Here, at Lupton Street Studios, when we do a painting session, whether with kids or adults, we always start with the same five colours.
Yellow, blue and red, as you probably know, are the primary colours. Black and white are not considered colours but they allow us to create all kinds of variations in our palette.
Why only these five hues? Well, I myself as a painter discovered two universal truths about colour…
The first one was that if I wanted to own a tube of every colour that exists, it would cost me horrible amounts of money. It would also take way too much space in my craft room. I mean, I love shopping at my local Arts and Crafts store. But there’s a limit to the amount of dollars I’m able to shell out on that yummy bran new shade of blue…
This hard truth led me to the second discovery. I decided that if I wasn’t gonna buy every different colour available, I had to try and recreate them. I poured some of my trusted basic primary colours unto a plate, and started trying all kinds of mixes and combinations.
Cue the music of angels singing in heaven as a ray of light shines down on my head: a portal of creative expression opened wide in front of my eyes. I was mixing all kinds of pinks, purples or greens, some light, some dark, some very bright and peppy, some subdued and delicate… There was simply no limit to what you could come up with.
This is why I rarely give pre-mixed colours in my painting events. I like to give a chance to every participant to discover that it does not matter if you don’t come up with the exact same shade of blue as me. What matters is that you discover that YOU are in control, and you can create the mix that pleases you the most!
Check this video to get just a glimpse of the adventure of mixing colours. You will also discover that terms we tend to use interchangeably like hue, tint, shade or tone, actually have very different meanings! Have you ever explored colours in this way? I’m challenging you to try it!
