For these mixes, I employed three red colors: cadmium, red light, cadmium, red deep, and alizarin crimson. I mixed each with the following yellows: yellow ochre light, cadmium yellow lemon, cadmium yellow light, and cadmium yellow middle. Each of the reds represented 25% of the mixture and each of the yellows represented 75%. Each mixture was in mixed with white in the proportions that I have been using: 75–25, 50–50, 25–75, and 5–95.
The result is a very interesting palette of different shades and intensities of orange. All of these colors are beautiful in their own way. The high key mixes are good flesh colors.
This mixing exercise helped me understand that there really are subtle differences between cadmium red deep and alizarin crimson. The latter is more transparent and that’s the main reason to keep it on my palette based on this particular study. Of note, the more brilliant oranges are obtained by mixing each of the two colors with cadmium red light whereas the more burnt orange colors come from the other two tube colors.
California Paintings 