Some more thoughts on colour mixing

There is a problem with using the terms cool colours and warm colours when explaining colour mixing. Some people consider a blue that leans towards red a warm blue and a blue that leans towards green a cool blue. I am not sure why they do so, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Blue is considered a cool colour. If you mix in a warm colour like red, it gets warmer. If you mix in another cool colour like green it doesn’t get warmer, but stays cool.

The good thing is that these labels aren’t important when deciding what colours to mix to get a certain effect. You just have to have a look at the colour wheel. Mixing colours that are far away from each other results in dull, muddy colours. Mixing colours that are close together results in brilliant colours. Both effects can be just what you want. Some people mix their browns and greys by mixing complementary colours.

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Sketch & Note

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