern hemisphere, we’re just coming into autumn now which is a wonderful time for doing colour matching practice with leaves etc. I’ve learned so much about how effective subtlety is – and how much subtlety there is in nature – by matching the colours of things I find in the park or on walks in the woods.
This might interest you as a place to start:
https://vimeo.com/148070602
Thank you Paul.
1) What is the reason for starting by mixing colors on either side of the target color instead of the color you want? Is that part of the learning process or something you do for every color you want to mix (I don’t think you did this in the video I bought).
2) Also, I love the simplicity of adding a Munsell neutral to lower the chroma but I was taught to not using black or earth colors to neutralize, to use complementary colors instead to avoid “deadening” the colors. I’d love to forget that rule since neutralizing (or deadening) the color is exactly what you’re trying to do! Can you point me to some artists/artwork who use this method to help me convince myself?
3) Do you premix the Munsell neutral string before starting every painting? Or mix and tube your own?
I need to buy and watch your detailed second Munsell video–maybe you answer these questions there? Got the first and loved it.
Great questions, Jana!
1. Bracketing the hue gives you extremely fine control of just the hue in isolation, which is why it’s so powerful. If you’re a little too much one side, you can easily move the hue. Overdo it, and you already have the colour you need to bring it back ready mixed.
I don’t always bracket hue now, largely because I’ve practised with this method for a long while and find I can often just go straight for the hue and get it right, or very close. But when I’m struggling to match a colour, I’ll go back to bracketing to make sure.
2. I’m just going to say it: Using complements to bring down chroma (or “neutralise” as it’s often called) is unreliable because you will also change the value and the hue at the same time. There is really very little control using this method, and why people persist in recommending it when there is a much more effective option is beyond me.
Likewise the recommendation not to use black. (I haven’t heard of anyone recommending not to use earth colours, but that’s equally silly). The idea of not using black comes from impressionism. If black helps you to get to the colour you need, then use black. Why wouldn’t you? As you quite rightly say, you want to bring down the chroma, and a neutral will do just that, far more reliably than a complement.
If you want to create a lively and variegated effect, then of course that’s fine, and mixing with complements may well help you do that, albeit without much control. If you want to paint in an impressionist style, then knowledge of using complements will be necessary to you.
But if your goal is to bring down the chroma of a colour in a controlled way, mixing in a complement is not the best option.
3. Yes, I premix and tube up my neutrals. It saves a huge amount of time. I practised mixing them a lot before I did that, though, to develop my sensitivity to value. It worked 🙂
I’m really glad to hear you liked the video! I’m working on one with more emphasis on colour mixing at the moment, it should be out in a week or two.
Thank you so so much! I’m very grateful to you for generous sharing of what you have learned. Also glad that comments are showing again so I could read your reply. I understand and agree completely with your response. When I transitioned from 30 years of watercolor to oil painting it was really hard at first to start using white paint (after learning to save and use the white of the paper in wc, not opaque white). Starting to use black feels much the same!
Thank you for yet another terrific write-up, Paul.
I’m looking forward to your Mastering Colour course. Just a few workspace issues to sort out first 🙂
Thanks Nasreen. It would be great to have you on the course, I think you’d benefit greatly from it because I know you’d put in the practice. I’ll look forward to seeing you when your’e ready 🙂
Thank you so much. I now feel much less terrified of Munsell and am excited about starting to use the system. I find your instruction easy to understand and to put into practice. Also pics of your 5YR and 5Y pages have helped in getting my pages organised – yes, I know a tiny bit of cheating!
That’s so good to hear Romy, thank you! I try to demystify these things as much as I can. When you get down to it, they’re generally not that complex when taken individually (despite some “teachers” seeming to have a vested interest in overcomplicating things to make them appear more esoteric and difficult!)
The real challenge of painting, I think, is that you have to keep your eye on so many balls at once. The most effective way to mitigate that is – I think – to develop each of the skills required in isolation so that, when you come to paint, a lot of what you need – drawing accuracy, colour mixing, value balance – will take care of itself and you can concentrate on what you want to get across instead of struggling with the basics of the language.
Coincidentally today I was just looking for some good advice on how to mix accurate colours. I’m a bit more of a ‘splash and go’ painter which works for my bold colour pieces, but sometimes I want more control over the colours, particularly when a colour is needed over a large area. I will definitely try colour matching and bracketing. Great tutorial!
Thanks Chloe, really glad you found it useful. Thanks for letting me know.
This is fabulous Paul, extremely helpful and well explained! Can I share it with credit to you, of course?
Of course Victoria, always. Please do.
I am curious if this method also applies to watercolours as I am an aspiring botanical artist and have problems with getting the colour right,
I don’t think so Gail, I’m afraid. It’s designed to be used with opaque media. It might work with gouache, although, from my limited experience, gouache can change quite a bit as it dries.
Which Munsell Student book are you referring to?
I have the second edition. I think it’s up to the fourth edition now. But any of them will work for this, as long as they have the chips. You can still get the second edition quite cheaply second hand.
This is so helpful! Thank you for sharing these great informations! ♡
You’re very welcome Yusra!
Thank you Paul! your sharing spirit touches so many, and I personally are grateful for your many lessons, which stretch beyond what meets the eye and onto the caring, thoughtful soul!
What a lovely thought, Suzanne, thank you very much.
I posted a comment with questions for you and while the post says there are 9 comments (possibly your answers to my questions) I cannot get the answers to show. I tried looking at the post and clicking “9 comments” on my iPhone and iMac but neither would display the comments. If you got my questions and answered them would you mind forwarding your answer to my email? I thought you’d want to know comments aren’t displaying.
Yes, one of my plug-ins was unfortunately not playing nicely with the comments and I had to deactivate it!
Hi Paul, my only question would be if you don’t have the Munsell book how can you be sure to get the right hue of your higher chroma version? the only absolute proof you had it right would be if you exactly hit the target hue when you added the neutral to lower the chroma, which is a bit of a horse/cart situation or have I missed something?
You haven’t missed anything David, in fact that’s a very perceptive observation. Without the Munsell book you wouldn’t know, you’d have to estimate.
In this example, I was deliberately hitting a chroma far higher than I needed to demonstrate how effective bringing down chroma with a neutral is. Ordinarily, I’d aim for something near to the chroma of the target, and just make minor adjustments to the chroma as required.
Your point shows one of the great advantages of Munsell, and one of the main reasons I still use it as a regular part of my studio toolkit – if your colour isn’t right, you can find out exactly whether it’s wrong in hue, chroma or value, and by how much, using the chips. There isn’t any other way to do that.
The basic method is still very useful, even without the book, and much more reliable than hunt and peck – or worse, mixing with complements. In practice, I often don’t bracket hue these days because, having practised a fair bit with bracketing, I can get close quickly by just going directly for the colour. But doing this repeatedly over a few years is how I got to the point where I could do that.
So there are really two perspectives to view this from: One is a practice method for developing your sensitivity to colour, and another is a reliable way to hit a colour you’re struggling with.
A very helpful and well written lesson..thank you..i’m kind of scared of colour but reading your lessons inspires me to try it (although i still end up making a ton of mistakes and creating a monstrosity)..but thank you so much for your lessons..
Thanks Aakanksha – and don’t worry, we all have to start somewhere. I’d recommend starting some regular practice where you try to match some of the colours you see around you, as close as you can. That will gradually build your sensitivity to colour.
Great stuff. Please keep it coming.
I guarantee it, Ron! 🙂
Never heard about the Munsell method; until now-and I love the accuracy with which one can “nail” a colour. I will definitely want the book w/chips and learn and hopefully at some point master this technique. The way you explained is also awesome and very straight forward. I have the feeling that I will come back to this page a lot. When I watched the video how to mix a “warmer” neutral grey I noticed that Raw Umbra and Titanium White was very close to the target colour (the skin colour). Could the target colour be matched by using just 2 colours (Titanium White and Raw Umbra)? That would be a lot quicker. Hope this is not a stupid question from a beginne…Cheers
Yes, titanium white and burnt umber (I used burnt, not raw) would bring you fairly close, although I think the chroma would be a little low. In fact, there are many routes to a colour using this method, and using high chroma colours, as I did in this demonstration, is not the quickest way. I did it to show very clearly that the hue was orange, and that a colour can be effectively reduced in chroma with a neutral. So this was kind of an extreme example, to make the concepts more clear.
Thanks, I’m really glad you found it useful!
Hi Paul; Some of us are interested in printing out your instructions to be read at a later time. I am not interested in printing out comments although I read them. Is there a way for you to separate them, so we don’t waste tons of paper? In other words, just print out the instructions and illustrations from beginning to end without the comments.
Hm, I can’t think of a way I can easily do that I’m afraid. the best thing I can suggest is that you copy the page, then cut out the bits yu don’t want before printing.
Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.
Did you try the “From” option when the print form pops up? Here you can select a page range eg page 1-5
Paul. I really appreciate your lesson on the Munsell Color System. I just started a 6 weeks intensive class on the Munsell Color system with Steve Linberg and this is right on target. I am very grateful for your very instructive website that is so helpful for people like me who are trying to learn the right way of how to paint and draw. Thank you again, you have such a wonderful attitude in the way you live your life.
You’re very welcome Véronique. Steve is a great guy and I think you’ll learn a lot with him.
This is excellent!
Thanks Mike, really glad it was useful.
Hi Paul,
Munsell method of matching colors (and description of colors overall) sounds really understandable and logical but there are some real life aplication aspects that I cannot grasp.
First is the whole idea of matching colors. I suppose that you can match a collor that you have in your hand – for example a flower, or an orange, or their picture. This way, you can compare the color you have with the munsell chip and your paint. But what happens when your subject is unreachable (let say far from you), and more importantly if it’s outside of your value range? Value range of the real objects, especially outdoor ones exceeds greatly paints value range. For example one cannot match the value of a radiating source like a cloud or sky. So to represent a nature scene one should use different techniques to compress the value range of the scent into the range of the paints. And this cannot be done by just matching.
The second unclear point is – how many tubes of colour one needs to work with this method? Many painters use limited palettes, which often don’t reproduce acurately all the hues in the subject, but the results are pleasing and can be still realistic, because for the human eye value is more important than the real color.
I’m much more interested how to translate a nature scene in a limited set of colors than actually match the real ones. Most painters seems to use much simpler, even formulaic methods of color mixing, especially for shadows and highlights, than the one you describe.
Best regards!
>But what happens when your subject is unreachable (let say far from you
Just use a color checker like you would normally.
>.. and more importantly if it’s outside of your value range
Ouutside of your value range should not happen, in that case you are painting under a dim light or shadow, looking outside. Your lighting always should match the lighting of your subject
>how many tubes of colour one needs to work with this method
You have to be able to reach all saturated colors. This can be done with a limited palette eg cyan magenta yellow, plus white and black for your values
>Most painters seems to use much simpler, even formulaic methods of color mixing, especially for shadows and highlights, than the one you describe
I think the only formula is to use your eyes. This method just makes it easy to reach the target color more accurately. The usual method makes it a bit more difficult once you get very close. So it depends on your intended accuracy and preference.
I love all the great information you are sharing with us all! Is there a way to subscribe to your blog so I get notifications when you put out a new post?
Sorry if it’s on the page – I’m just not seeing it…
Thanks! Barbara
Thanks Barbara, that’s great to hear.
There’s a subscription page (that I don’t publicise very well!) here:
https://www.learning-to-see.co.uk/subscribe
HI Paul, taking up painting at 75yrs . mixing colours I find the harders. end up with mud. but I’m looking forward to trying this method.
That’s great Elaine, more power to you! Email me (paul – at – learning-to-see.co.uk) if you have any questions about it.
Hi Paul
i would like to watch more about portrait oil painting video.
it is possible for you?
with best wishes
Mahmoudreza
Hi Paul, just wanted to say that I really enjoyed this informative post and your videos. It was great to learn about the bracketing technique!
Regards, Andy
You’re welcome Andy! There are few things I’ll say this about, but bracketing really does seem almost like mixing magic sometimes, it’s so effective 🙂
Thank You Paul for this webpage!
However, I did not got email link how to paint a lemon…
Could You send it to me?
Please?
Sorry you didn’t get it Jari, check your in box though, I’ve sent it to you manually 🙂
This is the best description of color that I have ever read about. I have a few books about color and none of them describe a color as you have. Looking forward to more.
Thank you, Paul, is there an easy way to match the color in nature while plein air painting?
Thank you
Not quite in the way you can indoors I’m afraid. I think relationships become much more important outdoors. But I also believe that time spent matching colours exactly (when you can) is really good training for that.