I haven't made a painting yet with mark's method, but i have been mixing colors by cutting swatches out of magazines and trying to mix that color. I found that i have used pthalo blue and cadmium red quite a bit more than i thought i would (even if the color wasn't straight blue). I think mark said those colors are not used a lot. Would it be because the colors in a magazine are brighter or more intense because the are mean't to stand out more?
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I use phthalo once in a blue moon. The natural tendency is to amp colours up to make it brighter and more attractive. However, there is then little room to put intensity where it belongs or in the focal area.
White is overused too in value mixing. The power colours have a place but it is a smaller place than many artists use Values quickly get out of control and any sense of a natural colour balance disappears.
If you paint from life you will allow the eye to break the reliance on TV, computer monitors and magazines to judge what is natural and realistic.
Denis
When I try to match colors that are from life the basic palette is enough except for some flowers, some articles of clothing, and man made things like signs and autos. However, when I use photos the colors are always harder to match and I find myself turning to phthalo blue or green, and even some others.
I am no real artist, but I just took a quick workshop on plein air outdoor painting and the instructor includes a small tube of pthalo green-blue to use in small amounts mixed in with many other colors. It creates a wonderful dark and lifts the brightness of greens which is important on very sunny summer afternoons.
So for now, I would encourage you to commit to Mark's style for a year or maybe 6-8 paintings before introducing intense colors. As others have said, the mistake we often make in our age of electronics is to intensify colors rather than stick to realism.
Happy painting!