Understanding Polymer Clay Color, by Making Mud
Video #674: Do you know what color you get, when you mix the 3 primary colors together? Yellow + Blue + Red = Muddy Brown!
More...
IN THIS POST: — primary colors — color mixing — color theory — primaries — mud — muddy — muds — polyform — premo polymer clay — brown — red — yellow — blue — cadmium red — zinc yellow — cobalt blue — pomegranate — fuchsia — (Topics marked with an asterisk* are discussed in the Comments Section below).
Topics Covered In This Video:
I am going to teach you a little bit more about understanding polymer clay color mixing… by making mud.
Do you remember back in Elementary School, when you got your box of paints out, and you had all the pretty colors of the rainbow to put onto your painting?
Well, if you mixed all those colors together, you ended up with basically a really muddy brown color.
That is because you were mixing all three primary colors together, which ends up making mud.
The same thing happens with polymer clay.
To show you what I mean, I took a ball of scrap polymer clay (which basically has all the different colors in it) and I cut the ball in half. I mixed the one half together until it was blended and ended up with this brown mud color.
Back when we were learning about the primary colors, if you mixed all three of the primary colors together, you would get brown. And that is exactly what I did get.
I mixed Cadmium Red with Zinc Yellow and Cobalt Blue… and got dark brown.
Well, we also learned that if you mix only two of the primary colors together, you would get the other secondary colors, which are red+yellow=orange, yellow+blue=green, and red+blue=purple.
Now take a look at this particular purple… it’s a purple alright, but it is kind of muddy, if you compare it to Premo Purple.
The reason for that is that when you are mixing Cadmium Red and Cobalt Blue, you are not actually mixing only two primary colors together… you are actually mixing three. Because if you take a look carefully at this red (Cadmium Red), it has a touch of yellow in it. It is kind of on the orange-y side. Which means you’ve actually got the red, the blue and a touch of yellow in the mix… all three primary colors.
Now because the red and the blue are the most dominate, you’re basically getting a purple. But, because of that touch of yellow, it is a little on the muddy side.
This issue happens with all the colors of clay in the Premo line (and most other brands too).
If we take the colors from the red line, Cadmium Red, Pomegranate, and Fuchsia you can see that they are quite different looking.
Cadmium Red has quite a bit of yellow in it… it has more of an orange-y look. It is what we call a warm color. Think yellow like the sun, and the sun is warm. So yellow in a color makes it warm.
Pomegranate is more of a neutral color… it has both warm and cool reds in it.
The Fuchsia has a lot of blue in it. When you look at it, it looks more purple-y. So that would be what we consider a cool red. Think blue like ice and ice is cool, so blue is a cool color.
So, when you’re mixing any one of these three reds, you are going to end up with different results, depending on what you’re mixing it with.
When we saw the mix with the Cadmium Red and the Cobalt Blue, we got kind of a muddy purple because of the touch of yellow in the red.
If you mix the same Cobalt Blue with Pomegranate instead, you get a little less muddy purple because that red is more neutral but still has all three primaries.
When we mix Cobalt Blue with Fuchsia instead, we are back to using only two primaries again… with the Fuchsia being a cool red with a touch of blue mixing with the Cobalt (no yellow) we end up with a more pure or cleaner purple color.
The same thing holds true when we mix the different reds with Zinc Yellow.
Cadmium Red with Zinc Yellow has only two primaries and, therefore, ends up as a clean orange.
Pomegranate and Zinc Yellow, mixed together, give a slightly muddy orange. And Fuchsia mixed with Zinc Yellow gives a very muddy orange.
So the trick here is… if you want your colors more pure, really look at your base colors that you’re mixing. How many primaries are you mixing together? Does that color look a little bit warm, like it maybe has a touch of yellow in it? Or does it maybe have a touch of blue in it?
If you have three primaries, you are going to have a muddy color and if you only have two, you’ll have a cleaner color.
Hopefully that was clear as mud for everyone… I mean that in a good way. Understanding muddy colors will definitely help you when you are trying to mix up a particular shade of something.
00:00:03 –> 00:00:08 Hi guys, its Cindy Lietz, your Polymer Clay Tutor, and today’s Studio Tip, I’m going to
00:00:08 –> 00:00:15 teach you a little bit more about understanding Polymer Clay color mixing by making mud.
00:00:15 –> 00:00:21 Now do you remember back in elementary school when you got your box of paints out and you
00:00:21 –> 00:00:27 had all the pretty colors of the rainbow, and you were putting them on your painting,
00:00:27 –> 00:00:35 well if you mixed all those colors together, you ended up with basically this really muddy
00:00:35 –> 00:00:43 Brown color, and that’s because you ended up mixing more…you ended up mixing all 3
00:00:43 –> 00:00:48 of the Primary colors together and you ended up with mud, well the same thing happens with
00:00:48 –> 00:00:50 Polymer Clay.
00:00:50 –> 00:00:51 Now to show you what I mean is…
00:00:51 –> 00:00:57 I took a ball of scrap clay, which basically has all the different colors in it, I cut
00:00:57 –> 00:01:03 it in half and I mixed one half completely up, now by mixing it up, I mixed all the colors
00:01:03 –> 00:01:08 together, and I ended up with this Brown mud color.
00:01:08 –> 00:01:14 Well like I said, when we were learning about our primary colors, is if you ended up mixing
00:01:14 –> 00:01:18 all 3 colors, your Red, Yellow and Blue together you would end up with Brown, and that’s exactly
00:01:18 –> 00:01:27 what I did, I mixed… this is Cadmium Red Premo!, Zinc Yellow and Cobalt Blue and I
00:01:27 –> 00:01:29 ended up with this dark Brown color.
00:01:29 –> 00:01:35 Well, we also learned that if you mixed two of the…only 2 of the primary colors together,
00:01:35 –> 00:01:41 you’ll get the other secondary colors, which are… if you mix Red and Yellow together
00:01:41 –> 00:01:49 you’re gonna get Orange, if you mix Yellow and Blue together you’re gonna get Green and
00:01:49 –> 00:01:53 if you mix Red and Blue together, you’re gonna get Purple.
00:01:53 –> 00:02:01 Well, take a look at this particular Purple, it’s a Purple alright, but it is kind of muddy,
00:02:01 –> 00:02:10 if you compare it to like Purple Premo! and the reason for that is, is we’re not actually
00:02:10 –> 00:02:16 mixing only 2 Primary colors here together, we’re actually mixing 3, because if you
00:02:16 –> 00:02:21 take a look carefully at this Red, it has a touch of Yellow in it, it’s kinda on the
00:02:21 –> 00:02:23 Orange-y side.
00:02:23 –> 00:02:30 Which means you’ve got the Red, the Blue and the touch of Yellow, making it a… all 3
00:02:30 –> 00:02:34 primary colors, now because these 2 colors are most… the Red and Blue, are most dominant,
00:02:34 –> 00:02:40 you’re basically getting a Purple, but it’s a little on the muddy side, now that happens
00:02:40 –> 00:02:48 with all of the different colors of the clays, so like all the Premo! colors.
00:02:48 –> 00:02:55 If we take the colors from the Red line, we’ll take 3 of the Reds, we’ve got Cadmium Red,
00:02:55 –> 00:03:01 we’ve got Pomegranate and Fuchsia, if you take a look at these 3 they’re quite different
00:03:01 –> 00:03:02 looking.
00:03:02 –> 00:03:08 The Cadmium Red here, the first one, has quite a bit of Yellow in it, and you can see that,
00:03:08 –> 00:03:16 it has more of an Orange-y look to it and that would be what we call a warm color, because
00:03:16 –> 00:03:21 you know you can think of it this… remember it this way by thinking well, Yellow and sun,
00:03:21 –> 00:03:24 and the sun is warm, so that’s a warm color.
00:03:24 –> 00:03:31 Well this middle one here, the Pomegranate, it kind of is a neutral, it’s basically a
00:03:31 –> 00:03:39 mix between a warm and a cool Red, and you end up with kind of a neutral Red color.
00:03:39 –> 00:03:45 The Fuchsia here at the end, has a lot of Blue in it, and it has… when you look at
00:03:45 –> 00:03:52 it, it looks more Purple-y, so that would be what you would consider a cool Red, and
00:03:52 –> 00:03:59 cool…I think of cool as Blue ice, so ice is Blue or whatever, so that will help you
00:03:59 –> 00:04:01 remember the 2… between warm and cool.
00:04:01 –> 00:04:07 So when you’re mixing these 3 Reds with different colors, you’re going to end up with different
00:04:07 –> 00:04:15 results depending on what you’re mixing it with, so when we saw the Purple there, we
00:04:15 –> 00:04:19 had…we had, between the Cad Red and the Cobalt Blue we had kind of a muddy Purple.
00:04:19 –> 00:04:29 But if I mix the same Cobalt Blue with the more neutral color, Pomegranate, we get a
00:04:29 –> 00:04:35 Purple that is a little less muddy, it’s not super pure yet because there is a little Yellow
00:04:35 –> 00:04:41 and a little Blue in it, but there’s a lot less Yellow in it so you get a little bit
00:04:41 –> 00:04:42 more pure.
00:04:42 –> 00:04:49 But if we take the Cobalt Blue and mix it with the Fuchsia, which is the cool Red, they’re
00:04:49 –> 00:04:54 basically…we’re right back down to only 2 primaries again, because this has a little
00:04:54 –> 00:05:00 bit of… it’s got mostly Red but a little touch of Blue and Blue in it, so there’s no
00:05:00 –> 00:05:07 Yellow in there at all and when we mix it together, we get this very pure Purple, so
00:05:07 –> 00:05:13 it’s a much…or a much…or not pure but very clean, there’s no mud in it at all.
00:05:13 –> 00:05:19 Now, I’m just gonna quickly show you the same sort of idea, is if we mix the Reds with the
00:05:19 –> 00:05:21 Yellows instead.
00:05:21 –> 00:05:29 So when we mix the Cadmium Red with Zinc Yellow, we get this sort of Orange here, nice, pretty
00:05:29 –> 00:05:31 clean looking Orange.
00:05:31 –> 00:05:41 If we mix the Zinc Yellow with the Pomegranate, which was more of a neutral Red, we get a
00:05:41 –> 00:05:45 slightly muddier Orange.
00:05:45 –> 00:05:52 But if we mix the Zinc Yellow with the Fuchsia which basically we’re going back to the 3
00:05:52 –> 00:05:57 primaries again cause there’s a little touch of Blue in that Red, we end up with quite
00:05:57 –> 00:05:59 a muddy Orange.
00:05:59 –> 00:06:06 So the trick here is if you want your colors more pure really look at your base colors
00:06:06 –> 00:06:12 that you’re mixing them in, how many primaries are you mixing together?
00:06:12 –> 00:06:14 Does that color look a little bit warm?
00:06:14 –> 00:06:18 Does it look like maybe it has a touch of Yellow in it?
00:06:18 –> 00:06:20 Or does it maybe have a touch of Blue in it?
00:06:20 –> 00:06:26 And think about… if you have 3 primaries, you’re gonna end up with something muddy,
00:06:26 –> 00:06:29 if you only have 2, it’ll be a cleaner color.
00:06:29 –> 00:06:36 So I hope that was helpful for you, and if you did, do let us know if you like this video.
00:06:36 –> 00:06:40 And as far as other questions go with Polymer Clay, you probably have lots of them, but
00:06:40 –> 00:06:45 we have also done a ton of videos, so make sure to search through the videos that we’ve
00:06:45 –> 00:06:49 done and see if you can find your answer there.
00:06:49 –> 00:06:53 And if you can’t, make sure to leave suggestions in the comment section below so that we can
00:06:53 –> 00:06:57 maybe do a video on it in the future.
00:06:57 –> 00:07:00 Alright, so we’ll see you next time and bye for now.
Our goal is to translate these videos into as many languages as possible. If you are interested in helping with this initiative, then please do contact us and we will figure out a way to make it worth your while :)
Resource Links:
- Related Video: Color Plus 1 Mixing Trick
- Related Video: Polymer Clay Color Saturation
- Related Video: Mixing Custom Color Recipes
- Related Article: Learning About Polymer Clay Color Mixing
- Amazon: Sculpey Premo Polymer Clay **
Resources marked with a double ** asterisk are affiliate links. If you click on them and decide to buy something, we may receive some compensation. This does not affect the price you pay in any way. What it does do, however, is helps us to continue providing free videos for you, here at the PcT website. Using our links to purchase your tools and supplies, is always greatly appreciated.
Sponsored Ads & Special Promotions
Shareable Images
To share this full blog post anywhere on the web that allows links in comments, here's a shortened url to copy and paste...
>> https://mypct.ca/v674 <<
Want to chat about today’s post? That’s what the comment section below is for. Scroll Down… We’d love to hear from you!
Or... if you would like to request a topic for a future post, here is the link to do that… PcT Suggestion Box
Hi Cindy
Yeah, thanks for this video, makes it all clearer :). Now I know what to do when attempting to mix a color. Try to find the purest colors possible so I’m not mixing three colors inadvertently. Thanks again!
Even after being a member of the video club for several years now…. I learned more from this tutorial than all of the others teaching color. I dunno why… just all of a sudden a light bulb went off!
Simple question: What is the website you have on your laptop behind you? This video helped a LOT!!! Thanks once again.
I had just Googled “color wheel” in Google Images and that was what was on the screen.
Cindy that was a really interesting conversation in color mixing. Thanks to you I have become so much more aware of my color blending sheets. I never paid much attention to color until I got involved with polymer clay and mixed all of the color receipes you made available to us. I learned so much from this and I urge everyone to take some time and mix up some of these receipes Cindy has given us. You will end up with a lot less mud!
Thanks Dixie Ann! (You don’t know this but we are currently working on a new format for the color recipes that I think you are going to love.) You are so right about mixing up the recipes being a learning experience in of itself. Remember how different that color looked when you subbed out the Cad Yellow for the Zinc Yellow? That was one of these warm/cool situations that caused the mud you ended up with. I remember the light bulb going off for you when that happened. Color is such a glorious thing, and learning more about it makes your life as an artist so much easier and rewarding. Thanks for reminding everyone of the importance of mixing up those recipes. You can’t learn nothing from those recipes if they just sit in a file somewhere! :)
The muddy colors lesson was a Light Bulb video for me, thank you!
You simplified a confusing concept brilliantly Cindy. Please keep enlightening us more. This all shows again how wonderfully versatile this clay really is. I truly hope we never take experts like you and Doug for granted, because you’re both willing and able to convey things we might not otherwise be able to gather elsewhere. Thanks so much.
Thank you so much Shirley for saying that! I am amazed by polymer’s versatility almost every day. You could never run out of things to learn and do with the stuff!