What are the
‘Primary
Colours’?
‘An effort to dispel the confusion wrong and disinformation
for artists’
by Peter Turner
'The Gondola Park'
using just the three primaries
Watercolour 7" x 11"
The wrong information—Believed to be fact for several hundred years,
widely accepted by the art community and published in many current text books:–
The Primary Colours for
paint/dyes and inks are Red Yellow and Blue. The secondary colours are Orange, Green and Purple.
Complementary colours can be found opposite each other on the colour wheel.
The Artists Colour Wheel:
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The traditional Artist's colour wheel. In this version the centre has been inverted to show the complements, none of which are correct - colours opposite each other on the wheel should be complements - primaries are Red Yellow and Blue
Today's Colour Wheel - correct primaries are Cyan Magenta and Yellow, complements are opposite |
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The Facts—The relationship between Additive and Subtractive mixing: |
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The Primaries for Light (RGB) and Paint
(CMY) are the complements of
each other The Primaries Definition for Paint, Dye and Ink:
Using Paint Dye and Ink: Green = Yellow + Cyan Red cannot be a primary because it can be mixed from Magenta and Yellow, Blue cannot be a primary because it can be mixed from cyan and magenta. |
The Correct Pigments are: Primary Blue - Cyan PB15:3, Primary Red - Magenta PV19, Primary Yellow PY97.
Maimeri (Italy) is one of only a handful of makers offering artists'
watercolour and oil paints labelled ‘primaries’ and one of only two
offering paints that actually work: e.g. **Maimeri Blu: superior
watercolours, Primary Blue - Cyan 400, Primary
Red - Magenta 256, Primary Yellow
116, see Maimeri Blu Watercolours:
http://www.maimeri.it/CGIDEV2P/SIT030.PGM?VARIA=ENAQ001&V4=Watercolours&VX=
These are excellent single pigment paints. Note: Their Puro range of
Oils should be as good but to be yet tested and not easily available in
Europe.
The only other oil set (not exact primaries and not marked as such but
which work in practice) are the **W&N Atiists’ Oil and Watercolour:
Cyan Winsor Blue-green shade,
Magenta Permanent Rose and Winsor Yellow.
To identify the good form the bad try to find the pigment numbers. e.g.
PB15.3. All Artists quality paints will have the pigment numbers on the
tube. Avoid any with more than one pigment per paint.
**The ‘good’ paints here are available from http://www.jacksonsart.co.uk
For more information see 'The Truth about Colour' (3.5Mb pdf)
and the book 'Oil and Watercolour Demystified' by Peter Turner.
Turner runs two-day painting workshops at Marsh Studio Hungerford.