Acrylic Color Mixing: Value

Hello and welcome to MalMakes.

Today we're going to be talking
about acrylic color mixing

and value.

[music]

Just like the color wheel video,

this exercise is really good
for beginning painters.

But every painter should do it
at least once

so you can understand how all
of your paints mix together.

And also, like the last video,
this is a really good exercise

to put in your sketchbook

or any surface
you would normally paint on.

Your main paints today
are going to be white and black.

You want these to be very opaque.

So I have a titanium white

and a Mars Black
because these are very solid pigments.

But, in addition to this,
you'll want one other color.

I'm going to be using primary red,

but anything on the color wheel
should work great.

To make this easier for you,

I do suggest picking
up some painter's tape.

If you're doing this on paper,
you want to give it a test first

to make sure it won't rip your paper
when you take it off.

When you have a color
that's as bright as it can be,

it's fully saturated,
there's no neutrals mixed in,

that's called a hue.

It's basically everything
on our color wheel.

So when we have red here,
it's the brightest red we can have.

It's not lighter or darker,
or grayer or brown.

It's just plain red,
super-bright, here on my board.

Now, I'm taking that hue
and I'm changing the value.

I'm changing the lightness
or darkness of it.

I can do that really easily
with white and black.

And that's how
we're going to be doing that today.

On my board,
I'm going to draw out four rectangles,

and then we'll start
to fill in different value scales.

My tape is functioning as the lines
of my rectangles.

But if you wanted
to put the pencil down first

and then tape around the boxes,
that's also fine.

But now that I have
my four rectangles,

I'll take the first one
and the third one

and divide them up
into nine pieces.

My biggest tip for painters is
to start with your lightest color

and add small amounts
of your darker color to it.

This works whether you're doing value
or you're doing something

with yellow and, like, green.

Yellow is your lighter color,

so you want to add small amounts
of green to it until it's right.

It's a lot harder
to take a darker color

and add a light color
to it to get it where you want.

That dark color is very overwhelming
for the light color.

You need a lot of the light color

to kind of make it change
to where you want it to go.

It's a lot easier
to go the other way.

So make sure you're always starting
with your lightest color

and adding small amounts
of your dark color.

Otherwise,
you're going to be wasting paint.

Now, I'm doing two of these
in black and white

and two of these with a color.

So the top two are going to be
the black and white ones.

And we're going to do those first.

The very first one is going to be
a stepped-value scale.

Now, this is taking the entire range
of gray,

between white and black,
and breaking it into nine pieces.

I want to make sure
that I have the lightest color,

which is going to be titanium white.

And it's going to get
incrementally darker going down

till it's all the way to Mars Black,
on the right.

I did the white first
so there wasn't any black

on the paintbrush
that would make this a gray.

But now that that's done,

I want to do the Mars Black
on the opposite side.

I need to wash this
because it will become slightly gray,

at least, with a little bit
of titanium white on my brush.

[music]

The box right in the middle,
I've marked it with a star,

is 50% gray.

And with paint, you can't just take
half white and half black

and mix them together
and assume it's going to be 50% gray,

because, like I said, the darker color
is very overwhelming.

And you kind of have to go back
and forth

until you have something
that's correct.

But today, to make sure I do have
a 50% gray,

I have my color checker here.

This is something I hold up
to the camera

before I do a MalMakes video.

And then, when I edit,
I can make it look right

because these
are very specific colors

in editing to make sure
that everything else

is going to look the way
that you see it in person.

So on the color checker,
on the top here, I have--

I have white, black,
and then I have a 50% gray.

So I'm going to have this out
and I'm going to try and match

the gray that I make
with the white and black paint

to match it pretty close
to this gray here.

So if I have to,
I can add more white paint

to lighten it up a bit,
or more black paint to darken it,

until I have a 50% gray
to put in this box.

So I just have a little bit
of black paint,

compared to how much white paint
I have here.

And I'm going to mix them together
and see how it looks.

As I'm working,
I'm just going to keep comparing it

to 50% gray
until I'm happy with it.

Not everyone's going to have
a color checker,

or like Pantone cards,
but you can use your phone

to pull up an example of 50% gray.

I like working this way
with a stepped-value scale

because I have a center point.

I can kind
of know that's center.

Everything this way
will be lighter gray,

and everything this way
is going to be darker gray.

I could do it where I start
with white

and then add a little bit
of black paint,

and then more black paint,
and more black paint.

But very quickly,
I might add too much.

And then all of these
are going to look like black paint.

Or I could kind of keep
too much white paint

and not add enough black paint.

And then, by the time I get down here,
it won't be dark enough

to go to a black paint,
it'll just still be medium gray.

So I really like breaking it up
with the center point.

And what I'm going to do next

is I'm going to worry
about these three light grays.

So on my palette, I'm going to take
my 50% gray and my white

and mix up three different puddles
of paint,

using different amounts of white
and gray for all of them,

so they all look like they're a different
shade of light gray.

[music]

You can see all three
of my light grays right here.

They're very different
from each other,

and they're very different
from the white paint and the 50% gray.

Now, I did test the darker one
a little bit here

on the 50% gray that's
on the palette,

just to make sure
it was light enough

because, at first,
it seemed a little too dark,

like I had too much 50% gray.

So I just added
a little bit more white,

just to move it a little closer
to the lighter gray side.

And now I can put the lightest here,
the medium one here,

and the darkest one here.

[music]

Just like the light gray side,

I'm mixing up three
very different dark grays.

I'm starting with the 50% gray
and adding small amounts

of black paint to all of them
until I'm happy

with how different they look
from each other.

[music]

[music continues]

Personally, I find that darker paints
are a little harder to mix

because they start
to look the same.

You're like,
Well, could this one get any darker

if I add more black?

And then, how much is too much?

I don't want it to be
the same color as the Mars black.

So once I was happy with them,
I was testing them

against the 50% gray
to make sure

that it was just dark enough that you
could tell a difference.

And then I made sure
that the medium one

was darker than the lighter one.

And then I had to make sure
that these two

were definitely different colors.

So I'm going to go ahead and fill
these in, these three here

with the lightest, the medium,
and the dark.

[music]

Our next value scale is still
in black and white,

but I want to have a gradient.

It's going to be smooth

from the titanium white all the way
to the Mars black.

It's not going to have
the divisions

that the value scale above it has.

So just like before,
I am starting with the white paints.

And I'm going to paint it
across the top here.

Well, the left here.

And I'm going to paint it,
maybe, to about down here.

And I kind of naturally want to run out
of paint on the brush,

so there's not much paint
over here.

And I can always add
more white paint,

making sure I keep the paint heavy
on the left,

and just kind of naturally run out of
paint towards the middle.

Once I have a good coverage
of the white,

I'm going to switch over
to the black.

[music]

With the white on,
I need to work quickly

because it's going to dry
and I want to keep it wet.

So I'm going to switch brushes
and start with black,

and do the same thing from the right,
going left.

[music]

The trouble with acrylic
is it dries so fast

that this is a lot harder
to do than this is.

So while it does dry fast
and it makes this harder,

it also means that when it's dry,

I can go back over the top
and try again.

[music]

Moving on
to our color-value scales,

I'm doing a stepped-color scale
for the first one.

I'm doing titanium white on the left,
Mars Black on the right,

and a hue in the middle.

And a hue is the most saturated color,
remember.

So I'm going to be using
primary red.

But anything on the color wheel
would work great.

[music]

When you mix a color plus a hue,
you get a tint.

So I'm going to be putting three tints
of my red

in these three boxes.

I want a light red,
a lighter red,

and the lightest red.

And just like I was making
these three grays up here,

I'm going to make
three different piles,

with different ratios
of the white and the color,

until I have three very different tints
of red.

[music]

[music continues]

Tints of red are actually pink,

which is why pink isn't
on our color wheel.

Pink is just a tint of red.

[music]

A color plus black
is called a shade.

So I'm going to have
three different shades of red:

dark red, darker red,
and darkest red.

So just like the rest of them,

I'm going to mix up
different ratios of red and black

until I have three
very different shades.

[music]

[music continues]

To do the color version
of the gradient-value scale,

it's like doing two.

I'm going to do one
with the tints over here.

And then, after it's dry,

I'm going to do one over here
with the shades.

But I'm going to make sure
red goes a bit further

so I can make sure
that when I do the shades later,

I'll be able to blend it
and have some room

before I start getting
into the tints.

[music]

[music continues]

And now, my favorite part
is removing all the tape.

I find I have less chance
of peeling up the paint

if I put it, like, straight back
on itself, like this,

and peel down.

[music]

[music continues]

You can create value scales
with any color

and you'll see how you can start
to take your base color

and start to change it
to make it lighter or darker

based on the situation you need.

You can also start to see how you need
to affect the base color

to make it what you want.

If you want it lighter,
you need to start adding some white.

So you can start to learn how

to mess with your colors
to change their value.

There's still other ways
to change your color.

so next time,
we're going to talk about intensity.

Thank you so much for watching.

Don't forget to subscribe
so you don't miss future episodes

of Mal Makes.

And I'll see you again, here,
for another Mal Makes video.