A Limited Color Palette – Part 3 – The “Ish”

Learning and understanding color is made simple by the “ish.”  Even my four-year-old granddaughter understands the concept.  We learn to evaluate and describe any color by  voicing it’s ingredients in order from greatest to least – and then add the ish.  What is that color the army uses so frequently?  Oh, it’s greenish-yellowish-reddish.  Mix those colors with mostly green, then some yellow and a small amount of red and you will nail it with accuracy.  Children love experimenting with color.  At a MOPS (Mother of Preschoolers) art day gathering yesterday the children were enjoying the hands on experience of mixing paint both with brush and hands.  We saw a lot of gray as it is often too tempting to simply mix two colors and leave it alone.  To a preschooler there always must be more color and inevitably yellowish-reddish-greenish-bluish-orangish-purplish with some white and whalla – gray(ish).  But there you have it – the six colors on the color wheel – the primary and secondary colors – to describe any color in the world.  It’s vitally important to have pure pigments or else the colors will always be, well, muddy(ish).  Designer color names do not help.  Stick to the basic colors and you’ll be delighted as your knowledge of color increases and your ability to paint accurate color improves with each canvas.