Monday morning and the kids are off to school. I’ve got scads to do (who doesn’t?), but I like to start out the creative part of my day with a loosening up exercise: either making a little something or getting to know a supply better. Today the supply is Dylusions brand of paints by Ranger Signature Designer, Dyan Reaveley.

Sometimes I am lucky enough to have an entire range of color from a particular brand. And Ranger is wonderful about providing swatch cards to fill in so that you can organize and inventory your colors.

I tend to use the color full strength in the middle of the swatch, and then create a bit of a wash with water around it.

Then what I like to do best with paints is to create mixing triads, a combination of three colors to use as a base to mix other colors, and see what colors result.

For this exercise, I used the following mixing triads for Cool, Warm and CMY(k)

1. (Upper Left)
   1. Cherry Pie (a cool red)
   2. After Midnight
   3. Lemon Zest
2. (Upper Right)
   1. Postbox Red (a warm red)
   2. After Midnight
   3. Lemon Zest
3. (Bottom)
   1. Bubblegum Pink
   2. London Blue
   3. Lemon Zest

Once you’ve mixed your colors to create the secondary and tertiary colors, use a hole punch (a Japanese Screw Punch works really well), to create a hole near the mixed swatches.  Place the hole over the painted swatches from your organizing sheet to compare and see which mixes are actually convenience colors.

Convenience colors in this case are colors that already exist within the line. I like to know which colors mix to create a similar color; mostly for cohesiveness in painting.

If you would like to do this exercise as well, download my blank triad mixing worksheet.

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And if this kind of exercise intrigues you, take a look at my online enQoRe Watercolor Mixology I workshop, featuring Golden Artist Acrylics’ QoR watercolors.

Happy, colorful Monday!