Color Mixing with Acrylics – Technique for Matching a Color

About the Artist

I’m Will Kemp, I’m an award-winning professional artist and teacher.

Prior to painting full time I’ve worked in Museums, taught in schools, set up and ran my own gallery for 5 years and have taught hundreds of people to paint and draw.

I’ve studied Classical atelier techniques in Italy alongside conceptual art at the Tate Gallery, London.

I’ve painted in watercolours, acrylics and oils and my styles have ranged from abstract; impressionistic to realistic portraiture in order to realise my own personal style.

I’ll teach you to become selective with composition, demystify colour mixing, achieve perfect perspective, and see the benefits of dramatic use of contra
st.

I’m looking forward to you joining me on your creative journey of discovery

I really hope you enjoy this free video from Will.  Will has more great lessons and resources on his website. I highly recommend that you visit today.

Here is the link:

www.willkempartschool.com

Be sure to check out his Art Courses as well.  These can be accessed from the navigation menu on top of his site.  From there, for a very reasonable fee, you can get instant access to some of his more in depth courses.  Money well spent!

Color Mixing with Acrylics – Technique for Matching a Color

In the short video below, Will Kemp will explain and demonstrate his technique for matching colors, specifically the color orange.

If you are looking for a more in depth study on mixing colors using Acrylic Paint, then you should definitely consider investing in Wills course on color mixing.  It’s a downloadable course that consists of 7 videos with over 4 hours of expert tuition.  Click the banner below to learn more or follow this link.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNnlz_4xJD0

(Video transcript provided below)

So here I’m going to try and match this colour here, this yellowy orange. So when you look at the color wheel you have to try and see which color on the color wheel is closest to that colour. This one is a yellowy orange. So I’m going to start with a yellow. So i’ll just grab a bit of the yellow.

Then I start to analyze the color to see which way it’s going to go. Well it’s obviously going to go toward orange here. When I hold that next to it, it is way too bright.

In terms of getting its hue initially that is the first thing we’ll look into. I want to add a little bit more red to it. So when your mixing colours, yellow isn’t very strong in terms of its tinting strength, where as reds and blues are a lot stronger.

So we just start to mix that one together. Ok now I can hold it up and then you look at the value of it and how light or how dark. This is still a lot lighter than this colour here that we are after. So I can still add a little bit more of the red to it. Because red is darker in value than the yellow.

If you take a black and white picture of the three you would see the red would be a lot darker.   I’m squinting my eyes. I’m trying to get it so there isn’t a jump  when you hold it over it. You squint your eyes at it. You try and get it so that this and this merge in together so that there just one.

Now I know that it’s not the ideal value yet. It’s not the ideal  tone.  It’s still a bit too light, but it’s a lot closer than where we were  to start with,  just with this yellow.

So now we look at the intensity, the saturation of it and I can say,”ok this is still way too bright.” So I am going to add a bit of it’s compliment, the blue to it. So again, I’m just going to add a tiny amount. See how it starts to get in and it’s green. You’ve got to be brave and kinda keep on mixing.

Now I’m looking and thinking it’s still a bit too greeny. So I’m going to add a bit more of the red. Ok now that’s looking pretty close. Now when you are checking colors, it’s always worth putting a little swatch next to it. What I usually do is use a scrap paper, and then what happens with acrylics is that it dries off. It dries darker. So actually when I look at these two next to each other, I can see that it is going to dry a little too dark.  It needs a little bit more of the yellow. So you can just grab a little bit more of the yellow. You notice how I grabbed a lot more of the yellow than I did of the blue to lighten it?  This is because yellow isn’t as strong. Ok that is looking pretty good.    This is Will Kemp from Will Kemp Art School