How to Oil Paint, Choosing colors for oil painting -- Part 3 of 4

Photo I took last year on the way to work in Carlow, Ireland. A storm was on the way and I was driving when I saw this tree and had to stop.

 

Properties of Oil Paints -- Part 3

 

Depending on your style of painting, another property to consider is the transparency or opaqueness of each paint. Transparency is the degree to which a colour allows light to past through it from above, and allow this light to reflect back to your eye from the colour underneath. If you paint a transparent yellow over a blue paint, the eye will see a greenish colour. This is because the blue is covered by the yellow but is allowed to reflect light back through the transparent yellow to your eye. 

 

Paints like ultramarine blue or burnt sienna are transparent and make good paints for glazing. If you like to build up the paint in layers choose transparent colours. Adding white to a colour will reduce it's transparency.

 

Here is a list of transparent colours:

Viridian, Ultramarine Blue, Prussian Blue, Phthalocyanine Blue, Phthalocyanine Green, Green Gold, Ultramarine Violet, Cobalt Violet, Rose Madder (not so light fast), Manganese Violet, Indian Yellow (not so light fast), Transparent Oxide Yellow, Transparent Oxide Brown, Ivory Black, Quinacridone Gold, Transparent Oxide Red.

Here is a list of semi-transparent colours:

Cobalt Blue, Transparent Gold Ochre, Aureolin (not so light fast), Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber (some brands), Raw Sienna, Davy's Grey.

 

If your style of painting is to fill in large dense blocks of colour, you should consider working with more opaque (non-transparent) colours that cover areas well. Opacity is also called covering power, the power to block out an underlying colour.

 

Here is a list of semi-opaque colours:

Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, Greenish Umber, Vermilion, Burnt Umber (some brands), Deep Ochre, Gold Ochre, Burnt Green Earth.

Here is a list of opaque colours:

Flake White, Titanium white, Naples Yellow, Mars Yellow, Mars Orange, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red, Mars Red, Mars Violet, Mars Brown, Venetian Red,

Indian Red, Light Red, Brown Ochre, Terra Rosa, Red Ochre, Chromium Oxide Green, Cerulean Blue, Mars Black.

 

I hope this helps those beginning to paint out there, stop back another time to see more information on choosing paints, in part 4 in next few days. Also check out part 1 , part 2 and part 4 of this article.