Tell me about your grays

[Chris Saper]

Stephen Quiller's "Color Choices" is a wonderful and logical book on color theory.

He chooses primary and secondary colors based on true complements direct from the tube. For each medium of watercolor, oil and acrylic, he provides exhaustive charts, with manufacturers as the columns and colors (as well as different names manufacturers give equivalent colors) as the rows.

For example, Winsor Newton's Cad Lemon is the true complement of Holbein's Permanent Mauve; Winsor Blue is the true complement of Winsor Newton Cad Scarlet, etc.

You'll also find for example, that among the seven manufacturers he identifies for oil paints, five make a permanent violet: Winsor Newton's Winsor Violet, equivalent to Rembrandt's Permanent Red Violet, and so forth.

You can order Color Choices through Cynthia's bookstore.

In addition you can get a terrific color wheel from Stephen, although one is included in the book.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Chris,

Thanks so much for the info on Steven Quiller's book. You've sold me on it!

Alex

[Brenda Ellis]

Richard,
I wonder how you are going with your journey into grays?

I am at that point myself. I am trying various grays (or is it neutrals?); trying the opaque umber/black/white combo, the more transparent Chris Saper combos (by the way, Chris, i'm reading your book and it's great, very informative), and the mud combos. But I'm not trying the mud combos on purpose.

I am finding, as Alexandra so succinctly stated, that it depends on the effect I want and the kind of painting I am doing or what colors are in my painting. It is all a bit overwhelming, but at the same time exciting. There are so many options! I worry about getting stuck in the idea that there are right answers and wrong answers. So, I have made myself a neutral chart with colors and I have a gray scale made with black, raw umber and white. I'm finding I really have to Plan Plan Plan before I paint. This is slowing me down quite a bit right now. But eventually I think it will pay off.

Anyway, Richard, I would be interested to know what you have found out for yourself about grays and what has worked best for you.

[Richard Budig]

Anyway, Richard, I would be interested to know what you have found out for yourself about grays and what has worked best for you.


Brenda:

Ahhhh . . . what a subject

[Richard Budig]

Alexandra:

I had not seen your post until now. Thanks so much for your "succinct" comments. They really are on point. I'll take any info I can get about grays. I guess they are so puzzling for me because they are (or can be) combinations of other colors. Red is red, blue is blue, and so on, but gray -- oh my. Thanks again.

[Tom Edgerton]

Richard--

It's not a case of either/or, right/wrong....

You can gray a color back either by adding gray, or adding its complement.

To keep it simple, I think of it as follows:

If you add gray, it more gradually grays the color back. The value of the gray is a large factor in what happens here.
If you add its complement, it happens more quickly, and in a more complex--often richer--way.

From the above posts you can see that there are quite enough grays out there that you can play with.

Beyond this, I remind myself of what Friedrich Engels (1803-1882) said:

"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory."

Best--Tom

[Brenda Ellis]

Thank you, Richard. It is good to know that I'm not the only one who has had to face the "gray" issue! Thanks for sharing your experiences.