Online color mixer - Mix Colors & Get Recipes - Trycolors.com

https://trycolors.com/

I wish I know about this in art school. We had to make our own color charts and figure things out for ourselves.

The pro version requires a sign-up and the unlimited version is paid. There are still lots of good free featuress to use.

26 points · 24 comments · view on lemmy.world

24 Comments

merde@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 19d (18 replies)

subtractive color mixing on an additive colour interface?

Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 19d (12 replies)

With cheap crappy pigments 😁

Wren@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 19d (11 replies)

Are you thinking of tri-color or tri-art? As far as I know this isn't associated with them.

Also, most pigments are standard across paints, but labelling might be different. Mars black, orange and red will always be iron oxides no matter which company you go with. It's the amount of pigment and quality/ratios of the other ingredients that affect the quality.

Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 19d (6 replies)

What? No.

And tri color, have never heard of that, what is it?

I paint in oil and the thing is to use mono pigments if you can, to not get muddy colors when you mix 2-3 together, because if you mix 3 colors who are already made with 3 pigments each, you'll get this fine ugly brownish color whatever you do!

My reds are cadmium, lake pigments and also iron oxide, there are loads of other reds that are not iron oxides too.

Wren@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 19d (5 replies)

I was referring to mars red and mars orange, which are all iron oxides.

I wasn't aware lake pigments were still used in commercial paints since they're all fugitive, and many colours have been synthesized with more colourfast analogues. Unless you're getting specialty or small batch products like cochineal and madder? Do you buy the pigments or is the paint already mixed?

Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 18d (4 replies)

The very opaque reds seem to be iron oxide pr101, but there are also earth tones like yellow ochre that's orange sometimes, or for example aureoline, and more who are made with other pigments.

There are loads of "lake" pigments, but I guess you're thinking about Alizarin Crimson in its old format? BTW "lake" is just the technique with how you transform a dye to a pigment, so the light fasteners depend on the dye. Madder lake is Fabulous though...

I like good paint so I don't do it myself 😄, I have been toying with trying though, there is a nice mud where I'm bathing that could make an interesting sienna/ochre paint ...

What do you paint?

Wren@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 18d (3 replies)

I know all about lakes, I make and sell watercolours I make from lake pigments I extract myself. It's a finicky process since every pigment has it's own weird thing, like how cranberries only work for me when I soak them in 99% ethanol instead of water. I scrape up ochres from the hillsides and make a couple iron oxides, too. Highly recommend it, they make great pigments. I have a cheap rock tumbler I run with steel balls to pulverize the rocks down to a fine powder.

Thing is, lakes are made from organics which, by their nature, dull over time. Sometimes that's over tens of years so no big deal, but it's part of why restoring old paintings is such a specialized profession.

I paint in acrylics and watercolours, only touched oils twice in my life.

Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 18d

Impressive. Sorry to spread my meager and wrong information. The more you learn...

So all those modern lake are not trustworthy? Or maybe their name doesn't reflect the process any more?

Or maybe watercolor is more subject to UV?

Any ideas what the minimum I'd need to grind some sludge I bring home would be?

Fascinating stuff.

nocturne@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 19d (3 replies)

Having worked with, and sold, paints for wargame (Warhammer and the like) miniatures for many years, even if the pigments are made from the same sources, the size of the pigment makes a huge difference in the quality of the paint.

Wren@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 19d (2 replies)

True, there are many factors. The same grain of pigments won't work best for all varieties of paint, and even the methods of creating a pigment can affect the outcome.

I make almost all my own paints, down to grinding lapis lazuli for authentic frangelico.

nocturne@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 19d (1 reply)

My son tried using some of his old (expensive) miniature paints to work on a canvas and was very disappointed by the outcome.

Wren@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 19d

Oh no. At least he learned something about paints.

Wren@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 19d (4 replies)

Subtractive colour mixing is a good skill to have if you want more expensive looking pigments on a shity pigment budget. Some paint prices are downright obnoxious.

Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 19d (3 replies)

All physical paint mixing is subtractive (oilpaint, acrylics, spray paint, colored pens,...). It's just how it works, every color blocks some wavelengths.

A computer screen is additive mixing.

Wren@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 19d (2 replies)

So it's a good skill to have.

Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 19d (1 reply)

Ha ha yeah, fair :-)

I saw too late in another comment that you know more than I thought at a first glance, my apologies.

Wren@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 19d

No worries. It is an art community, after all. Lots of knowledgeable people here.

quinacridone@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 19d

Looks interesting, I really like playing with colour and reading about colour theory

Nothing beats mixing your own colours and then wondering 'what the fuck?'

When I was trying to mix a value scale of yellow using black and after a point it always started turning green. I thought I was doing something wrong 😆

I highly recommend Stephen Quillers books on colour, particularly how he neutralises complementary colours. My only gripe is that he hardly ever uses the pigment codes

certified_expert@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 19d (3 replies)

With no callibrated screens, that's not quite precise

Wren@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 19d (2 replies)

True, but art will always look different anyway, unless it's always under diffused, white light.

It's a good baseline because it shows how pigments don't always mix the way you would expect them too based on a colour wheel. It does a good job of showing of showing how some yellows can wash out other colours in even mixtures, or how some blues make more of a brown when mixed with yellow or red, as opposed to a green or purple.

nocturne@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 19d (1 reply)

art will always look different anyway, unless it's always under diffused, white light.

The same diffused, white light, that is the same brightness, and same distance. But close enough works for most things.

Wren@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 19d

An apt addendum.