Whenever picking out secondary colors (Oranges, Purples, and Greens) you may wonder why one needs to buy them at all. Can’t all those colors be mixed from primary colors? For example, can’t red and blue be mixed to create a purple? The short answer is yes, but here I want to give some examples of why any traditional artist might want to mix colors and why they might want to pick out a single pigment secondary color. Both have their advantages and uses.
First things first; cost vs time. It saves money to mix colors instead of buying them. Getting higher chroma primary colors and mixing them with each other and neutrals are a great place to start from. There is a tradeoff for time in this case as buying already potted secondary colors saves time from mixing but does cost more.
Mixing is great for learning how to push colors towards one hue or another. For example, if you mix a green with a #127 Cerulean Blue Hue and #123 Cadmium Yellow Light, you can push that green into a more yellow or blue direction depending on what you need for your piece. Doing this over time will teach your eye how to move colors in any direction.
The only exception to pushing and pulling color hue is not being able to create a high chroma secondary. When two colors are mixed, the overall chroma decreases from the original colors. For instance, when mixing #145 Cadmium Red Light and #127 Cerulean Blue you would expect a nice purple result. While a decent purple is achieved, the chroma found in the pigment of #186 Medium Violet, is more vibrant and what we expect to see from a purple. In comparison, the mixing result between the #145 Cadmium Red Light and #127 Cerulean Blue looks almost brown.
Here are a few examples of how this might play out with various color mixtures for secondary colors vs the secondary color straight from the container. The colors used above are as follows for reference:
#127 Cerulean Blue #145 Cadmium Red Light
#122 Ultramarine Blue #187 Pyrrole Red
#186 Medium Violet (Purple)
#145 Cadmium Red Light #123 Cadmium Yellow Light
#187 Pyrrole Red #102 Cadmium Yellow Medium
#110 Organic Orange
#127 Cerulean Blue #102 Cadmium Yellow Medium
#122 Ultramarine Blue #123 Cadmium Yellow Light
This is good to know ahead of time if you want to create a limited palette or need a color that is going to “pop” against the rest of your colors by having a higher chroma. This also helps you know where you can spend more on some pigments than others. For example, you may be satisfied with any green you can mix between your available pigments but want a specific purple pigment to tone the rest of your painting that you can’t mix.
Creative Exercise: Create a color range chart of all the colors you can make with your available paints. From there you might recognize where you might want to grab some specific secondary colors!
In conclusion, there are advantages to both mixing and securing the individual secondary color. With a little base knowledge, you can better make decisions to help create the perfect color selection for your work!