If I had to pick only one color, I would choose yellow. It is unconventional, energetic, and brilliant with other colors, mixed or not. I love to make green by mixing yellows with blues or black. Yes, isn’t it surprising that you’ll get olive green if you mix yellow with black! Best oranges come when mixing yellows with reds instead of buying ready-made oranges. I often put a tiny portion of black to get a slightly muted shade.
I created the yellow collage on a canvas mostly with acrylic paints. If you buy only one tube of acrylic paint, I would recommend buying good quality yellow, warm or cold. Then create your art with color pencils, markers or watercolors and finally add a very thin layer of yellow on one or two areas. You will witness the arrival of the sun, warmth, and all the good things!
If you buy two tubes of paint, I would recommend yellow and another primary color, red or blue. You can create almost anything with those. The intensity of good quality yellow paint is amazing and in acrylics, I prefer to buy few and good quality instead of buying cheap sets.
In our house, we have a long hallway painted yellow. It is a particular shade of yellow that was not found in any color charts. I mixed it myself by adding some black to the closest yellow I could find. I saw this yellow first time in Tricia Guild’s old book Design and Detail about 20 years ago. I fell in love with it, and when we bought our house a few years ago, I knew that the dark hallway would look amazing with that yellow.
I think that yellow has a special connection to two colors. The first is black. Try this: pick your yellows and think about blacks. If it helps, find music that represents black for you and turns it on. Paint yellow and think about black. I love that mind game!
Another color that I connect yellow with is blue purple. It is the contrast color of yellow, and it makes yellow pop even more and vice versa. If you look at the collage, there are a couple of tiny circles on the small square on the left. Yellow makes them look lovely and bigger than they really are.
Yellow Color begins a blog post series about color. I will post these color-themed posts now and then. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy these!
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I loved reading this. I learned some new things and am interested to try some mixing soon.
Thanks, Stacey! Have fun mixing the yellows!
Interesting! I learned a lot of things I never knew. Thank you!
Thanks, Renee!
My favorite is orange – so we must be cousins – !!!!
Gina, yes we must be!! (Love orange too!)
At last! Someone else who appreciates yellow. It is my favorite color. I was just mixing up yellow to spray but I don’t use it as much as I should in my art. Thanks for the reminder.
Marianne, great to hear! Have fun!
Oh lovely. A beautiful addition to your collection. I painted my kitchen door yellow my other walls teal and burnt orange. Not shy with color at all. TFS
Jess, thanks! In Finland most of the walls are white (which bores me to death). Love imagining your kitchen!
I’m late to the loving yellow party, so really appreciate your insight & inspiration here. When I look at the places yellow has snuck in to my art, I see the magic. Time to start consciously inviting this hue; thanks!
Thanks, Care! Yellow surely deserves more attention. I believe that one way to increase our creativity is to spend more time with yellow! Have fun creating!