Tinting and Toning
Tinting and Toning Colours
In any large range of artists’ colours there are bound to be many rather superfluous colours unless the range is carefully planned and explained because most artists actually work with only about 16 colours. The Old Masters had to make do with much less.
In the Atelier range there are both dark toning colours and light ones. They can be used to advantage to control the balance between tone (the light to dark effects seen in black and white photography) and colour, which sits within the tonal range and manifests as the chroma or intensity of the colours used “within” the particular tone.
Light Toning Colours
 Tinting White (Pearl/Titanium)
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 Toning Grey Mid
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 Toning Grey Yellowish
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 Toning Grey Pinkish
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Dark Toning Colours
Opaque
Semi-Transparent
Transparent
Very Strong Coverage
 Blue Black (Indigo)
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 Brown Black
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 Red Black
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 Green Black
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 Carbon Black
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 Mars Black
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 Paynes Grey
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Toning Colours with a Strong Midtone Chroma
There are lots of dark colours with hidden chroma which show up as brighter colour in mid tone tints when mixed with with white, and these tints can be too sharp and strident looking. Toning them can give a more aesthetic result, so lets looks at some of them...
 Pthalo Blue tinted with White and then toned with Blue Black
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 Pthalo Green tinted with White and then toned with Green Black.
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 Quinacridone Red Violet toned with Red Black (no White)
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Toning Bright Glazing Colours
Transparent Toning
The same also applies to some of the strong glazing colours - Transparent Yellow, Indian Yellow, Red Gold and Transparent Perinone Orange. Sometimes we want the transparency effect with a reduction of the colour, so we need to tone towards transparent grey values using transparent dark colours like Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna Dark and Burnt Umber and Carbon Black. Yellow can be a difficult colour to tone, if you use Carbon Black it will turn green, try using Yellow Ochre or Raw Sienna instead.
 Transparent Yellow toned with Yellow Ochre
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 Red Gold toned with
Burnt Umber |
 Transparent Perinone Orange toned with Raw Sienna Dark
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Opaque Toning
For Opaque toning try mixing some bright colours toned with the light toning colours - Toning Grey Yellowish, Toning Grey Pinkish, and Toning Grey Mid.
Note: These toning colours can’t be used to tone down glazes because they can contain white, which destroys the translucent effect.
 Quinacridone Magenta plus Toning Grey Pinkish
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 Indian Yellow toned with Toning Grey Yellowish
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 Red Gold toned with Toning Grey Pinkish
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Tinting with Tinting White(Pearl Titanium)
A rather special colour is Tinting White/Pearl Titanium which is translucent with its careful balance of titanium and mica pearl. It lifts any colour it is mixed with, and is used for scumbling and other translucent over-painting effects. It is subtle and easy to use, whereas traditional pearl white can look much too obvious unless it is used carefully by an experienced artist.
When transparent colours are used in tints with Tinting White (Pearl Titanium), very unusual transluscent, light infused colours result. Very worth experimenting with.
 Indian Yellow tinted with Tinting White
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 Transparent Perinone Orange tinted with Tinting White
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 Dioxazine Purple tinted with Tinting White
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