Quick Tip 357 - Why I Don't Use Earth Colors 

I dumped my burnt umber a few months ago, I was using it far too often as a go to for many colour's, including blacks. I find with the 3 primarie's, a warm & cool of each, my darks are more colourful. I also find colour's while mixing for the one i want that sometime's work in my painting, but are not in my reference and which I wouldn't find by simply just using burnt umber. So much more fun. Apart from maybe a transparent oxide red or something like it in the future, earth colour's are not on the list so there not getting in.

Very interesting. I am into watercolors. I use burned sienna mainly mixed with ultramarine for a nice warm neutral/grey. I like raw sienna as the yellow component in skin tones. I am orientating myself what tube colors to buy for an artist' grade palette, this is very useful.

Great eye opener! Thanks for this ♡ I'm excited to try this now.

I use earth colors but I consider them convenience colors as the earth colors can be mixed almost spot on by using other colors. For me they are a time save.

Once again, I love you and your teaching. You enlighten, instruct, empower. This segment added strength to my ability to accomplish, and I appreciate it very much. Thank you Diane, and to all of you behind the scenes making her presentations possible.

This was the most valuable online demo for me yet! Thanks so much.

Thank you Dianne. I have always had earth colours on my palette. Creating them with their hue variations, looks like much more fun.

What I love about earth pigments is they are lightfast, cheap, and good neutralizers.

I am a watercolorist. I love your channel because you teach art, not just a medium. I learn so much from you. The same applies to my watercolor paintings. I find that if I want "mud" I can make it on my own. 😀

It’s so tempting to purchase more paint tubes than one needs! The Art store is like a candy store! But this tutorial will give me confidence to mix my own colours more often. Thank you as always!

I hope that someday I understand a smigen of what you know. You are amazing - love your lessons. Thank you!

I started doing this recently. I find it quite handy when I am dealing with light and shade or just want variety.

Love the leaning possibility! Good one, Dianne!

Thank you for great easy to understand tips. I love it.

Thank you for such a great explanation. I am working on color this year, various mixes, keeping a journal of my results...this lesson will be a page in my journal with all the various shades, I am self taught so all of your videos are well appreciated

I've told you before , you 're a genius . Thank you so much. 🙏🙏🙏 Greetings from Antwerp, Belgium

Thank you for your help, it is very much appreciated!

As always, this quick tip is so very helpful. Thank you Dianne.

Thank you so much Dianne your tutorials are the best !

Many ways to skin a cat. But I will add that earth colors are significantly less expensive. Also they too have their complements. Knowing the earth colors true hue helps, for example burnt umber is orange and it’s complementary color is French ultramarine blue … makes a perfect black that you can lean warm (more burnt umber) or blue (‘ore ultramarine blue). Then if you want to bump either chroma higher you can go for the higher chroma cadmium red lights. French ultramarine blue is also a very inexpensive color. Ultimately keeping one’s pallet rather limited is good and making your own color wheel and knowing exactly where your color resides o the your wheel in terms of hue chroma and value makes it so that you can easily lean them whichever way you want. But higher chroma mixes may extend your chroma range but it does also pose (expensive) problems for beginners imo. Not saying a person should or should not use earth colors, just saying there are good reasons to like them too. My 2c

wow, very enlightening, thanks so much Dianne

Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous. Your teaching and your mastery of color. Your videos are inspiring. Thank you

This is amazing! I hope you know how helpful and inspiring you are. Thankyou.

Life Changing !! ! This just un- flustered me on this painting I was just working on. Thank You !!

I love this so much Dianne! This approach is life-changing for me - a huge revelation - thank you so much for everything! 💙

Not only can I see that this would give richer colors and variations, you don't need all those tubes of paint either. Great video!

I love that you make these reflections on colors and brands and the beauty of mixing using opposites and get a very rich possibility of variations and yet a beauty of color harmony. 🙏💜

I love your approach to colour mixing Diane. It makes so much sense. Thank you

thats so interesting and so useful - I will try that for sure. Thanks again for explaining this so well

Excellent demonstration Dianne.

Very instructive approach! You are a wonderful teacher....thank you very much! All my best wishes to you!

Thank you for caring and sharing your expertise. Such a help to me.

Thanks so much for this wonderful quick tip !!

You're amazing. I can't wait to watch all your videos with my daughter. I thought I knew something about color but... mind blown! Very cool

Another very helpful video!

Absolutely fascinating. Thank you.

I heard about that earth colors are clays, which are highly absorbent. Thanks for these substitutes, you're awesome Dianne, I have learned a lot from you.

Absolutely fabulous- I will certainly be attempting this tip 😘

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us!

What a great tip, Dianne. Thank you so much! btw, I recently had covid and revisited your drawing classes as I wasn't up to standing at my easel. I just loved them all over again. I've never had this skill or the patience to develop it but I have with your classes and I love my drawings.

Well this method you show here really unlocks the potential for some stunning earth tones. Seeing your samples on the canvas of tube colors and then the colors on your palette from the red to the blue/green and all in-between is really inspiring.

THANK YOU!!! I love the variations and making my own colors

I see the value of doing it that way now. More options and amazing how you got it so close to the earth tones.

Hi Diane! Long time no talk to.. Hope you are well in these crazy times? I Love my earth colors and use them on both my Oil and Watercolor palettes. I get a lot of new very cool mixtures by experimenting with each color and how they mix with the primaries and secondaries. That said, I do agree anytime spent color mixing for any desired hue will make anyone a better Artist.

I love using the compliments, too! So much more sophisticated in the mixes ❤

Love this! I hardly use earth colours either because I enjoy mixing so much naturally but I do end up using yellow ochre for sand because I always struggle to make it! This has really helped thank you! My other struggle is sky blue, for the life of me I can never match the perfect blue of a sky no matter what blue I use or mix.

Thank you for that. Your method also creates greater color harmony throughout the whole painting!

Fantastic tip!! Thank you so much for sharing!

Those variations surely help to make really exciting paintings. Straight tube colors, to which no one mixes with or blends into other colors has its place, but ends up looking more like pop-art, flat illustration and other mechanical printing methods. I think your explanation is amazing and your excitement is always so contagious!

Another beautiful lesson! Thank you!

excellent demo Dianne - yes it is affording the artist the choice of leaning towards what is required with all the various shades that occur during the painting being carried out. Thank you.

You are a great teacher.

Loved it!

That was so helpful. I think the mixed colors look richer. Thanks!

I love the idea of having the degree of variations. It seems that it would allow the painter/artist more control and flexibility to give the richest details in their paintings.

Dianne, excellent lesson! You are a true color Alchemist, bravo!👏👍😃

Fantastic. I learned a lot. Thank you!

Great color lesson! Thank you!🙂

Thank you! Great video! I can't wait to try these:)

For heaven’s sake! This is a great video Dianne! Paint magic!

Thanks Dianne, I watched this and realised I make these colours along the way but still put the earth tomes on the palette. I totally agree with getting s much broader range of color by mixing them. It's always good to have someone point out the obvious haha! I must chase down that Viridian green. Thank you .

Great video! I mainly use them (umber & sienna) because they speed drying, mostly for black & dark grays. Prussian blue also dries faster, makes a faster drying black.

Really interesting informations. Thank you 👌

I stumbled onto my own mixture of burnt sienna recently and was kind of surprised. I'm an acrylic painter experimenting with oils and (for economy) have only the primary colors plus raw umber and white and am learning how much freedom there is to mixing my own colors. Thank you so much for this quick tip!

So helpful must try to see if will work for me thanks for video

Really interesting! Thank you.

So good. Thanks.

FANTASTIC. THANKS!!🎉

Thank you for this information.

LOVE this!

Thanks so much for the great tips. Yiu are very kind and generous by sharing your expertise. I like and sub.

I am just starting out in oil painting, but I understand that there is an amazing range of modern pigments with super lightfastness that gives you more control over the mixtures without adding contradictory undertones lol. Thanks for the content

Ty. Very informative.

Great examples!

Well done!

that was so awesome

Dam! Now I understand why a lot of master artists says that we don't need to buy every colours, but the most basics one. Stubborn and ignorant, I bought a bunch of colours, because why not, I'm lazy and I love colours. This lady artist finally explained it very well. So well, I'm disappointed to have spent so much money on colours it would be well advise to mix. Ah well! I'll use them to practice.

Thank you.

more variety, wonderful!

The yellow ochre you mixed from the complements looks sooo much more saturated and richer than the tube color!

This was SO SO useful. OMG.. I feel like I won the lottery.

Thank you for sharing, I feel earth colors are used to frequently.

Hey Dianne! I love your videos- thank you. I am wondering if the thick amounts of colours around the edge of your pallet stay there permanently? If so, do they stay wet because they are pure oils and you close a lid over the top? Elle

Thanks. Could you demonstrate the difference to alter those earth colors with red blue or yellow etc.

Thank you for blessing us all with your wisdom! Quick question: Can you recommend a simple palette the enables us to get all the earthy tones without using earth tones. I’m guessing it would have to include colours like viridian right?

i usually use burnt umber and ultramarine blue to make Black - I really like the idea of making my own mixture for burnt umber, but will that still work to make a nice black???thanks and thanks for all your quick tips

I mixed my own earth colours to learn since i recently got into painting, i tried getting burnt umber but got raw umber. I think both ways are good, premixed and from tube.

I love playing with colours. That’s what I love most about oils. Today, I finally discovered the value of the colour wheel lol! Because I’ve had little tutelage in the past, I am a hoarder of colours as well as brushes. I have all the earth colours but when I made myself some charts, I realized how many colours I’ve duplicated unnecessarily. Just out of curiosity, what is Yellow Naples? It is my least favourite tube of all my tubes and every time I try to use it, it seems to kill any life in the painting. Thank you

Thank you for doing these quick tips! They are great. I try to listen to everyone that you send.You saved my painting life during the pandemic. I have a question about your palette... You have so many paints and so much of each one around the edge. How do you keep this large amount of paint on the palette fresh and not dry out? How do you clean it up or cover it up? Are you using palette paper? Can you do a quick tip on this and how you dispose of medium like orderless mineral spirit and other supplies used with with oil paints. Thanks so much.

Thank You!! I hardly ever use the earth tones straight from the tube, I always mix in the compliments, but the way you leave the variations on the palette may have just solved my issue I'm having with a subject that has dark bronze skin tones part sun, part shade. Duh! Why haven't I thought of having a gradient available? Also, being from Alabama, do I detect a Carolina accent? lol

One thing I would really like to know, is how do you keep the heaps of paint on the edge of your palette from drying out? I am new to painting and am trying to find a palette set up that is convenient but doesn’t waste the paint. Also thank you for all the tips. Found the channel yesterday and already learning so much 😊❤️

Hello, love your videos! I am a hobby painter and I love painting portraits but I struggle a lot with skin tones. Could you show me how to think and create colors for both highlights and shadows for different kind of skin tones? Unfortunately my humans always end up looking dirty.

Gracias

I struggle keeping acrylic colors alive long enough to keep a gradation like these on my palette. Even keeping the colors from the tube open is challenging. Even with a wet palette and open paints and retarder - they dry up quickly. I’ve been mainly using the earth colors to neutralize my other colors. I still find this strategy interesting and will probably play with it.

Please tell me the exact blue and green you use with cad red deep and cad yellow deep to get BURNT SIENNA. It wasn't clear to me from the video unless you were using ultramarine blue and Rembrandt viridian? Thanks Rachel

How do you preserve your paints for a period of time on your board/tray? If you have a quick tip on the subject please share the number. Thanks

Hi Dianne, I think I've been missing an n from your name when I write you. So sorry. I really liked this tip of creating these 3 colours and expanding them. I'm going to log them in my Book of Hues. I'll keep using the main 3, only because I'm trying to absorb so much within the realm of science, art technique, plus. I'd like to create 'my lessons' into a painting where I'll see and say good job Rosee. I hope one day to go leaner with my tubes and brushes, which for now, provide comfort though a hole in my pocket :) See you Sunday!!!!!

Same is happening to me. Using the earth colors less and less. You can get so many variations with mixing😊

Do you have a listing of Quick Tips from #1, #2, #3, etc. You are up to the 300's, but I need to catch up from the beginning, to follow through your Quick tips, so I don't miss any of them. ?

Hi Dianne, do you still use Transparent Red Oxide? I know it's pretty close to burnt sienna and it looks like your red and viridian are getting the same result.