Citrine, Russet, Olive and.... well.... puke

Grigori

I'm trying to mix paints to make the 4 colors of Malkuth.

Orange & Green = Citrine
Orange & Violet = Russet
Violet & Green = Olive
Black.

Problem is, all my mixes, kinda look like dirty vomit... I thought I was maybe doing it wrong, or that my paints were a bit shoddy, or maybe I need special proportions. Then I remembered the backs on the BoT. A whole bunch of squares, in a few different shades of dirty vomit colors. :laugh: But they kinda match (except my Olive, which is more Aubergine at the moment :|)

So is that them? Is this what I am supposed to be aiming for? Can anyone shed any light on the issue. I'm leaning towards using more Orange on the left side of Malkuth, and more Green on the right, thinking it would make sense that the colors are stronger on the same side of the tree. But my paint palette has other ideas.... :confused:

Maybe I should be aiming for something more like the court cards. The Queen of Disks, PRince of Disks and 9 of Disks seem pretty close to me.

PS, sorry to anyone who eats while reading AT
 

Lillie

Malkuth, earth.

Once, when I was an archaeologist, we had a book of the colours of dirt.

There were all these squares of colour like paint chips, but they were all shades of brown, all the 1000 possible colours of dirt.

We had to match our dirt with the proper shade and code number in the book.

Yup, various shades of vomit were in there.
I think you must be on the right track......

:D
 

ravenest

Ah Similia! I could write pages on this (and I might when I get home and post here ) but I dont have my note book with me. It has a large section on color and a workdhop I devised.

The problem is that color theory and color practice dont equate. Blue and yellow do not make green. Yes, that is what I said ... they do not make green.

if you try to get color theory down on paper you will often find you end up with murkey dirty colours. Its complex but I will explain later (if you are interested)

One way artists get around it (often intuitvly and unconciously) is to mix a greeney blue with a greeney yellow and then the blue and yellow cancell each other out to leave the green. What is happening here is that artists paints (esp. cheap ones) do not come in 'pure' colors but in shades of colors, often with fancey names. What is 'pure blue' anyway? We do not know?

We can access a colour by light frequency, and I have tables that do that but they are noted tthat they are only accurate at a certain latitude, at acertain time of year and day and weather condition, as color is reflected light.

printing is different again and 3 different 'primary colours are used that are considered ' subtractive' ie. they dispen or take away light (so we can see the printing on a white page). Lighting is differnet primaries again and are additive (to add light on a dark stage)

The murkeyness increase as one moves from secondary to primary colours.

You can get green by painting a wheel blue and yellow and spinning it, but that isnt the same as mixing blends of artists paints.

And of course, how do you know your color 'red' (for eg.) is the same type of red AC or GD or IR used?

The important thing in magical color charts, flashing tablets, mandalas talismans etc. is that your own scheme is tonal, no matter how different the colors they should tone and harmonise in one way or another, otherwise it turns into a big mess.

Just wait to you get to purple. Purple doesnt exists! Why?

If you do a light frequencey measure of all the colours in a color band (say, extended from a prism on to a sheet of white paper.) The color in between each primary has a frequency that is a number half way between the other two. Mid green is exactly half way between the just visible frequencies at either end (red and violet). And since purple is a mix of red and blue, and you do the sum to get the frequency of purple, you get the number that green is and so it is green!

But it isnt green, its purple and 'officially' purple's frequency (and similar colors) are measuered in NEGATIVE number frequencies ???!!!

(Since a freguencey is a measure of wavelength over distance, the concept of a negative frequency is most interesting!)

I think I'll leave you there ... except for this ... try buying a premixed color that seems the closest to the color you require ;
 

Lillie

You have to get colours that are made to be mixed
Then you get them pure enough.

There is one lot you get here, I think it's called system 3, they are meant to be mixed, you can get just the three primaries (in this case yellow, magenta and cyan) and with them and black and white you are meant to be able to mix every other colour.

other paints though........
No good.
 

Lleminawc

Mixing colours is way more difficult than you would think. There's a saying that every art student mixes 10 gallons of mud before they start getting the results they want. I'd recommend reading Betty Edwards' book Color: A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Colors.
 

Grigori

Thanks everyone! You guys rock :D

I thought I got good quality artists paints that would mix OK, but obviously had no idea what I was doing. I've actually not got any red, so will pick some of that up, and have a go at mixing starting with the primary colors. As an exercise as much as anything; cause it will be intersting to see how it goes, taking it back to the Chockmah, Tiphareth and Geburah colors. Probably I won't get anything I can actually use to paint with, but its been a fun learning experience at least.

I've got some colors similar to what the end product should be, so I'll just use them. Actually thinking I might mix in a tiny bit of the colors I was trying to combine, just so I can say to myself "yes, I mixed Violet and Green and got Olive" (and I won't remind myself I mixed them into a tube of Olive ;) )