From: Christopher Hudert <heyhoot-AT-mindspring.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:37:42 -0400
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] mixing paint



On Mar 26, 2010, at 10:21 AM, Robert Rogers wrote:

> Mathieu,
>
> A while ago, you mentioned that it is not necessarily true that all 
> colors can be derived from mixing white, black, yellow, blue and red.  
> What do you know that my elementary school art teacher did not?
>
> Robert Rogers

Hi Robert,

   While I don't know a huge amount about mixing colors (by eye), I do 
know a bit about paint. A few things (especially for beginners, though 
I know Robert is not a beginner) to remember about paint...

Paint is basically some sort of pigment suspended in some sort of 
flowing binder.
The binder determines what the paint will stick to, what kind of finish 
(glossy, flat, or somewhere between) you get, and durability. (Not to 
mention what conditions it should be used under, clean up, etc.)
Pigment determines what wave lengths of light are absorbed and what 
ones are bounced back, giving us the perception of its color.
Pigment will also determine the durability of the color (as opposed to 
the durability of the finish). Because some pigments are broken down by 
light, they can fade over time. Additionally, different colors absorb 
light differently so the fading varies with that too.
Different binders and different pigments sometimes don't play well 
together. This may have to do with the thing used as pigment as well as 
the binder it is suspended in. The obvious examples are oil and water 
base binders, but sometimes the pigments seem to stay a bit separate 
too, even when the binders are of the same type - or should I say 
class. I know in automotive paints some manufacturers use the 
incompatibility to advantage to create special effect paint finishes.
Paints by the same manufacturer are more likely to mix than paints from 
different manufacturers.
While it is often possible to get any color from the 5 primaries (red, 
yellow, blue, black, white) sometimes it is more practical to start 
with a color base close to what you want and tint it (as they do in 
most paint stores now days) to the color you want.
Sometimes, because of pigments, the only way to get the color you want 
is by mixing a combination of primary and secondary (or further) 
colors.
Dark colors, particularly blacks and blues, are often made up of a 
variety of pigments and will sometimes appear differently under 
different light. (That's why your 'puppet blacks' will sometimes look 
so different on stage sometimes.) This is true of light colors too, but 
it is less noticeable.
Primers are basically a heavy filler (in a range of coarseness) in a 
binder that fills in open pores of the surface to be painted so that 
less paint is absorbed and it sits on the surface where it is intended 
to reflect that light. What a lot of people forget though is that the 
color of the primer often serves as a base coat and will partially 
determine the depth of the surface color (as the base coat is reflected 
through the miniscule spaces between the pigment elements of the top 
coats).

Much of the same can be said of dyes, except for the binder parts.

So, Mathieu can explain more what he was talking about, but I hope this 
gives an understanding of how and why paints work certain ways. And it 
is good to remember that colors (not just paints) work differently when 
layered on a surface than they do when mixed then applied.

Christopher

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