Guides

Mixing guides

Notes on colour mixing for oil painters, backed by the same pigment physics the app runs. Each one exists because the problem came up at my own easel.

4‑minute read

The Zorn palette argument is a gamut argument. Here is the gamut.

Both sides are right, and they never convince each other, because they are arguing about borders without a map.

 4‑minute read

How to mix sage green in oils (and why yours keeps going minty)

Sage is not a green lightened. It is a grey nudged towards green, and that reframing predicts most of the common failures.

 4‑minute read

Mixing order: why the phthalo goes in last, a speck at a time

The tennis-ball-of-phthalo disaster is not a colour-sense failure. It is a sequencing failure, and the rule that prevents it costs nothing.

The maps behind the guides

Palettes Limited palettes, mapped Four classic palettes with their computed mixable range. Brands Brand colour charts Eleven lines, pigment codes and strong-tinter flags. Method How the engine works Kubelka–Munk mixing and its limits.

Or skip the reading

Load the tubes you own and the app draws your palette’s range for you.

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