COLOUR MIXING TOOL - WHAT FUN!

Please forgive me today folks, I try to write a thoughtful blog post on a Monday but this week I am up to my eyebrows preparing for my Open Studio, and am pushed for time.

So today I am going to simply point you at the JACKSONS website, where you can have a lot of fun playing with an on-line mixing colours tool!

Here is the basic tool on the page, but actually, it is MUCH more enjoyable to visit the site and play with it yourself!  See the tabs which say "Image" and "numeric"? It's fun to try those too.

and here is a screen shot of a panel where I tried a mix... hit the green + sign and look -  the cap opens as if you were squeezing out the paint!  So cool! If you study the pic below you can see I used 83% magenta, and 17% permanent green light, and got a gorgeous rich dark.  They even give you tints of that dark alongside it, what you would get by adding white or black.  

GOLDEN ACRYLICS are the people who have produced this colour mixer.  Obviously the colour choices are from the Golden Acrylic range, but you can still learn a lot if you are working with other materials.

Here is what Jackson's say:

• Golden Acrylics have developed a free, fun, online tool to help artists with colour mixing.

• Expand your palette through colour exploration and teach yourself about colour mixing without wasting paint.

• With the Virtual Colour Mixer you can select up to three Golden Acrylic colours and mix them with sliders to adjust the proportion of each while watching your new colour change! A recipe for your new colour appears that you can save, print or email. You can also upload a photo to match colours or create paint colours that match web colours. The program accounts for the physical characteristics within the Golden Acrylics ranges by choosing Fluid, Open or Heavy Body.

• Click the ‘Help?’ to get a simple overlay with quick instructions to explain it all clearly.

As Golden say:
“Through exploration and play, artists can mix countless paint colors, developing a feel for the correct proportions and the best colors to use. Photos can be uploaded to match colors and create palettes. The program accounts for the physical characteristics within GOLDEN colors so artists can get closer to the colors they want faster than ever before, saving time, frustration and paint! Artists who try this intuitive tool experience success, delight and inspiration.”

It works on any browser, Mac, PC, iPad or Android. The interface was designed to work on touch screens so artists can use it on tablets right at their canvas. Although the nature of coloured light and coloured paint are different and your individual monitor setting adds another variable, it is still a useful tool. Give it a try!

http://jacksonsart.com/colourmixer