Mixing a color scale

[Allan Rahbek]

Well now.....

I took a chance and did the mixing with one part Raw Umber + two parts Ivory Black and mixed with different quantities of a fifty-fifty Zinc White and Titanium White.

The colors shades came out in fine steps that led me to think that the system works.

But when I afterwords painted the value scale I had to face that it was not satisfying. Taking from light to dark the values range was steep at the beginning and flattened out in the dark end, which means that the white paint don

[Allan Rahbek]

Just to show my simple loading system.

I think that the pictures talk for themselves, only that when I fill the tubes they stand up on the end.

Because the White paint that I used to the mixing did not tint sufficient enough I had to adjust some of the values. This was done by visually comparing to a color card. So now I have a tubed gray scale of 10 steps plus White and Black/Umber.

Allan

[Garth Herrick]

WOW Allan,

You are so innovative!

It looks like you have successfully accomplished tubing all the warm grays. The only thing I might suggest, is to rename your value "8" as "7.5", or something like that, because it is considerably lighter than the target swatch on the right.

Thanks for sharing this.

Garth

[Allan Rahbek]

Garth "Hawkeye"

You are right, I actually compressed the darker values, because I don

[Jan Keeling]

Originally Posted by Allan Rahbek

By the way, the tools are easy to clean and easy to make. If anybody is interested to try, you are welcome to ask how.

Allan

Allan, I hope it is all right that I brought this topic back up. I am very interested to know how you made your loading tool. I generally rinse the inside of the empty tube with a little turps or mineral spirits, hoping that will make the paint slide down more easily. Then I use a palette knife to scoop the paint mixture into the tube. It is pretty messy. How did you make your filling tool?

Jan

[Allan Rahbek]

Hi Jan,

You will need some tools from a plummer / tinker to cut the metal. Maybe you can borrow some.

I made the loading tray out of a 8 X 5" piece of copper. Folded it over a round wooden stick that had a slightly smaller diameter than the 125 ml empty tin tubes that I was going to use. After folding it I cut of the exceding copper( that was used for handels when folding) and the tray is now 2" that is curved X 8" long. From one of the "handles" I made the spoon to shuff off the paint.

That is how I did, but I think it would be easier to make it from a Aluminium pipe 8" long. This can be cut in two halves with a metal saw and you don

[Jan Keeling]

Thanks so much, Allan! I can't wait! This will make tubing so much more pleasant...