Acrylic Painting 4: Learning How To Mix Paint With A Robin Red Breast

I was determined to learn how to get better at mixing paint so I found the following articles on the internet and read through them:

 

What I learned from these articles is that you need to think about the following when you’re trying to mix paint to match a specific a specific colour:

  1. Value
  2. Hue
  3. Saturation

Some people first try to match the value, then the hue and saturation.  Others try to match the hue first and then the value and then the saturation.

Having said all this I reckon the secret weapon to mixing paint is …

… patience.

There is no secret weapon – you just gotta keep working at it until you’ve got the colour you want.

So here’s my attempt at mixing paint …

This is the reference image:

And here’s my attempt:

HimleyRobin2 HimleyRobin3 HimleyRobin4 HimleyRobin5

I’m a bit disappointed with the lack of light and shadow on this, I feel I could have done more to describe the 3D form here.

I think for the next painting I will do an underpainting to establish the light and shadow and then glaze colour over the top.  I think the acrylic paint I’m using has enough transparency for this to work well.

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