MAKING YOUR OWN COLOUR WHEEL

Materials required - to make your own colour wheel and practice mixing secondaries, tertiaries, neutrals and greys : 

- a rip-off palette, (or a very large white palette, , or some disposable "go-between" plastic, cut from the roll, attach to carboard).

- an empty colour wheel template (or you Colour Workbook). Undiluted acrylic oigment or coloured pencils are fine directly in the book. use medium specific paper for watercolours or oils and make your own colour bible to keep for reference

- a few small flat or filbert brushes, 

- two jars of clean water (for acrylic or watercolours)

paper towel or rags

solvent (if you are using oil paints to do your wheel). We recommend Artisan water-miscible oils from Winsor and Newton, water wash-up is so much better that using noxious solvents.

titanium white, primary yellow (like cadmium yellow light or pale), primary blue (like phthalo red shade + a little white), primary red( a deep rosy red like PV19, PR 176 or PR 122 ( quinacridone magenta, the dark pinky one or Alizarine crimson. Try to pick a colour that resembles the magenta of process ink. Even though you may have secondary and tertiary colours amongst your tubes and pots, try to do your wheel first with just these primaries and white (tinting with a little white can help keep an even opaque look around the wheel, while you are learning, and making your secondaries and tertiaries teaches you exactly what they are and who their complementary partners are.)

You will see many variations in colour wheel teachings everywhere, just fixate on finding out which are your primary 3, how to make all secondaries and tertiaries with them, and which is a great complimentary partner for each to make rich greys. After that, learning and evolving some harmonious schemes of your own will be very enjoyable and rewarding.

If you have the Colour Workbook, follow the black section now and step by step you will create your own strings and wheels. There are a few different wheel designs to try out.

PRINTABLES

* Simple 12 sector Triadic Wheel Template

* Pigment Mapping Wheel Templates

Primaries: Which red, which blue, which yellow??  

Magenta - try to pick a dark transparent magenta primary red first (unless you have the budget for many variations

of hues) because you can then tint it for light values, glaze transparently(not easy with an opaque pigment)

and mix secondaries and tertiaries with it.

Choose the one with the least bias towards violet or orange. eg. PV 19, PR 176 and PR 122 both have reds along a spectrum from red-orange through to magenta on to red-violet but some Paint manufacturers offer the pinkier undertoned one, with minimal bias either way. Look for that one.

Blue - you could actually choose any yellow, magenta, or blue as your primaries as long as you know how to create a mixing partner for them that gives a clean chromatic grey. We now recommend (for those just starting out) to get Pthalo blue green shade (Pb15:3) and Ultramarine (Pb29), a cool bias and a warm bias(dark versions so you have more tonal options), add mix them together(1 part Phthalo Blue to 6 parts Ultramarine) for the primary (we say this not as the ideal way, but as the way to get more bang for your buck with your first 6 pigments. If you have a great budget for art materials, a Red shade Phthalo would make a good dark primary blue, cerulean is light in mass tone, somewhat green biased, but makes a nice primary, cobalt mostly has a violet bias but if you get it’s orange sorted as a partner it could also be your own chosen primary blue.

Yellow - Same as for red and blue, most yellows can be used as your primary one as long as you find its 'shadow partner violet which will vary according to the bias of the yellow. We use Cadmium Yellow light simply because it doesn’t have much bias towards orange or green.

Choosing your primary pigments (if you have the Workbook, several pages in text-book section describe someoptions with common brands)