Are your vibrant colors dull?

Here is a painting tip on how to keep your vibrant colors brilliant.

Do you struggle with keeping you vibrant colors from becoming dull? I often did when I first started painting, but then I gradually realized what it was that  was making my colors loose their brilliance.

The secret to keeping them from being dull is to never use any color that has the third primary color in it.



For example, suppose you are painting some flowers that are just the most vibrant blue violet you have ever seen.  The complementary color to blue/ violet is yellow/orange.  The blue/violet is made up of red and blue as their two primary colors.  The yellow/orange is made up of red and yellow as its primary colors.  Yellow, as the third primary color in the mix, will result in dulling down your blue violet.

Of course you want to take advantage of this in areas where you want to make the areas darker.  Using the yellow/orange will enable you to create deep and shallow shadows which will give the flowers shape.

Keeping in mind that the third primary color will always dull the mixture of the two other primary colors, you can use this to your advantage no matter what colors you are using.

For more information on color mixing go to my website at www.filarecki.com/mixing-colors.html