Neutral greys mixed from complements, not from black
A grey mixed from black and white is a dead colour: it has no hue, so it cannot participate in the light of a picture. A grey mixed from two complements carries a faint, specific hue and connects every other colour on the panel to every other. The difference is not subtle once you have both in front of you.
Neutral — Greys mixed from complements, never from black.
| Pigment | Parts | Hex |
|---|---|---|
| French Ultramarine | 2 : 6 (33%) | #2E4A7D |
| Burnt Sienna | 2 : 6 (33%) | #9A5A32 |
| Dioxazine Purple | 1 : 6 (17%) | #4B2E63 |
| Winsor Yellow Deep | 1 : 6 (17%) | #D9A02B |
Mixing notes
| Cool grey Blue-dominant. The shadow colour for anything lit by north light or overcast sky. | 4 ultramarine + 1 burnt sienna | #6E7580 |
| Neutral grey The balance point. It is a hair warm, which is almost always more useful than a true neutral. | 2 ultramarine + 2 burnt sienna | #7A746A |
| Warm grey Sunlight shadow. Pair with a cool grey on the same object and the form turns without any modelling. | 1 ultramarine + 4 burnt sienna | #8B7A6B |
| Violet grey Dioxazine is around twenty times the tinting strength of the others. Dilute to a tenth before it goes in. | 2 neutral grey + 1 dioxazine purple | #635C72 |
| Green grey The grey for metal and for anything under foliage. The yellow must be added first, or it will not take. | 2 neutral grey + 1 winsor yellow, then a trace of ultramarine | #6A6E5E |
- Paint a nine-step value scale in the pure neutral grey, from paper white to full strength, in equal value increments.
- Repaint the same nine steps using the cool grey and the warm grey. Compare them in a row to the neutral.
- Squint. The three scales should look identical in value and different in temperature. If the cool scale looks darker, your ultramarine is stronger than you assumed.
- Mix the violet grey and the green grey at two strengths and add them as tenth and eleventh swatches.
- Paint a single object — a white mug — using only these greys, in three versions: north light, sunlight and overcast.
- Compare the three versions. The form should read identically in all three; only the temperature changes.
- Keep the sheet. A grey mixed by complement behaves completely differently from a grey mixed from black, and the difference only becomes obvious when you have both in front of you.
Why the complement grey works
Ultramarine and burnt sienna are near-complements in hue: a deep blue-violet against an orange-brown. When mixed in roughly equal parts they neutralise each other's chroma, but each retains a trace of its own hue at the edges of the mix. The result is a grey that shifts from blue-grey to warm brown-grey as the ratio changes, giving you an entire family of neutrals from one pair.
A black-and-white grey has no such family. It has exactly one neutral and every departure from it is a different colour.
Two greys on one object
The most useful application is on a single form: put a cool grey in the shadow and a warm grey in the light, or the reverse depending on the light source. Because the two greys are nearly the same value, the form turns without any modelling — the eye reads the temperature change as a plane change.
This is how a white cup can be painted with no white paint at all. Paper white stays as the highlight, and the rest is two greys.
Mixing discipline for the violet and green greys
Dioxazine purple has roughly twenty times the tinting strength of burnt sienna, and a tube of it is often the strongest pigment in a studio. It must be diluted to about a tenth strength on the palette before it goes anywhere near a grey, or the grey becomes purple outright.
Winsor yellow deep is the opposite problem: it is weak and opaque, and it will not mix into an already-loaded grey. Add it to fresh water first, then add the grey to the yellow, not the yellow to the grey.
What matters
- Complement greys carry a faint hue and connect the picture; black-and-white greys do not.
- Two near-value greys on one form turn the form without any modelling.
- Dilute dioxazine purple to a tenth before it touches a grey — its strength is about 20x.
- Add weak opaque yellows to water first, then add the grey to the yellow, not the reverse.
Handling note — Technique notes only. Follow the manufacturer's safety data sheet for pigment handling and studio ventilation.