ACRYLIC PAINTING 101: Lesson 5 Cadmium Yellow Light Chart

​Now we get to explore the magic even further. This is one of the major the practices that I love to do the most.  That is exploring paint colours and how they interact with each other.   Pure magic and so liberating.
 
Today we start with Cadmium Yellow Light as the colour we are mixing into each of the paints we are working with in this lesson.

I do work with a limited palette because I am not what artist Karin Jurick called a ‘condiments girl’.  That is a person who uses 30 or 40 or more different colours of paint.  That very idea feels stressful to me in two ways.  One in the cost and the second in trying to remember what I mixed to get that perfect colour.  Too many options would be difficult to manage for me. Thankfully ever artist is different, and we all enjoy our own way of painting.  
 
This colour chart that we are doing has only 8 colours, a warm and cool of Yellow, Red, Blue, a Green and Raw Umber.   You have a choice which Blue or Green you use. You are more than welcome to change the Cerulean Blue for Phthalo Blue (green) and to change the Permanent Green Light to a Phthalo Green (blue).  These are your charts after all. 
 
Colour Charts are my biggest TOOL that I use on repeat.  Having them as a resource helps me to save a lot of time and paint as I begin a new work. 
 
What always is interesting to me is that I can see that there are maybe 2 or 3 different ways to get to a colour I want to mix.  With this knowledge I can choose which small grouping of paints will be the best for the overall painting. 
 
You are also building a great deal confidence in your colour choosing process because you have a paint mixing strategy that works every single time.   You have created and invaluable resource out of the paint colours that you want to use. 
 
Below are a more colour charts.

The 2 handouts can be found HERE