by Neadeen Masters, CDA

This is a simple technique and one of my favorite methods for mixing and blending color: one uses the bristles of the brush to pick up two colors at the same time and blend them together on your blending palette. Think of it as mixing tiny patches of color rather than mixing one large puddle of paint with the palette knife.

Follow this procedure when you need to use just a little color at a time to adjust an area of an object or the painting. Brush mixing does not refer to using your brush as a tool to stir large amounts of paint together into one color. Students often misunderstand this term, “brush mix” and end up ruining a perfectly good brush this way. Brush mixing is a gentle manipulation of two or more colors, blending them into the brush to create a third hue.

I prefer to brush mix almost all my colors. That is to say instead of having huge puddles of pre-mixed colors on the palette, I like to have fresh paint sitting on my wet palette. I pick up a little at a time, selecting the particular hue to control the value and intensity of the color on my brush. I might load my brush with two or three colors and then blend on my palette before moving back to the painting. This can give your work a more “painterly appearance’ as opposed to a stiffer look. It is easier for me to correct one single brush blend than a whole puddle of one mixture that has gone wrong!

If you are new to color theory, brush mixing can teach you quite a lot as you make mini discoveries about each color that you create.