Quick Tip 363 - When To Mix White 

Diane, girl you’re the best ever I have heard this far. Thank YOU JESUS for blessing us with her knowledge. I’m so glad I’m subscribed to your Channel. GOD Bless you Diane and Roger. 👩🏽‍🎨🙏🏾😘💕

No one can explain how colors works as you!!!! Thank you for sharing it ❤️

Thank you very very much. Iwas having trouble to ligth red……….didnt like the pink rosé i got when mixing the red with white. Your tips are really valuable. 🥰😍🙂

This has been a missing piece in my learning! Adding a little bit of warmth to offset the 'coolness' from white is so valuable! I've already seen an improement in my mixing. Thank you Diane :)

"Those are two questions, eventually I'd like to hear answers." This gave me a good chuckle. You don't get to see Dianne call someone out every day with that laid-back, "live and let live" nature she has. It's perhaps a bit off topic but this reminds me of some of the artists that I have been watching of late who seem to have thrown all color theory out the window. They will typically have 3 base colors on their palette, perhaps a red/blue/yellow or maybe a red/blue/green depending on the subject. They might mix yellow with red to brighten it or get an orange, or red with blue to get a violet, or yellow with blue to brighten it or get a green. What you won't ever see them do is mix a color with it's compliment to desaturate it. They descend into this madness of adding black and then white and then more black and then maybe more of the base color and back and forth until they finally arrive at their destination looking a bit like someone who lost their way. Then as stunning as the realism of their paintings may be, they have this hard, sterile, flat, industrial feeling to them. They lack the beautiful color harmonies that you get using compliments to desaturate or with a mother color. I find it hard to even watch people who work like this and I'm constantly wondering how much better their results would be if they added using complimentary colors to their arsenal of painting skills.

Thank you Dianne ! Do I need to say that I love colour mixing :D . You probably know that by now. Always wonderful tips

This was probably the most valuable video I've ever seen! You explained everything so well and solved a problem I've been having for years. Thank you so much!

A very useful lesson, many thanks to you for your work and that you share your experience!

Thank you very much, it answered my questions and even questions. I didn’t know to ask

You saved my life. Binging all your videos now.

To someone at my lower level, she deserves a star on Hollywood Blvd - one of the best ever color lessons.

The timing of this tip is really serendipitous. Just this morning I was struggling with exactly this problem trying to lighten a blue green/turqouise colour and here's you handing me a solution just like that. Thank you! 🙂🙃😀

Another ah ha moment! Warm the white to lighten a colour. Your videos are so valuable. Thank you.

Thank you. Old masters might have compensated for the white using this method but they also used a different white- lead white. It behaves so much different, it is more transparent and already warm. The titanium white of today is the most opaque and cool white ever. Another solution is to use the more transparent zinc white,, but with caution as in oils, if applied too thickly, leads to cracks. Every mix with zinc white should be applied thinly. In waterbased techniques zinc white does not have this problem. Otherwise one cand add some zinc white to titanium white and make an intermediate white. You can also make a color, if not lighter, instead more transparent by adding chalk (calciun carbonate). This is well documented in old masters techniques. You take calcium carbonate and add enough drops of oil to it (cold pressed linseed oil) so it has to consistency of tube colors. You can add that to your titanium white or any other color and see how different it behaves. I know it sounds weird to use chalk to eliminate the chalky look, but chalk stays transparent when mixed with oil- as opposed when mixed with waterbased binders. And finally, one last method to really not use white at all it's to paint indirectly. Make a monochromatic underpainting (here you use white as white,) and then glaze with pure color. You control the intensity by glazing with a lot of pure color or just a whisper.

If only I could click ten times or more for this video clip! What an expert rendition of colour mixing, I am amazed!

A great question and such a clear and useful answer. Something I have never heard before, beautifully demonstrated. Thank you Dianne

The most useful art instruction video I can remember watching. I enjoy adding white when I swatch, because the change of hue is so dramatic. I don't understand exactly why white has this effect, but it couldn't be more evident from Dianne's demo that yellow is required. I wonder if it has to do with tinting strength. I recently did a grisaille (brunaille?) with raw umber and I was surprised by how grey it turned when I added white. It makes sense now.

Thank you! 🥰

Thanks a lot Dianne...God bless you 🙏

Thank you Dianne, this helps me a lot!

Such valuable info. Thank you

Eye opener, so useful thank you Dianne!

Beautifully explained. Thank you I needed this!

Amazing tip. Thank you!

Thanks for posting!

Dianne. This is such an important tip. Thank you so much.

Very useful tips that do not seem to be obvious. Thank you!

Thank you Dianne, your efforts and videos are always appreciated!

This was so helpful, thank you!

Fantastic tip for portraits and landscapes!

I love how well you clarify your explanations.

Thank you! This is tremendously helpful!

Wow, I had no idea! This makes an amazing difference. Thank you Dianne 😊

Thanks good video!

Every video has something new to me. Thx so much!

These tips are wonderful Dianne! Saves us a lot of time and paint in figuring all this out ourselves!❤️

amazingly bright - easy when u know how - thank u definitly 💕

This is very handy information! Thank you for sharing. 😙

thank you. very informative Diane.

Thank you for your clear and concise teaching.

Thank you so much Dianne. These color mixing tips are so helpful. I always learn so much from your quick tips.

Thanks a ton for this video.. very informative 🙏

perfect... what a wonderful explanation

You always do an amazingly thorough job of explaining things!

Thank you I really enjoyed your demonstration - you made this concept really easy to understand. Dianne 🙏👏🌸

One of your best lessons. Cleared a lot of questions. Thanks.

Loves the way you explain everything. I got good teacher after a long time.

Wow! What a difference! Thanks 😄

Dianne you are the best teacher ever....and so good in your teachings... thanks.

This was a fascinating and very helpful Tip Dianne. I enjoy you so much.

Excellent explanations and guidance in lightening the value of hues! As always, your videos are so helpful! Many thanks!

Thanks, Dianne. This was so so helpful. I will look for one of your courses on color.

Dianne, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate all the hard work you put into making these videos. I'm very much a novice painter, and I've learned so much from your channel! Every time I have a question, I've found an answer here. I'm in the planning stages of a painting that's very important to me - a memorial for my daughter who passed away last year - and all of your advice and tips have been invaluable in helping me work through roadblocks and problems. You are a wonderful teacher and a joy to watch!

Thank you so much for this Dianne. I found it very enlightening and so well explained and looking forward to putting it all into practice!🙏

Wow what a great lesson, have wanted to know that or 50 years, thank you so much,you are awesome. sandy

Thank you Dianne. Excellent information regarding warming white and yes I will certainly practice and see what happens. Many thanks.

Excellent!

Hi I'm your new subscriber... This information is so helpful and to the point!... Thank you Dianne!!

Thank you so much, this video will help to improve my paintings

This is such an amazing lesson Dianne - it has made me think in terms of light temperature when adjusting to lighter values, and it is so helpful to me! Adding green to ultramarine as it lightened never occurred to me! (as you say, it has yellow in it!) I'm so grateful to you! 💙

I loved this video. It helped me understand color lightening much better. I went to your website and found your library of wonderful downloads and purchased 7 of them! I’m excited to start watching them. Looking forward to learning .

Invaluable - thank you!

This concept is essential! I also have the same problem with the colors looking chalky. Thank you so much for this class, Dianne!!!

Thank you so much

Great information, thank you for sharing ❤😊😊😊😊

An excellent tutorial! I struggled with chalky color for a long time until I developed a keener sense of color temperature, but only after years of painting.

Having completed a year long painting programme myself under the Tuition of someone who studied at the academies in Italy I have to say Diane you explained this very well indeed. To any beginner painters out there this is invaluable knowledge to improve the look of your oil paintings.

Gosh that is great did not know this wondered why my sky was not so great thankyou

Dianne, I saw your paintings in your website, they are divine! I see your RU-vid channel focuses more on tips and instructions for artists. But I hope and wish that you create many more beautiful paintings as you did before, for us your fans and also for your pleasure of creating :)

Thank you so much for this. Really helpful. I guess I knew intuitively that white has to be used to lighten but to do it smartly. As you presented, the secret is in not adding white directly but to warm it before mixing into the base color. I especially liked your tip for painting sky color with FUB and a premixed Viridian and white mix. You're the best.

Thank you..Had a hard time with lightening greens.

I also noticed the chalky appearances in my paintings while using white alone in my paint to lighten in some instances. Thank you for this lesson. It is a great point in using with yellow and other colors with white to transition to a lighter value.

Wonderful Dianne! I worked with a teacher who just abhorred using white but never taught us what to do in any other way to lighten paint. Your quick tip will mean a lot to my struggling! Thanks a lot!

Extremely interesting, thanks! Rembrandt have a transparent white - how and when would you use it ...or wouldn't you? Don, Cape Town, South Africa.

You are excellent and I just love your videos. Do you make on sketching too, would like to see that too.

Great , great video.

The blue seems to go into almost a pastel.Seeing you pull out and blend the white alone and then adding green clicked,makes complete sense. Nature doesn't throw white into something to lighten it. Thank you!

Great video!!! I’m new to your channel and I must say it’s the most clear and helpful one out there. Thank you for being very generous 😊 I have a question, this yellow white mix can be used with all colours to get a lighter value?

O goodness Diane, I have been struggling with this for much too long. You just made my day. Thank you for a game changer for me. Do you have a video(S) I can buy which cover gradation / lightening all the colours on the colour wheel. How can we lighten yellow, orange or red ? Thank you

brilliant!!

Thank you thank you!!!!!

Thank you. Like

I like the way you say "yellow"!

"light might not work this way or inks dont work this way, but paint works this way" wow that is amazing

Gracias, desee bogota Colombia

So glad I found your channel. 'Real' Tips!!! Thank you!! Are you painting in oils or acrylics?

It was a very interesting lesson that solved my color blue problems. What is an alternative for Hansa Yellow? The paints I can find in Greece are Talens and W&N.

Having no formal instruction, I have plodded along a few years thinking that there must be some way to darken and lighten without white and black. Very obvious when watching the video. It just never clicked. Thanks again.

Wow - this was really new to me -- can I assume that we can do this to all colors on the wheel? I think I need a chart for this...do you have one ? I am going to try this out today with various colors. thanks again for all your tips

Thank you ,

Very nice. Thanks. Does it also apply to watercolor, as water inseitead of white paint

How do you store paint? How long will it store for? What colors and brands for those colors do you prefer? Does your palette dry out? Can you Mx water soluble oil paint with regular? Thank you for all your lessons.

Sometimes I will paint using a lightly tinted white-green or yellow etc, but then at the end if I want a certain area to pop white I will use a little of my Holbein Foundation White. This is lead paint and is as white as white can be. Recently finished off some chickens this way and they have survived and been given more dimension.

Thank you, esoecially for the blue tricks ;-)

Your demonstration is great as always. Can you please make a video on transparency of colours. I know you have one but it doesn't explains what it do to colour mixing. I mean to say that what we make of transparency other than glazing which is very obvious thing to observe. Some people say transparent colours mix to give darkest colours. How it affects the mixture? How to take transparency into consideration while mixing colours? I have failed to find a reliable answer to this. Can you please help.

Wow! That’s great info. I can’t stand chalkiness and now Zi know how to avoid it!

Thank you, Ma'am, for this crucial lesson. Also, is Mid Green a good substitute for Viridian?

Hi! I was wondering if this will work just as well with other mediums. I’ve been trying out gouache, and I often just warm it up by using more water and then adding white. I wonder if there is a better way.

I recall reading that the old masters would use a pale yellow ochre - that has no added white - to lighten their colors. This would be a yellow ochre light. Apparently by adding a little yellow ochre light to most colors it unifies the whole painting and adds to that "museum yellow" look you see in almost all old master paintings.

Do you use titanium white, which is more opaque or do you find it helpful when lightening a transparent color to use a more transparent white?