Thursday, October 4, 2007

5B6/10

After Neal's excellent advise and finally receiving a good phthalo blue and phthalo green, I decided to revisit those hues on my wheel. I did several of them over. The greener shade of phthlo green really makes a difference, however...

...the 5B6/10 is just giving me fits! I've tried just about everything and the chroma just won't go high/clean enough. Is this the one that needs the genuine manganese? or those nano whites? I've tried Titanium and Zinc - please help!

(I'd hate to have an open spot on the wheel or fall back to the 5B4/10 that I used initially.)

8 comments:

Rich said...

Nano-whites aren't going to raise the chroma. I think that's a figment of RH's imagination. Some of those high-chroma spots are killers. I was having a hard time hitting 7.5G 8/4 today, finally got it with Cad GR.

nystudios said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
nystudios said...

Rich, I've got to agree and disagree with you. It has been my experience that they do really help try to keep the chroma high, but you are right they aren't going to give you any chroma that you are lacking.

When I did my color wheel a long time ago before Graydon had really developed a method for me to follow, I went through like 5 tubes of paint trying to get that blue. Or was it 10B, I don't remember. I didn't write down my mixes...dumb. But, manganese blue (genuine) was what finally worked. But, you can only (as far as I know) get it from OH.

I don't know if I made a believer of Graydon (or anyone else at the color course) but I swear I hit it. I don't remember what the exact mixes were, but the only blues that I used were Ultramarine by I don't remember SP/WN/Gamblin, pthalo by WN, Manganese by OH, Cobalt Turq. and Turq. blue by Holbein.

Don't say anything about the Gamblin...it was a gift. "If you paint with Gamblin-You are."

An important thing to remember though is that the chips are actually made with pigments. So there exists a pigment or a pigment mix out there that will hit it. You just need to find it, and hopefully they make it into an oil paint.

nystudios said...

Oh also, it really doesn't matter which chip you use to represent the highest chroma. A value 4 is just as valid as a 6. As Graydon told me, "Just use the one that represents that color best to your mind. If you have the choice between a darker or lighter red the lighter will probably seem most appropriate, if two blues go with the dark as that will feel more right. In the case of the 5B I would probably go for Value 5 since you have three.

marsha said...

Thanks so much Neal!

I now have an entire palette full of blue mixtures and some are very close - especially when the chip is placed next to them, but when placed directly on the chip, they are too gray, too dark or too light...which means they are all lower in chroma than that chip.

I've used nearly a whole tube of Vasari Manganese blue (doesn't say genuine, but it's certainly better than the WN Hue. Will have to get the OH eventually. I may try a turquoise phthalo I found last night - might as well try everything- and then I'll probably chose to do 5B5/10 instead!

I'm very grateful for your precise feedback on this project. I've redone most all of my chips and the result is much more accurate.I'm beginning to see the big picture with this pigment file.

jeff said...

I have a question, why did you use a whole tube of Vasari Manganese blue?

That's a lot of paint and at $41 a pop that's kind of expensive to try to reach a high chroma blue.

Is there not a better way to mix without using so much paint.

graydon said...

We used OH Manganese at the Color class in Boston. I still could not get the chroma high enough, although it was better than the pthalo blue for that hue. I think Neal was drinking that night when he hit it : ). But keep trying. We should be able to conquer this.

nystudios said...

Whah??? Whah makkes u sae thatt? Imm perffectlly fiin fofficer.