Mixing a color scale

[Allan Rahbek]

Hi Garth,
I wonder if the irregularities in this scale is coursed by differing in light reflections from the paint. It seems illogical that these variations should occur because of the paint quality.

I agree that you don

[Garth Herrick]

Allan, I don't believe paint reflections have anything to do with the irregular intervals in the scale. What I believe these numbers do reflect is despite my most careful measuring and mixing in small batches, my proportional mixing was off target from the beginning.

As careful as you intend to be with your new color mixing scale, it is easy to be slightly off and inconsistent with proportional measurement, especially in small quantities. What you think is a 7:1 ratio may in fact be a 7.1:0.9 ratio. This example should illustrate and explain the inconsistencies in my numbers. But as long as you know what numbers you have made, you will be fine.

Garth

[Allan Rahbek]

Garth, I am going to make a mixture of Raw Umber and Ivory Black 1:2. From this I will make a scale of 20 shades by mixing with Zinc White or Titanium White.

I have to do some tests to decide how it works. Maybe the Zinc White is too weak in color intensity.

Then I will make a colorcard with these colors. In that way I will have a direct reference to my mixed color scale.

That way it will not be a problem if the scale is not perfect balanced.

Allan

[Allan Rahbek]

Well now.....

I took a chance and did the mixing with one part Raw Umber + two parts Ivory Black and mixed with different quantities of a fifty-fifty Zinc White and Titanium White.

The colors shades came out in fine steps that led me to think that the system works.

But when I afterwords painted the value scale I had to face that it was not satisfying. Taking from light to dark the values range was steep at the beginning and flattened out in the dark end, which means that the white paint don

[Allan Rahbek]

Just to show my simple loading system.

I think that the pictures talk for themselves, only that when I fill the tubes they stand up on the end.

Because the White paint that I used to the mixing did not tint sufficient enough I had to adjust some of the values. This was done by visually comparing to a color card. So now I have a tubed gray scale of 10 steps plus White and Black/Umber.

Allan

[Garth Herrick]

WOW Allan,

You are so innovative!

It looks like you have successfully accomplished tubing all the warm grays. The only thing I might suggest, is to rename your value "8" as "7.5", or something like that, because it is considerably lighter than the target swatch on the right.

Thanks for sharing this.

Garth

[Allan Rahbek]

Garth "Hawkeye"

You are right, I actually compressed the darker values, because I don

[Jan Keeling]

Originally Posted by Allan Rahbek

By the way, the tools are easy to clean and easy to make. If anybody is interested to try, you are welcome to ask how.

Allan

Allan, I hope it is all right that I brought this topic back up. I am very interested to know how you made your loading tool. I generally rinse the inside of the empty tube with a little turps or mineral spirits, hoping that will make the paint slide down more easily. Then I use a palette knife to scoop the paint mixture into the tube. It is pretty messy. How did you make your filling tool?

Jan