Whitaker Green

Steven Sweeney · 10-06-2005, 12:26 PM

The Whitaker has stated elsewhere on this Forum (if my brain's depleted ROM capacity is still returning accurate data) that he can pretty much use whatever paints are available to mix any pigment he needs. I've recently watched demonstrations by extraordinary artists who had reduced their palettes to black, white, and three primaries.

We've looked into this before on the Forum, long ago, but personalities got in the way of instruction. This is a good reminder that we need to consider the matter anew, to gather some insights into using available, limited pigments to mix an amazing array of color of the desired hues, intensities, and values. Once you start using black and white to create blues, or black and yellow to create greens, you're not only hooked, you're transformed.

Lacey Lewis · 10-06-2005, 02:57 PM

I see.

I must admit that part of the reason for my posting has to do with greens specifically. I really am not fond of any greens that I have made from blue and yellow, and have not used one made that way in about a year.

The past several months, I have been exploring new pigments. I started off at first with white, black, and a warm and cool of each primary. Then I added some earth colors and was hooked. Now I am exploring more secondary colors and have bought a few tubed greens, a couple purples, and one orange.

The short discussion in this thread, and my recent encounters with the new colors I've been trying on my palette, have lead me to the conclusion that I can trust my experience, my gut, and my eye to arrive at an appropriate color regardless of the hues that I begin with.

I love color! Thanks for all the input and for the humor.

Debra Norton · 10-06-2005, 09:20 PM

Lacey, have you tried naples yellow and ivory black? They make a nice greeny color and if you use more black it goes to the bluish side. I love playing with color too. I made a bunch of color mixing charts with the palette we use here at school and remember being amazed at the colors I came up with. It's great fun!

Richard Budig · 10-16-2005, 07:32 PM

Lacey:

A guy named Jose Parramon wrote a book called The Big Book Of Oil Color in which he outlines some amazing colors you can make using only Prussian blue, cad yellow medium, and alizarin Crimson and white. That's it.

I made every color he had in his book. It was easy, and I learned a heck of a lot about color. When you think about it, these three colors come close to cyan, magenta and yellow. The range and number of colors you can make from these three pigments is astounding.

You can find this book on some of the used book sites, if you're interested. Abebooks, ebooks, bookfinder, etc. Even Amazon has a used book section.

A really simple and soft green can be made from viridian, ivory black and white, with a tot of raw umber to neutralize the blue of the ivory black.

Lacey Lewis · 10-17-2005, 07:18 PM

Thanks, Debra and Richard! I will try your suggestions. And thanks for the resources!

William Whitaker · 11-01-2005, 12:26 AM

What a wonderful bunch of posts. All of you said it better than I can.

Play around with your colors. See what they do. The goal is to get to the point where you can mix any color you like without thinking.

Garth Herrick · 11-02-2005, 12:51 AM

Lacey,

At first I thought you might be interested in painting your studio wall with the same color, as I did. The paint can be formulated by Benjamin Moore according to the formula posted by Michael Georges in this thread:

http://forum.portraitartist.com/showthread.php?t=4393

Benjamin Moore & Co.
319-3B

UTC Gallon Formula
OY 3x20.50
BK 2x15.00
OG 0x17.00
GY 0x10.75

It's a fine color for a studio backdrop, and as far as I know it is the same wall paint in use in several well known artist's studios. As I said, I have this color on my walls. I think Mr. Whitaker does too.

For whatever it is worth as far as formulas go, here is the formula in Photoshop! I scanned the wall color with my Gretag-MacBeth Eye-One color spectrometer.

Now you have the Formula!

Garth

Lacey Lewis · 11-02-2005, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by William Whitaker

What a wonderful bunch of posts. All of you said it better than I can.

Play around with your colors. See what they do. The goal is to get to the point where you can mix any color you like without thinking.

Ahh... Someday! I admit, I do need to move the paint around the palette a bit more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garth Herrick

At first I thought you might be interested in painting your studio wall with the same color, as I did.

The day I get a studio, or just a room to call my own, it will be painted this color or possibly the "mesa grey" I've seen in discussion on this forum as well.

Quote:

I scanned the wall color with my Gretag-MacBeth Eye-One color spectrometer.

LOL! I'm going to be giggling for quite a while over that one.

Seriously, though, thanks for going through all the trouble! Based on that, it looks like I could try out yellow ochre and black.