Jordan Schranz from Sessions Online School of Fine Art offers us these tips for keeping our artist paint colors as pure as possible.

Mix Paints as Little as Possible
When you are mixing your paint, try to keep your color as pure as possible. Don't over-mix your colors.  Use too many colors together, and your painting will begin to look over-worked and muddy. Try to find the shortest distance between two points - the least number of colors to mix - in order to capture the color that you are going for.

Use Color as a Value
Each color has its own natural value. Ultramarine Blue is obviously darker than Cadmium Yellow, for example. So instead of using white and black to lighten or darken a color, you can always mix in another color that is lighter or darker. You'll obtain the same value while retaining your color intensity level. If you can lighten or darken a color by using something other than white or black, go for it, as white will only de-saturate your color (unless that is the effect you are going for).

Straight from the Tube
Don't be afraid to use a color straight from the tube. Sometimes a color straight from the tube is just what you need. Nothing will get purer in color than a color just as it is in the tube. Just make sure that the color is the right hue, value, and temperature. Van Gogh, Matisse, and Picasso all used color straight from the tube to achieve a variety of effects.

Mix on Your Palette with a Palette Knife
When you are mixing your colors, you should try to always mix on your palette using a palette knife. This will help you keep your colors clean. Mixing on the palette allows you to compare the color you are mixing next to other colors that you have already mixed as well as all of your other colors straight from the tube. This makes it easier for you to compare. Also, use the palette knife rather than your brush for mixing. This helps keep your colors pure. You will keep your pure colors from being contaminated because you dipped your brush in one color of paint and then transferred it to another.

The palette knife is useful for mixing colors evenly, where a brush can sometimes absorb colors into itself, thus, making your mixing uneven.  Using a palette knife to mix will also lengthen the life of your brushes, as you won't be pushing them aggressively into your paint during the mixing process.  See our article on Painting & Palette Knives.

This information is an excerpt from Painting with Jordan Schranz, an online course offered by Sessions Online School of Fine Art.

Want to learn more? Interested in taking this online art class? Learn More and Register Here.