PAINTING TUTORIAL || Myths About The CMY Primary Palette!

It is true that of any 3 colours the Cyan Magenta & Yellow primary palette will yield the most mixes & are agreed to be the ‘truest’ primaries.
So why do artists not use this palette more often or still refer to the primaries as Red, Green & Blue?
This video explains some of the reasons!

[@timothyandrewausten]

Truth! All of the way through high school, I was given RBY paint, and I even made color wheels with it as exercises in art class. It was inexpensive "tempera" paint that came in gallon jugs, because that's what was available at the store. CMY ink has been used in printing for centuries, but the RBY system is hard-wired into the English language, which even changes the way that we perceive the world. Red, blue, and yellow are the primaries, and green, orange, and violet are the secondaries. Some things just won't ever change!

[@michellegiacalone1079]

I make great secondaries with CMY colors, so it all depends on how you mix your colors.

[@dorisroseart]

True, you can do a lot with just a CMY colour palette especially if you have experience using it. However, many people are incorrectly tought that a CMY colour palette can mix any colour & this isn’t true. You will always mix a wider range with more paints. 🤗

[@Foervraengd]

I prefer using a CMYK palette because I am mainly a digital artist, and CMYK are the colors I am familiar with due to using them for prints. I can use my digital art programs to make color mockups in advance using CMYK, and then easier recreate a very similar result in oils - if I would need a pure red or green or blue I can just add that to my palette if needed. I don't see the point in restricting oneself to a specific palette. Nothing is stopping you from using CMY + cadmium red or some other extra color lol.

[@rustedvulture8974]

great vid! very informative.

[@dorisroseart]

Thank you !! 🤗✨

[@doktorhyena]

CYM does give you a much wider range than RYB though, and as you mentioned, is a lot more scientifically accurate. You can get those more specific things such as warm red/cool red by addinng more or less yellow or magenta to your mix. Same with the blues- for a cool blue, add more cyan than magenta. For a warm blue (closer to violet), obviously add a bit more magent. True, having red and blue paints does help make it easier, saying that you CAN'T get those colors with CYM is completely false regardless. If you're more into split primaries, why not use warm cyan, cool cyan, warm magenta, cool magenta, warm yellow, and cool yellow? Wouldn't this give you a much wider range than warm/cool RYB? Overall not your best video and it really just seems like you're coming up with excuses staying with the outdated color theory.

[@rosverlegaspo6752]

On the other hand, instead of split primaries, why not primaries+secondaries? Cyan, Green, Yellow, Red, Magenta and Blue? I think that would be less confusing than having two versions of each primaries.

[@doktorhyena]

@@rosverlegaspo6752 Definitely!

[@rosverlegaspo6752]

@@doktorhyena And the nice thing is that you also get the traditional primaries (RYB). It is CMY + RYB (Yellow is shared between the two) and Green. The best of both worlds I guess?

[@doktorhyena]

@@rosverlegaspo6752 I would say CYM + RGB is going to give you the widest range for obvious reasons, but yes.