The set of exercises that follow will demonstrate the principle of selecting colors according to their bias. Depending on the pigments, the results will vary from muted to vibrant. The generic name will be given, its bias and the actual pigment name. Remember from the previous page that there are several colors from each range to choose from and similar results can be acheived with them. The main exception to this is within the violet-red range. These colors vary widely in their violet content, which does affect greatly the outcome of the mixes. If you are doing these exercises, try to use a violet-red that resembles the example as closely as possible. But I also encourage you to use whatever violet-reds you have on hand to compare. That's really the best way to understand the way color bias works. The examples that follow are one possibility, but will serve to give you a general idea of how color bias affects a mix.

These exercises deal with mixing secondary colors: Violet, Green and Orange.
The basic principle to mix secondary colors is:

• "Red" + "Blue" = Violet
• "Blue" + "Yellow" = Green
• "Yellow" + "Red" = Orange

But, as we shall see, that isn't necessarily so. Mixing any old two "primaries" doesn't always result in clean secondaries. The bias plays a major role in making the mixes clean or subdued.

Pigments do not physically mix to form "new" colors. When we stir two or more pigments together, those pigments absorb and reflect specific light waves...the color we actually see when combining two or more pigments is what is "left over"...light waves that did not get absorbed are reflected back to us. As an example...a certain red that has a large violet bias mixed with a certain blue with a large violet bias will give us a strong violet result. Almost everything in the two pigments that isn't violet is absorbed, and what is left over is the violet color we perceive (the violet in both the pigments refelceted back to us). Think of it this way...take a quantity of red sand, and a quantity of blue sand and stir them together in a jar. You see violet, right? The red sand grains and blue sand grains did not meld into each other to "make" a new purple sand grain. The red sand grain absorbed the blue light waves, the blue grains absorbed the red light waves, and what violet that both grains naturally contained was NOT absorbed, but refelected back to you, making the jar of sand appear violet. This is the exact same thing that happens with paint pigments, except the pigment particles are far smaller than the grains of sand. The principle is the exactly the same.
This will all make sense later, trust me.

You can do these exercises yourself (and indeed, you should), substituting the colors you may already have, as long as each has the proper color bias. Remember, the results will be slightly different, but the concept is what we're after.

I've painted the undiluted color in the large squares across the top of each example. The very bottom row was diluted with Flow Medium only, and the small squares between the top and bottom rows are tinted with increasing amounts of white.
On my mix card, I keep extensive notes about what I observe in the mixes. The black line through the top mixes is an aid to determine transparency or opacity. This is helpful if you are wanting to make a wash, as it will give you an idea of how much the underlying color will be obscured by the wash. Even thinned, opaque colors will still tend to give a slightly chalky wash...which may or may not be an issue, depending on the effect you're after.

Let's start with VIOLET.
My palette will consist of:

• Orange-red = Cadmium Red Light (PR 108)
• Violet-red = Quinacridone Red (PV 19)
• Green-blue = Cerulean Blue (PB 36:1)
• Violet-blue = Ultramarine Blue (PB 29)

1 - ORANGE-RED + GREEN-BLUE

1. Cadmium Red Light & Cerulean Blue ~ produce very muted (called low-intensity) mixes that hardly resemble violet. In fact, these two colors work against each other because each contains the complement of the other. Complements are colors that fall opposite each other on the color wheel. In addition (and more importantly), neither of these colors contain a great amount of violet (as eveidenced by their generic names, "orange-red" & "green-blue"). These are said to be "poor carriers of violet". We will delve deeper into this later in the discussion.
Red is opposite of Green
Orange is opposite of Blue

2 - ORANGE-RED + VIOLET-BLUE

2. Cadmium Red Light & Ultramarine Blue ~ still produce low-intensity violets, but enough violet escapes from the Ultramarine Blue to give a slightly more violet tone than in Example #1.

3 - VIOLET-RED + GREEN-BLUE

3. Quinacridone Red & Cerulean Blue ~ yeild markedly more violet mixes, but are still somewhat tempered by the red/green influences. These are mid-intensity mixes.

4 - VIOLET-RED + VIOLET-BLUE

4. Quinacridone Red & Ultramarine Blue ~ yeild the cleanest violets of all because both colors are excellent carriers of violet and there are negligible amounts of complementary colors to temper the mixes. These are called bright mixes.