It is very important to organize your painting palette before you start to paint. There are two key things you should do. First, organize the color pigments systematically around the painting palette. A good system is to arrange the hues in a spectral order. Second, organize your mixing areas logically. Reserve areas on your painting palette for dark colors, light colors, and grays. Drag your colors into the mixing area. Do not pick up small amounts of color and create lots of small color mixing areas.

In this course unit

Understanding the different types and categories of pigments helps you decide which pigments to use and when. It is also useful to know the specific characteristics of individual pigments to help you achieve a particular effect you may be looking for. This unit covers everything I know to date about pigments as well as many useful painting palettes that will help you learn and use color theory. You will learn:

• the differences between, and when to use, dark transparent stains, non-staining dark pigments, opaque pigments such as the Cadmiums and Cobalts, earth pigments, and neutral pigments
• transparent pigments that are good for modifying your paintings with glazes
• how to make warm and cool grays for a monochrome painting
• six palettes that will help you learn color theory more quickly
• the minimum number of colors you need for accurate color mixing
• two simple three-color palettes for traveling light and simplifying color mixing
• the limited painting palette used by old masters such as John Singer Sargent
• three complementary painting palettes to help you learn how to use complements to improve your color harmonies
• how to use a knowledge of pigment biases to mix vivid color
• best strategies for organizing your palette and mixing colors to get them to look more harmonious

Total number of assignments: 9

Total number of pages: 42