I dumped my burnt umber a few months ago, I was using it far too often as a go to for many colour's, including blacks. I find with the 3 primarie's, a warm & cool of each, my darks are more colourful. I also find colour's while mixing for the one i want that sometime's work in my painting, but are not in my reference and which I wouldn't find by simply just using burnt umber. So much more fun. Apart from maybe a transparent oxide red or something like it in the future, earth colour's are not on the list so there not getting in.

Very interesting. I am into watercolors. I use burned sienna mainly mixed with ultramarine for a nice warm neutral/grey. I like raw sienna as the yellow component in skin tones. I am orientating myself what tube colors to buy for an artist' grade palette, this is very useful.

Great eye opener! Thanks for this ♡ I'm excited to try this now.

I use earth colors but I consider them convenience colors as the earth colors can be mixed almost spot on by using other colors. For me they are a time save.

This was the most valuable online demo for me yet! Thanks so much.

Once again, I love you and your teaching. You enlighten, instruct, empower. This segment added strength to my ability to accomplish, and I appreciate it very much. Thank you Diane, and to all of you behind the scenes making her presentations possible.

Thank you Dianne. I have always had earth colours on my palette. Creating them with their hue variations, looks like much more fun.

What I love about earth pigments is they are lightfast, cheap, and good neutralizers.

I am a watercolorist. I love your channel because you teach art, not just a medium. I learn so much from you. The same applies to my watercolor paintings. I find that if I want "mud" I can make it on my own. 😀

I started doing this recently. I find it quite handy when I am dealing with light and shade or just want variety.

Not only can I see that this would give richer colors and variations, you don't need all those tubes of paint either. Great video!

It’s so tempting to purchase more paint tubes than one needs! The Art store is like a candy store! But this tutorial will give me confidence to mix my own colours more often. Thank you as always!

I hope that someday I understand a smigen of what you know. You are amazing - love your lessons. Thank you!

Thank you for great easy to understand tips. I love it.

Love the leaning possibility! Good one, Dianne!

Many ways to skin a cat. But I will add that earth colors are significantly less expensive. Also they too have their complements. Knowing the earth colors true hue helps, for example burnt umber is orange and it’s complementary color is French ultramarine blue … makes a perfect black that you can lean warm (more burnt umber) or blue (‘ore ultramarine blue). Then if you want to bump either chroma higher you can go for the higher chroma cadmium red lights. French ultramarine blue is also a very inexpensive color. Ultimately keeping one’s pallet rather limited is good and making your own color wheel and knowing exactly where your color resides o the your wheel in terms of hue chroma and value makes it so that you can easily lean them whichever way you want. But higher chroma mixes may extend your chroma range but it does also pose (expensive) problems for beginners imo. Not saying a person should or should not use earth colors, just saying there are good reasons to like them too. My 2c

Another very helpful video!

Thank you for such a great explanation. I am working on color this year, various mixes, keeping a journal of my results...this lesson will be a page in my journal with all the various shades, I am self taught so all of your videos are well appreciated

I've told you before , you 're a genius . Thank you so much. 🙏🙏🙏 Greetings from Antwerp, Belgium

That was so helpful. I think the mixed colors look richer. Thanks!

I love the idea of having the degree of variations. It seems that it would allow the painter/artist more control and flexibility to give the richest details in their paintings.

Hi Diane! Long time no talk to.. Hope you are well in these crazy times? I Love my earth colors and use them on both my Oil and Watercolor palettes. I get a lot of new very cool mixtures by experimenting with each color and how they mix with the primaries and secondaries. That said, I do agree anytime spent color mixing for any desired hue will make anyone a better Artist.

I see the value of doing it that way now. More options and amazing how you got it so close to the earth tones.

Loved it!

I love that you make these reflections on colors and brands and the beauty of mixing using opposites and get a very rich possibility of variations and yet a beauty of color harmony. 🙏💜

thats so interesting and so useful - I will try that for sure. Thanks again for explaining this so well

I love this so much Dianne! This approach is life-changing for me - a huge revelation - thank you so much for everything! 💙

Excellent demonstration Dianne.

As always, this quick tip is so very helpful. Thank you Dianne.

wow, very enlightening, thanks so much Dianne

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us!

I heard about that earth colors are clays, which are highly absorbent. Thanks for these substitutes, you're awesome Dianne, I have learned a lot from you.

Thank you so much Dianne your tutorials are the best !

Thank you for your help, it is very much appreciated!

Thanks so much for this wonderful quick tip !!

Absolutely fascinating. Thank you.

What a great tip, Dianne. Thank you so much! btw, I recently had covid and revisited your drawing classes as I wasn't up to standing at my easel. I just loved them all over again. I've never had this skill or the patience to develop it but I have with your classes and I love my drawings.

Life Changing !! ! This just un- flustered me on this painting I was just working on. Thank You !!

Fantastic tip!! Thank you so much for sharing!

Dam! Now I understand why a lot of master artists says that we don't need to buy every colours, but the most basics one. Stubborn and ignorant, I bought a bunch of colours, because why not, I'm lazy and I love colours. This lady artist finally explained it very well. So well, I'm disappointed to have spent so much money on colours it would be well advise to mix. Ah well! I'll use them to practice.

Absolutely fabulous- I will certainly be attempting this tip 😘

This is amazing! I hope you know how helpful and inspiring you are. Thankyou.

Thank you for caring and sharing your expertise. Such a help to me.

Very instructive approach! You are a wonderful teacher....thank you very much! All my best wishes to you!

I love your approach to colour mixing Diane. It makes so much sense. Thank you

THANK YOU!!! I love the variations and making my own colors

You're amazing. I can't wait to watch all your videos with my daughter. I thought I knew something about color but... mind blown! Very cool

Well this method you show here really unlocks the potential for some stunning earth tones. Seeing your samples on the canvas of tube colors and then the colors on your palette from the red to the blue/green and all in-between is really inspiring.

You are a great teacher.

Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous. Your teaching and your mastery of color. Your videos are inspiring. Thank you

Love this! I hardly use earth colours either because I enjoy mixing so much naturally but I do end up using yellow ochre for sand because I always struggle to make it! This has really helped thank you! My other struggle is sky blue, for the life of me I can never match the perfect blue of a sky no matter what blue I use or mix.

Thank you for that. Your method also creates greater color harmony throughout the whole painting!

I love using the compliments, too! So much more sophisticated in the mixes ❤

Fantastic. I learned a lot. Thank you!

Another beautiful lesson! Thank you!

For heaven’s sake! This is a great video Dianne! Paint magic!

Great color lesson! Thank you!🙂

Thank you! Great video! I can't wait to try these:)

Really interesting informations. Thank you 👌

Those variations surely help to make really exciting paintings. Straight tube colors, to which no one mixes with or blends into other colors has its place, but ends up looking more like pop-art, flat illustration and other mechanical printing methods. I think your explanation is amazing and your excitement is always so contagious!

Great video! I mainly use them (umber & sienna) because they speed drying, mostly for black & dark grays. Prussian blue also dries faster, makes a faster drying black.

Dianne, excellent lesson! You are a true color Alchemist, bravo!👏👍😃

Thanks Dianne, I watched this and realised I make these colours along the way but still put the earth tomes on the palette. I totally agree with getting s much broader range of color by mixing them. It's always good to have someone point out the obvious haha! I must chase down that Viridian green. Thank you .

FANTASTIC. THANKS!!🎉

Really interesting! Thank you.

excellent demo Dianne - yes it is affording the artist the choice of leaning towards what is required with all the various shades that occur during the painting being carried out. Thank you.

Thank you for this information.

So good. Thanks.

So helpful must try to see if will work for me thanks for video

Well done!

I stumbled onto my own mixture of burnt sienna recently and was kind of surprised. I'm an acrylic painter experimenting with oils and (for economy) have only the primary colors plus raw umber and white and am learning how much freedom there is to mixing my own colors. Thank you so much for this quick tip!

Great examples!

Ty. Very informative.

LOVE this!

Thanks so much for the great tips. Yiu are very kind and generous by sharing your expertise. I like and sub.

Thank you.

that was so awesome

I am just starting out in oil painting, but I understand that there is an amazing range of modern pigments with super lightfastness that gives you more control over the mixtures without adding contradictory undertones lol. Thanks for the content

I understand the burnt umber, for me it greys things. I probably would still want the yellow ochre for portraits the burnt sienna I need for landscapes. But I see your point, of course your more skilled in mixing than me, I might change overtime. Thank you❤

more variety, wonderful!

This is the first time I'd disagree with her wonderful videos; I'm probably wrong, but... Earth colors are traditional, dirt cheap, natural and safe compared to something like cadmium. It's nice to have a limited pallet, but it seems strange to mix valuable paints to produce something you could make quickly and cheaply with an earth color, and then just add a dash of other colors to get the last adjustments in. I think of these as the workhorse colors. Look at her video on Zorn. Earth tones were used extensively by the old masters, no? Seemed to work ok for them.

The yellow ochre you mixed from the complements looks sooo much more saturated and richer than the tube color!

Gracias

I mixed my own earth colours to learn since i recently got into painting, i tried getting burnt umber but got raw umber. I think both ways are good, premixed and from tube.

Thank you for sharing, I feel earth colors are used to frequently.

Thank you for doing these quick tips! They are great. I try to listen to everyone that you send.You saved my painting life during the pandemic. I have a question about your palette... You have so many paints and so much of each one around the edge. How do you keep this large amount of paint on the palette fresh and not dry out? How do you clean it up or cover it up? Are you using palette paper? Can you do a quick tip on this and how you dispose of medium like orderless mineral spirit and other supplies used with with oil paints. Thanks so much.

This was SO SO useful. OMG.. I feel like I won the lottery.

One thing I would really like to know, is how do you keep the heaps of paint on the edge of your palette from drying out? I am new to painting and am trying to find a palette set up that is convenient but doesn’t waste the paint. Also thank you for all the tips. Found the channel yesterday and already learning so much 😊❤️

I struggle keeping acrylic colors alive long enough to keep a gradation like these on my palette. Even keeping the colors from the tube open is challenging. Even with a wet palette and open paints and retarder - they dry up quickly. I’ve been mainly using the earth colors to neutralize my other colors. I still find this strategy interesting and will probably play with it.

Thanks. Could you demonstrate the difference to alter those earth colors with red blue or yellow etc.

the earth tones were cheaper to use waaay back in the day, and I think that's why it was so frequently used. I do a similar use of using complementary colors but I keep the earth tones at hand just in case I need a quick help from a tube. Some of my students love the earth colors and I teach them how to use them but I haven't used them a lot lately and I've been doing a lot of work that is more modern palette so to speak a chromatic palette which I find easier to use and teach.

I use Bone Black and Iron Red oxide to create my burnt umber. Slowly migrating away from clay based pigments. Too many problems with them according to the literature.

Thank you for blessing us all with your wisdom! Quick question: Can you recommend a simple palette the enables us to get all the earthy tones without using earth tones. I’m guessing it would have to include colours like viridian right?

I like to do portrait and your videos had helped me a lot. I like to have 13 colours in my palette, it's like an obsession and I don't know why I just like that number of colours. Now I can replace the earth colours on it with more vibrant and saturated colours with this pro tip, I will have another green and another yellow. Just thanks for a life dedicated to such beautiful art 🙏🏽. God bless you

I love playing with colours. That’s what I love most about oils. Today, I finally discovered the value of the colour wheel lol! Because I’ve had little tutelage in the past, I am a hoarder of colours as well as brushes. I have all the earth colours but when I made myself some charts, I realized how many colours I’ve duplicated unnecessarily. Just out of curiosity, what is Yellow Naples? It is my least favourite tube of all my tubes and every time I try to use it, it seems to kill any life in the painting. Thank you

I think it’s too expensive to use a $30 tube of cadmium red to make burnt umber and I’m comfortable using the earth tones which are less expensive and my main staple is earthtones the great masters used it some people will tell you Don’t used black I think that’s a whole Lotta crap But If I hit the lottery and I can afford to use cadmium colors that way I will try it one day

Hey Dianne! I love your videos- thank you. I am wondering if the thick amounts of colours around the edge of your pallet stay there permanently? If so, do they stay wet because they are pure oils and you close a lid over the top? Elle

One advantage of using the earth colours is that they are generally the most light fast colours.

Hi Dianne, I think I've been missing an n from your name when I write you. So sorry. I really liked this tip of creating these 3 colours and expanding them. I'm going to log them in my Book of Hues. I'll keep using the main 3, only because I'm trying to absorb so much within the realm of science, art technique, plus. I'd like to create 'my lessons' into a painting where I'll see and say good job Rosee. I hope one day to go leaner with my tubes and brushes, which for now, provide comfort though a hole in my pocket :) See you Sunday!!!!!

Thank You!! I hardly ever use the earth tones straight from the tube, I always mix in the compliments, but the way you leave the variations on the palette may have just solved my issue I'm having with a subject that has dark bronze skin tones part sun, part shade. Duh! Why haven't I thought of having a gradient available? Also, being from Alabama, do I detect a Carolina accent? lol