Wallow In It, My Friend!
We’ve all heard the mantra: “You need burnt sienna, burnt umber, mars black, raw umber…yada yada yada.” Now, sure, we may need these conventional horse colors, but let’s not stop there, shall we? Let’s think outside the proverbial paint box! There’s a whole spectrum of colors out there that will add a wonderful dimension to our painting by infusing a cornucopia of unique, rich, vibrant colors to our palette. Life doesn’t myopically fixate on burnt umber or ivory black, or any other color, does it? Nope! So neither should we. It’s just color, right? And any color is potentially useful! What’s more important is recognizing and exploring our possibilities.
Because here’s the thing—eventually we’re going to get bored with the standard colors and, ultimately, they’re going to fail us. See, there’s only so much we can do with them. They have their limits. The eventuality then is a rather homogenized body of work with a “yeah, we’ve seen that before” look to it. Wouldn’t we want more diversity? This makes each piece wholly unique while also making our work far more challenging and fun! Plus these standard pigments don’t always recreate the necessary tone we need for a particular coat, do they? They often can fall short yet we want to get as close as we can to our target tones, don’t we?
Luckily then, the panacea for our palette is the application of unlikely colors, even those hues that seem to be so outlandish, they’re unusable. Not so! Every color is relevant because nature doesn’t care about which color is “right.” Really, if a color exists, it’s a likely candidate! How fun is that? Limitless possibilities!
But First, The Basics
To best explore these eccentric colors, we need to know a little bit about basic color terminology and color theory. Knowing these key concepts first will help us better understand further education because we’ll know the language and ideas more like a damp sponge, and a damp sponge absorbs more than a dry one.
For starters then, get a color wheel. Inexpensive and typically made of cardstock, they spin to illustrate how colors relate to each other to guide our mixing strategies. So learn how to use one effectively and there are many videos on YouTube teaching you how. Paint manufacturers also make color charts using their colors, demonstrating a wide spectrum of colors we can achieve with their pigments, being another handy guide. For example, here are color charts from Liquitex. It's also important to know how specialized paints work like interference, metallics, pearlescent, and iridescents. And there are quite a few color mixing instructionals on YouTube as well. We should also know how to read pigment codes because that information can come in very handy when it comes to mixing color.
We also should learn the lingo. Some basic concepts include:
- Primary color: Pure red, yellow, and blue, the pure colors that cannot be made by mixing other colors. In practice then, these three pigments can produce all other colors, with the exception of white, which is the absence of color when it comes to paint. It should be noted, however, that because different reds, yellows, and blues exist, there’s a huge spectrum of colors possible with all this variation.
- Secondary color: The color produced by the mixture of any two primary colors. For example, purple (red/blue), green (yellow/blue) and orange (red/yellow).
- Tertiary color: Produced when we mix any primary color with an adjacent (on the color wheel) secondary color. For instance, mixing red with orange (red/yellow).
- Intermediate color: The mixture of any two primaries and a third color. For example, the combination of orange (red/yellow) and burnt sienna (to make a bright chestnut).
- Value: The degree of lightness or darkness of a color. We can change a color’s value by altering it with another color. For instance, purple has a dark value, but if we add white, its value is lightened. Conversely, pink is a light value, but add burnt sienna and we darken its value.
- Chroma: The purity of a color that establishes its relative brightness, vividness, and clarity, or dullness or muddiness.
- Tint: A lighter value typically created by the mixture of white or similar light value color (“highlight”). (In model horse circles, we also use “tint” to refer to altering an underlying color with a glazing technique.)
- Shade: A darker value typically created by the mixture of black or dark value color (“shading”).
- Tone: The direction a color leans. For instance, a red–toned brown, a yellow–toned orange or a brown–toned grey. In traditional painting circles, however, “tone” refers to any color plus grey.
- Hue: Another word for “color.”
- Intensity or Saturation: The amplification of a color through progressive saturation. For example, the more burnt umber in our burnt umber glaze, the more intense that burnt umber will look in application. Or the more red we have in our chestnut mixture will make it more intensely red. We can also add more glazed layers of the same color to increase its intensity in our paintwork. In practice then, we can create many varied effects simply applying different intensities on various parts of the piece, so play with it.
- Monochromatic color: Using any hue, tint, shade, or tone of just one color.
- Analogous color: Using colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. For instance, mixing yellow and green together.
- Complementary color: Mixing any two colors opposite each other on the color wheel. For example, mixing yellow/purple, orange/blue, or green/red. When mixed together as pairs, they’re passively dulled, meaning that their characteristics aren’t destroyed in the process unlike using black which can quickly destroy a color outright. So experiment with complementary colors to find a whole new spectrum of exciting color possibilities. Indeed, different yellows/purples, oranges/blues, and greens/reds produce new variations of lovely hues such as unique browns, reds, burgundies, rusts, golds, oranges, and greys, opening up the possibilities for all sorts of horse colors including novel or more accurate duns, grullas, greys, chestnuts, and others. And the greens produced are often helpful for hooves and muzzles which can have a lot more green involved than we may realize. The resultant blues and purples are also useful for more unique bays, chestnuts, dilutes, sooties, composites, etc. Indeed, using various complementary harmonies will enrich our paintwork tremendously and produce a wide spectrum of colors otherwise unattainable. We want to open up our palette to limitless possibilities, yes? We want to break our addiction to pre-made colors? Well, one of the most powerful ways we do this is through the use of complements! Quite literally, they’re the key to unlimited possibilities! For that, advanced students would learn much from creating a series of chromatic scales to learn the extraordinary power of complementary colors.
- Mixing complementary color: The neutral color created by mixing two complements, being a brown, grey, or almost-black. Can be a very handy base to make color variations.
- Split complementary color: Using any color with two colors on each side of its complement. For instance, mixing green with red-orange and red-violet.
- Triad color: Mixing three colors equally spaced from each other on the color wheel. For example, mixing violet, orange, and green.
- Tetrad color: Using four colors on the color wheel that are two sets of complementary colors. For instance, mixing violet and yellow with blue and orange.
- Key color: The dominant color tone or undertone of the paintwork, the unifying color.
- Companion colors: We can use a family of colors to harmonize a color theme, applicable to the body color, tone, tint, value, intensity, shade and highlight. For example, a palomino shade of raw sienna/burnt umber/titanium white can have a companion shade with the addition of more burnt umber. Likewise, a silver dapple highlight that entails a burnt umber/french grey mix may have a companion of burnt umber/taupe. In other words, a companion color involves some of the initial color that’s been altered to marry the two together while maintaining variation. This can be highly effective in adding gradients and subtle complexity to any coat color, so experiment with this method.
- Muddy color: If we don’t know how to mix color effectively enough, we’re going to inadvertently create “mud." For instance, if we use black to darken our hues rather than using complementary colors, we’ll likely create mud. A typical example is creating a muddy green when we try to combine black with golds to blend our buckskin’s leg coloration. Or if we mix too many colors together, we’ll create mud, too, or if we mix together colors that conflict with each other, we’ll create mud again, like mixing a "warm" color with a "cool" color. However, that said, there are many times when mud is absolutely necessary. Nature uses all the colors! Mud can be magical! For instance, silvers, mushroom, grullas, champagnes, pearls, and other dilutes are really just sophisticated types of mud, right? So knowing how to intentionally mix the right kind of mud is actually a superpower in our art form and where, again, knowing how to mix "crazy" colors really helps us out.
- Clean color: When we use the bare minimum of non-competing pigments to create a color, we tend to create a “clean” color. Like mixing a cool color with a cool color, or a warm with a warm will produce a "clean" result. So what that means is this: The beauty of a paint job is the exceptional application of many different colors working together independently as a visual whole rather than many different colors mixed together. Using clean colors can help to increase the luminosity and glow of our paintjob which can be essential for certain colors or coat bloom. Indeed, the cleaner the color, the more the paintjob tends to pop.
- Dull color: We can dull colors by adding white, taupe, grey, tan, or similarly white-based hue. But this isn’t a bad thing! Really, it’s often necessary for painting some composite colors and many dilutes. For instance, some buckskins can have a dusty, muted look that's important to capture in pigment. It's also necessary to create more creamy colors like creamy chestnuts and palominos.
- Muted color: We can mute down any color with its complement color or most any color with black (careful though with black). Muting can be necessary for blending hues or pinpointing certain colors such as some champagnes, silvers, and grullas, for instance.
- Warm color: Sometimes referred to as “advancing” colors, these are the reds, yellows, oranges, golds, and rusts. Mixing these colors into our mixes will “warm up” the resultant color.
- Cool color: At times referred to as the “receding” colors these are the blues, greens, and purples (and sometimes violets). Mixing these colors into our mix will “cool it down.”
- Warm or cool palette: Entails the exclusive use of either warm or cool tones to produce a warm or cool undertone to the paint job. Yet while conventional painting theory tends to favor sticking only with one family of colors to create either an exclusively warm–toned or cool–toned painting, when it comes to painting model horses realistically, that’s a problematic policy. The thing is, Nature doesn’t care about such things and perhaps neither should we. So don’t be afraid to jumble up warm or cool tones on a single piece. Just hit the target colors as close as possible and have fun with it all!
However, let’s talk about warm and cool colors for a moment (recommended reading: Fire And Ice: The Power Of A Warm and Cool Palette, and Pop n’ Glow: Waking Up Your Paintwork With Color). See, the issue of a “warm” or “cool” color is a bit complicated yet it’s super important to understand the undertones, or "temperatures," of our colors if our mixes are going to be on target. This is because even the warm colors like yellows, reds, and oranges, well, they can be warm or cool, too, or our cool colors like blues, greens, and purples, they can be warm or cool as well. Yep—there is such a thing as a cool red and a warm red! For instance, a cool red is alizarin crimson with its blue undertone while a warm red is cadmium red with its orange undertone. Generally speaking then, cool reds lean into the purple and blue spectrum and away from the yellows, rusts, and oranges while warm reds tend to lean the opposite. Likewise, cool yellows tend to lean into the green undertone while warm yellows lean into the orange undertone. For instance, hansa yellow is a good example of a cool yellow while cadmium yellow deep is an example of a warm yellow. And—yes—the cool colors have their own warm and cool varietals as well. For example, ultramarine blue is often thought of as a warm blue with its purple leanings (and therefore reds) while phthalo blue can be considered a cool blue as it leans into the greens (but more on the blues in a bit).
Likewise, whites and blacks have their warm and cool counterparts which can make a big difference in our mixtures as well. For instance, zinc white is a good example of a cool white while antique white is a warm white with a tan lean. In contrast, titanium white is more neutral, making it an ideal white for just about any palette. Similarly, mars black is a warm brown toned-black (and therefore red) while ivory black is a cool blue-toned black whereas carbon black is a neutral black, leaning neither warm or cool. So if we exclusively use ivory black to paint a dapple grey it’ll create a cool blue-leaning dapple grey whereas using mars black will result in a warmer brown-leaning dapple grey while using carbon black will produce a more neutral dapple grey. What does this mean? That we’ll miss our target for the bluish cast on a porcelain grey (grey on black) if we use warm mars black instead of cool ivory black. That’s how powerful the temperature of a color can be.
However, can we talk about raw umber for a moment? That funky cool toned “green” brown? See, our art form has an inherent bias for reds with an accompanying strong bias against the “not reds,” the cool colors. It makes sense though when it comes to horse colors, right? Our horses aren’t colored in blues, purples, and greens. They aren’t mantis shrimp! Nope, they’re shades of reds, rusts, golds, yellows, peaches, browns, tans, blacks, greys, pinks, and whites, etc….that sorta thing. Even so though, Nature has a much bigger color story to tell because if we look closely, we'll find that it offers up those “not reds” as cool variations of our horsey colors just the same. So unless we perceive and duplicate this fuller color story, we’re going to miss a lot of realism and options for our work. For example, we really lean into burnt umber (warm brown) but recoil from raw umber (cool brown), interpreting it as “too green.” It really isn’t green though per se, it’s just not red. It’s very much a cool brown. Yet we’re so biased towards red, we literally perceive anything “not red” as greenish or bluish. But here’s the thing, if we’re paying attention to Nature’s color story, these “not reds” are equally important and offer our palette just as much fun as any warm color. For example, dark hooves and leg chestnuts can be in the cooler spectrum and some grey skin can actually be based on cool violet. Many colors also require a cooler temperature in part or in whole such as some silvers, grullas, mushroom, champagnes, and liver chestnuts. So we should rethink our collective bias against the “not reds,” and in particular, against raw umber. The truth is that cool colors are tremendously helpful and often the only way to get to certain colors otherwise super tricky to pin down. For instance, raw umber is often the only way to properly get to grulla.
So now…back to blue. Here’s the thing: There’s often disagreement over the temperatures of blues because it’s just a color that’s harder to define as a subset of warm or cool. Blue is a color that just is, in many ways. In practice though, most blues have a green slant to them with very few having a red slant. For instance, cobalt blue is considered by many to be the most neutral bluest blue, depending on the manufacturer. In that light then, ultramarine blue and indanthrone blue can be thought of as warm blues and cerulean blue and phthalo blue can be thought of as cool blues. But well…that’s open to debate when you actually swatch them. But a handy trick is to do a series of mixing swatches with a cool yellow—which blues create clear, vibrant greens? Those will be your cool blues. In turn, which will create dulled greens like army or olive or muddy greens? Those will be your warm blues.
Second, not accounting for temperature is often why we miss our target colors altogether or completely misinterpret a color wheel. It can be why we’re constantly fighting our mixtures, too, never quite pinpointing our references or even unintentionally creating mud. It’s not that what we’re doing is intrinsically wrong, it’s probably because we aren’t accounting for the temperature of the colors we’re mixing. Like if we mix a warm blue, say ultramarine blue, that has a bit of red in it, with a with a cool yellow, like hansa yellow light, that has a bit of green in it, what do you think is going to happen between the red and green undertones? Yep, they’re going to generate a dulled, muddy color instead of a vibrant, clear color. As such, we’ll usually have more success hitting our target colors if we stick with one tone, say mixing that warm blue with a warm yellow instead. Really, to keep our colors bright and clear, sticking with one tone often works best like mixing a cool-toned yellow with a cool-toned red will stay more clear than mixing that cool yellow with a warm-toned red. Unfortunately though, many artists find frustration with color mixing because they inexplicably keep creating mud or colors not quite right for their target hues and blame their lack of skill, even their paint. Chances are though that’s it’s simply an unawareness of their colors’ temperatures that’s the culprit. Really, get a handle on that, and our mixes will often magically fix themselves. So experiment to see how warm and cool colors behave with each other to get a handle on this effect.
However, third, there’s nothing wrong with mud and dulled colors if that’s the target we’re going for. Mud can indeed be just the ticket! Indeed, leg chestnuts and the palmar foot benefit from these hues quite a bit as do some tones on the hooves. Some coat colors can also be muddy like mushroom, champagne, grulla, and some silvers and liver chestnuts. In fact, they can be thought of as a specialized kind of mud, can’t they? But we won’t know how to make effective mud if we don’t know how to manipulate color temperatures, will we? And what if we need a warm mud or a cool mud—do we know how to make those purposely? If we don’t know about color temperature then, we’re simply working at a sharp disadvantage with purposeful mixing.
Because finally, fourth, if we don’t understand temperature, we won’t be able to manipulate our pigments well enough and that can greatly limit our palette. Yet when we do understand color theory and the temperatures of our paints, we can adjust the nature of our colors how ever we want, even their warmth and coolness. Like let’s say we have a green that’s more neutral like a sage green. How would we warm it up while keeping it green? Well, we can add some warm quinacridone gold to lean it into warm yellow. How would we cool it down while keeping it green? We can add in some cool prussian blue to blue it up. Or, for example, some burnt umber can warm up a grey or, alternately, payne’s grey can cool it down. This can have a powerful effect on our palette to really help us target our colors with a lot more control and accuracy.
So—yes—the warm and cool colors on our palette matters, and matters a lot. Indeed, our color mixes can be radically changed simply by switching one of them out, warming and cooling being that powerful. In this way, we can turn relatively few colors into a host of others when we know how to mix them well enough, opening up our palette so much more. Really, when we can mix our own classic silver dapple tones and don’t need to rely on store-bought pre-mixed colors, for example, we not only gain a lot of uniqueness, versatility, and adaptability, but we also gain something even more amazing—independent autonomy in our paintwork. The moment that happens is when we’ll find that painting not only becomes a lot more fun and interesting, but our paintwork expands in diversity and depth, attainable no other way. We also gain a lot more confidence as we have the ability to really target any color we wish a lot more accurately.
“Wow! What Colors Did You Use?!”
So now that we have all that under our belt, let’s apply it! But before we begin, understand that there are loads of different ways to apply all this, and we each find our own way of doing so. And that’s important. Each of our unique interpretations adds to the diversity of our arts, and truth be told, there really isn’t a wrong way given we know about color and how to mix it. There’s only our way, and that’s awesome! Also keep in mind that as we grow, our approaches will evolve, too, and that’s a good thing. Really, when we stay open to the possibilities of our palette, we’re also asked to stay open to new ways of interpretation and application. Indeed, the moment we become cemented in our thinking and rigid in our expectations is the moment we compromise our potential. Conventions are tricky things, especially our own.
So let’s start with a basecolor body color, the overarching idea of our target color, the basic unifying hue of the finished piece—the key color. But instead of using color directly out of the tube or our same ol’ routine formula, try a different medley, say, using complements or triads. For instance, create a burnt sienna/yellow oxide/rose basecoat for a buckskin, or a payne’s grey/raw umber grulla, or a burnt umber/grey brown, or a raw umber/raspberry bay, or a red oxide/teal chestnut, or a payne’s grey/cadmium orange hue sooty palomino, or a red oxide/ultramarine blue bay. The point is, the more unique the initial body color, the more diverse and unique the finished piece. As such, folks will be harder pressed to decipher how we achieved that color, and that helps to make our portfolio even more distinctive and deep.
Moving onto tonal variety, now we can block in variations to that body color to amplify “bloom” or the unique tonal differences of a particular color. So maybe we need to brighten or darken some portions, shift the tones in various regions, or even tweak the warmth or coolness of different portions. For instance, maybe we need to apply some coolness to the dock of a white tail with some warmth to the middle portion to finish with a very warm golden for the stained tail tips. For this we can add a bit of cool grey to titanium white for the dock, add in a bit of burnt umber and/or yellow oxide to titanium white for the middle portion, and then intensify that mix for the tips, for example. Or perhaps we want to block in some vibrant oranges and rusts in the key areas of a bay such as the flank, groin, elbow, chest, crown, and jugular areas. We can use the unconventional colors such as reds, oranges, and yellows here to great effect as well as the red and yellow oxides. Just because a color may be a bright and “non–horsey” doesn’t mean it’s not the perfect color to use! And if we know how to use color well, any color can be made into a horsey color.
Moving onto shade, the body colors alone won’t lend the desired depth, dimension, or richness to our paintjob. We’ll need a series of shade values to bring it to life. But instead of darkening the body color with black, apply the use of complementary colors. We can do this in two ways. First, we can darken the body color itself on the palette with a complementary color to amplify its depth without losing its richness and vibrancy. For example, use blues, purples, or greens to deepen reds, oxides, oranges, or rusts for browns, bays, and chestnuts. Or second, forget about using the body color entirely and mix up a new color, or series of colors using complementary harmonies. Indeed, mixing a rich, deep blue with red oxide, red, or orange will produce a gorgeous very dark, rich brown, and depending on the mix, it can even mimic black in certain ratios. We can even use purples for this as well, and using greens has a similar effect, but with very different results that may do well for certain colors and effects. There’s also the pairing of reds/greens, oranges/blues, and yellows/purples that offer us a host of colors including beautiful browns and greys. Want to achieve that blueish, purpley kind of vibrant bay? This is how we do it! So experiment. Point is, don’t just add black or more burnt umber to darken a burnt umber/red oxide base for our bay. Instead, darken that mix with a blue, purple, or green and use that. Or a new dark complement mixture is a great candidate, too.
But a bit of caution here: The use of complements is best for our purposes with “clear” colors most of the time, becoming trickier when white is involved. This is because white reveals a color’s tone so if we aren’t careful, we’ll have unwanted results. For instance, a burnt sienna/ultramarine blue mix makes a lovely dark brown, but dab in a tad of white and that blue becomes readily apparent. Or touch a bit of white into to a red oxide/green dark chestnut and we’ll end up with green mud. So learn to brighten colors without the use of white, which is done using reds, yellows, oranges and similar clear colors. Now granted, sometimes white is necessary for those creamy varietals like creamy chestnuts and bays and most dilutes, but for the more clear coats, white can be a liability. Point being, white is a super powerful color to add so know when to use it, and even more, know how to brighten our colors without the use of white, a very handy trick to have up our sleeve. Because here's the thing, once you add white to your mix, there's no removing it, so we have to know exactly what we're doing before we mix it in.
Anyway, to avoid this effect white has on complementary mixes, a workaround is to use complements as a base factor, relegating any mixture of white to specific exceptions. Because—hey—there will come a time when green mud is necessary like on hooves or palmar feet, or even on the lips. So for example, use a burnt sienna/ultramarine blue mix for the dark areas on a rosegrey and let dry. Then paint over that with browns tinted with a rosey tone. As another example, make a body color with taupe/grey/orange for a light dun and let dry. Then paint over that with the various light values we wish to mix for highlights. That's to say, use the complementary mix as a base then simply paint on top of that rather than mixing into it. This method really works well when creating unique and complex colors that are otherwise tricky to pin down.
Similarly, there are different ways to create highlights. A popular way is to simply add white or similar pastel-ized (tinted) color. And while that’s doable, and often necessary with some colors like composites, dilutes, and creamy colors, it’s not always the best approach for colors that need clarity such as vibrant bays and chestnuts, or even blacks. Indeed, if we use white to highlight these clear coats, we usually end up with a dulled “powder puff” result which is fine for certain situations but not fine if we didn’t intend that. For example, adding white to a strong burnt umber mix will often turn it pink. Not so helpful for a bay, right? Now that said—sure—some bays and chestnuts can be more opaque or creamy. So used with finesse, a vast spectrum of gorgeous creamy colors are possible from soft chestnuts to dreamy bays when we know how to employ white. Also on the upside, in small amounts, white transforms transparent colors into opaque powerhouses for highlighting or various other uses. Like it can turn a transparent yellow or orange into a tremendous color for all sorts of applications and mixes.
However, another interesting highlighting option with white is the use of glaze tinting. In this, we use a white-based highlight color as a base then tint it with a glaze of clear color. On a chestnut, for instance, we can highlight the muscles with a burnt sienna/white mixture and let that dry. Then we can glaze tint that color with an orangey rust or golden glaze or reddish glaze. Then vary this over the entire body in various tones and intensities, and we’ve created a rather vibrant, complicated chestnut with relative ease. It's a bit like the grisaille method in a way, and it works really well. Being so, we can often create a glowing, luminescent clear coat with this white-based technique, so don’t be so quick to rule white out. The things to remember are this though: A little bit of white goes a long way and it takes a bit of practice to use white effectively as a highlighting agent. So don’t get discouraged too quickly. And never be afraid to experiment. And if something doesn’t work one way, try another. Remember, it’s just color!
Even so, there are times when using white as a highlight agent isn’t our best option. Instead then we’ll want to recreate that clear, glowing, jewel–like quality another way. So what do we do? Ta–da! Pure colors! Yes! Those crazy bright reds, yellows, and oranges! These strong hues bring brilliance and luminescence to browns (bays), golds (palominos), and oranges (chestnuts), and other colors. Dabbing in pure reds, yellows, and oranges to a highlight mixture can create clear colors that pop, and used skillfully in a paintjob will recreate those jewel–like qualities of a clear coat in bloom. Or mix them together to create glazes of powerful color. For example, a bay really wakes up with the reds, oranges, and yellows when used in complementary mixes, or combined with red oxide, burnt sienna, or even black itself. Then yellow or orange can be wonderful accents for liver chestnuts or bright chestnuts alike while red can really add glow to red chestnuts or bloodstone chestnuts. Bays are perhaps the biggest benefactors of these bright colors, so make full use of them. Reds, oranges, and yellows are also highly effective in complementary mixes such as for creating greys, tans, and browns for various composites and dilutes, or used to warm up colors. Actually, when we learn how to use these bright reds, oranges, and yellows, we’ll find they’re not only indispensable, but a real blast with all their possibilities!
Note: If using cadmium colors, be sure to keep them off the skin as cadmium is a toxic compound. That goes for zinc white and cobalt blue as well. And don’t use these colors in an airbrush because we definitely don’t want aerosoled particles that could be inhaled. As an alternative to the cadmiums then, manufacturers make "hue" counterparts like cadmium red hue. However, many of these hue paints are composites of different colors, in that many different colors are mixed together to approximate their replacement. This can complicate mixes because you have to also factor in every single color used in that mix when you're creating your own mixes so just keep that in mind.
The Peacocks
In addition to our regular colors, we also get to use metallic, iridescent, pearlescent, and even interference pigments! Truly, iridescents, pearlescents, and metallics can be very useful for mimicking a satin sheen often seen on a healthy coat. For sculptures of Akhal–Tekes or the champagne color, in particular, they may be necessary. Used straight out of the container or infused into our mixtures, when used skillfully, they produce a realistic shimmer and depth unattainable by other means. For instance, pearlescent white mixed with white or applied as a finishing layer will produce a lovely sheen for white markings, or be wonderful for adding oomphf to a white–grey paintjob. Pearlescents and metallics can also be useful for certain eye colors that may have a distinct shimmery effect to the iris such as some hazel and golden eyes.
On the wild side though, we can also use unconventional shimmery colors for a range of fascinating effects. For instance, iridescent blue, purple, and black will add pizzazz to that black paintjob. Or go crazier and plop in a bit of iridescent violet to a silver dapple mixture to create a subtle lavender cast that’s elusively attractive. In fact, we can apply this idea to many other colors with the full selection of shimmer colors. Iridescent reds, yellows, and oranges are also fabulous for razzle–dazzle effects on bays to palominos, even some duns.
And think about the possibilities with metallics! For example, how palominos could be enhanced with metallic golds and chestnuts with metallic bronzes and coppers. Or even how a grulla or blue roan could be “popped” with the infusion of shimmery silver. Shimmery gunmetal would be useful for a black whereas metallic brass could be highly effective for waking up a dun. The options are endless.
We also have interference colors at our disposal, offering us another realm of possibilities. Like use interference blue as a key highlight on a black and…bam…instant interest and cool effects. Interference purple is also a neat touch for a black so try that, too. What these colors do is essentially color shift, and when used expertly, can add an intriguing dimension to a paintjob even if equine color doesn’t actually color shift. Indeed, if we know how to use interference colors, they can work tremendously well and achieve realistic and interesting effects unattainable otherwise.
Blacking Out
Not all black pigments are the same. In fact, the differences between blacks can influence our colors tremendously and open up more options for us so we need to know the nature of our inky goodness.
For instance, mars black is an intense, opaque, powerful warm black while ivory black is a transparent, cool black, and carbon black is a strong opaque neutral black. Appearing black out of the tube, payne’s grey is even more transparent and cooler than ivory black and can be used like a black in its pure form in some situations. But each one reacts very differently in mixture so having them all at the ready can really expand our palette.
And that can also be important since painting a really good black horse can be quite difficult, as counter intuitive as that seems. So along with understanding blacks, it’s also useful to know which unconventional colors can also be put to work for this. For example, blues and purples serve well as highlights and tonal variations while their iridescent, pearlescent, and even their interference counterparts can add dimension and effect, too. Put all this together and we can
avoid simply painting a boring, flat black model.
However, that said, we can make our own black by mixing complements, specifically using blues and purples, and sometimes green, leaning well into them. Like mixing blues or dark purples with umbers produces lovely blacks that can be further modified as needed. Or mixing blues with its complement orange and modifying it further with yellows renders a nice black, too. Indeed, knowing how to mix our own blacks is a powerful skill in our tool box.
White Out
White is the absence of color when it comes to paint, so you can't really mix it up from the other colors. However, we do need to know our whites since each one has its own unique properties, too. So, again, experiment! Like titanium white is the most common and considered the most neutral white, but there are others with cooler or warmer tones. For instance, zinc white is a cool white whereas antique white or unbleached titanium are warm whites (just be careful of zinc white because it’s toxic and needs to be treated as a cadmium color).
Now as for application, convention would have us paint stark white stark for markings, literally right out of the tube. And while some groomed coats in life may certainly have the appearance of brilliant, blinding white, often a sculpture is better served by toning whites down. Doing so allows the body color to pop and harmonize with it, and it adds mass, volume, and immediacy to the piece. In a sense, it looks less like an artificially painted model and more like a real horse. Plus, toning down our whites gives us a “place to go” with highlights, and a highlighted white area can be even more beautiful and realistic than just a flat white. (Just remember that shading in any white marking should be in the flesh spectrum consistent with underlying unpigmented skin rather than grey or greige shading which would be applicable to dark skin.) So to do this, we can use bit of yellow oxide, burnt umber, raw sienna, or a complementary mix of our choosing to tone down our whites, keeping our mixes in mind to avoid an unwanted undertone or cast.
A Gaggle Of Greys
Never underestimate the power of grey! Know it or not, grey isn’t just a neutral “nothing” color, something dismissible. Rather, it’s a highly versatile mixing color, applicable to all the hues we need for horses. Indeed, from all the coat colors to those we need for manes, tails, and feathers, it’s also useful for flesh and even intrinsic to hooves (both shell and dark), leg chestnuts and ergots, and painting the palmar foot. Truly, knowing how to mix any kind of grey we need is one of the core skills of painting realistic colors. So experiment and practice. Explore this amazing family of colors because once we learn how to use them, they can become a best friend.
For example, try a mix of orange and blue with a bit of white to turn it grey, now add in some red oxide to make a beautiful, unique chestnut. Or why not add some burnt umber or raw umber to french grey and we have a lovely base for a grulla. Or think about mixing payne’s grey with apricot for the base for a dapple grey. Or tinker with the proportions of a red and green mix with a bit of white to make a greenish grey—a pretty useful color for some aspects of the hoof, even around areas of the muzzle. The thing is, grey is an incredibly flexible color by itself or for creating new colors, and those that are often very difficult to achieve any other way. So never take grey for granted!
The Skinny
As for flesh tones, equines have pink colors for their unpigmented skin. However, this can be a difficult color for folks to visualize and therefore mix. The thing to remember is this though: Equine flesh tone isn’t often cotton candy pink. It can be at times, but not often. But neither is it tan–like or rust–like either. Instead, it’s this strange family of pink–red–yellow–orange–rust–tan–white-greige shades, a group of in–betweens, each needing a very careful balance to achieve its various hues. It can be warm or cool, too, so pay attention to that in references.
Flesh is also not just a color, but an effect. See, flesh color has a translucent quality, a luminescence, a soft, transparent fleshiness that should be captured in pigment, too. This is why “flesh” right out of the bottle rarely works well in either tone or effect. It’s too stark and flat. Instead, flesh is an amalgamation of different hues and different variations used together, needing a bit of highlight and shading and other treatments to accentuate its squishy, translucent fleshiness. Really, it’s an extraordinarily complex color and effect so it’s no surprise why it trips up so many painters.
But the first step towards successful flesh colors is to learn how to reach those desired hues and tones, and we do that with these unlikely colors. For example, reds, yellows, and even some oranges mixed with whites with a touch of burnt sienna can be very helpful for creating a palette of flesh tones. We can even implement burnt umber, raw sienna, and the oxides. And—gasp—various blues, purples, and greys can be immensely useful, too! (A handy, fast flesh tone, however, is simply mixing white with burnt sienna, and either use that straight or with adjustments with other hues.)
But it’s not just about which colors we use for flesh, it’s also about in what proportions. Absolutely, flesh is extremely sensitive to color adjustments, perhaps the most sensitive behind grulla. Indeed, just a snidge too much yellow or red or orange will skew the tone away from that delicate balance we need. In fact, a common mistake with flesh tones is a too-red flesh, too-yellow flesh, or a too-orange flesh, so proportions count in a big way. That said though, study references and do life study to see all the different tones and hues flesh actually manifests as—there’s a lot of options. But overall, truly, if there was any color that needed the most experimentation and practice to mix well, it would be flesh.
Charcoal Charm
Similarly the colors involved with dark skin aren't so straightforward either. Really, don't think in terms of just blacks and whites, but also taupes, green, blues, lavenders, even violets. Indeedy, use the Photoshop ink dropper sampler tool and we'll find that many dark skin charcoals are derived from violet greys!
And think in terms of using charcoals rather than straight or strong blacks because that charcoal will give us a "place to go" for shading to add that extra touch of fleshy softness to our dark areas like muzzles, around the eye, or inside the ears or groin. Really, even with a shaved and "greased up" Arabian, for example, refrain from those blacks and lean more into the charcoals. We'll still get the point across, but with more dimension and realism.
On that note, think about using greys and charcoals made from complement mixes rather than black out of the tube, too. Often times, our own blacks are more interesting and on-target than store-bought blacks.
Hoofin’ It
Perhaps surprisingly, hooves involve far more unlikely colors that what convention would have us believe. Honestly, if we put any reference photo of either a shell or dark hoof through the ink dropper color sampler in Photoshop, for instance, we’re going to have raised eyebrows. Like, curiously, there’s often quite a few greens, blues, odd burgundies, eccentric golds, and strange tans and greys involved, and not in expected places. In other words, a shell hoof is a lot more than just burnt sienna and white, and a dark hoof is much more than just brown or grey. Hoof striping is similarly unexpected with various greens, blues, browns, and esoteric greys involved as well.
And the thing is, we just aren’t going to achieve these realistic hues without those unconventional colors. Because—yes—as crazy as it sounds, we're going to need greens, reds, yellows, and blues for hooves. Remember, Nature paints with all the colors!
A Few Thoughts In The Mix
Who wants to be bored with a “seen it already” reaction? Probably not us, right? We want each paintjob to be an adventure and each finished piece to be a unique addition to our portfolio. Well, one of the most powerful ways we do this is through the use of unconventional colors on our palette.
So first of all, think about making exploration and discovery a prime directive with each paintjob rather than just reverting to something safe and routine. Sure, habit is comfortable and predictable. Like we may have always used certain colors or formulas to paint a hoof. But why? Just because “I’ve always done it that way” doesn’t mean we always have to, right? Color is color. It has so many possibilities and options for us to discover! Life is rich and varied, so why not chase after those options? It wants us to! Color is our friend, not our enemy. So stay open–minded, adaptable, and flexible. We never know when that bright lemon yellow or that dark, rich blue is just the ticket, for instance.
Also think about using as many colors in a paintjob as attractively and realistically possible. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to merely a body color, shade color, and highlight color. Think of those as the base equation from which we build greater complexity and uniqueness. So actively create variations of each or entirely new colors to incorporate with them. Honestly, the more advanced we become, the more likely we are to apply more variety to our paintjob and so the more unique, interesting, realistic, and beautiful it becomes.
Similarly, think about implementing various shading and highlight colors coordinated with the body color within an area. For example, a chestnut may need various tones of reds, oranges, or yellows as highlights and various dark browns, burgundies, and rusts for shading. When we don’t apply this concept, we end up using too few colors for highlighting or shading, creating a washed–out effect, even an unfinished look.
On that note, no coat color is simple. Ironically even, the most “simple” coat colors are often the most difficult to paint, requiring a keen sense of color use. Sure, that dapple grey may be technically challenging, but painting that “plain” chestnut into something really transcendent takes a whole new level of ability and understanding. And any savvy painter will tell you that painting a great black is one of the most difficult colors to pull off well. And let’s not even get started on champagne or isabella! And grulla! Bah! Never underestimate any color and never take anything for granted. So don’t be surprised or discouraged if you get stuck on a “simple” color. Chances are we just need a bit more understanding of color use and technique to weedle our way out of that corner.
We can also vary our intensity of “pop”—from big pop to little pop—with the skillful application of contrast. We do have a gas pedal here. That’s to say we can dial up or dial down the volume of any color simply by manipulating our mixes with those bright colors and the use of complementary mixes. But we can also manipulate the impression of a color by placing it next to another color. For example, burnt sienna seems much more intense when positioned next to black so we can use that to make a bay—especially a black bay—glow. Likewise, a gold really appears much richer and more intense when next to a pale tan, and so we can make a sooty palomino really seem luscious by strategizing their placement. Likewise, burgundy seems richer when placed next to a dark blue so we can preserve this effect when we use a complementary shade mix that’s heavy on deep blue such as for a deep purpley, bluish bay. Learn to strategize color this way, too, and we can make each color sing in harmony with each other for an overall big impact.
On that note, consider harmonizing our colors to create a coherent whole that “moves the eye around.” We don’t have to get crazy here—we want to stay realistic, remember, but we can still subtly apply this to enhance eye appeal. For example, a cinnamon–colored forehand may need oranges and yellows for highlights whereas the chocolate–colored hindend may need brown red–toned highlights—but maybe infuse a bit of orange somewhere there to harmonize the hindquarter with the forequarter. So think about color placements to keep that eye moving around and to create a cohesive whole.
Even so, we can use abrupt color oddities to add interest and amplify realism. For example, many colors and patterns can be defined by their chaotic characteristics such as sooties, silvers, and dapple greys. Here we can use that unpredictably not just to duplicate realism, but to really make the piece pop. That is to say, don’t approach these chaotic colors in a timid, habitual, conventional, formulaic way. That’s the fastest way to destroy their dynamic novelty, and the challenging fun painting them. Instead, be bold! Really analyze them closely, looking for patterns and especially where those patterns go berserk. Seek to capture their curiosities rather than reshape them into something more “normal.” For instance, that random, intense splash of mottled, light tan along the semitendinosus groove on a sooty, dappled dun can be that splash of spontaneous realism the paint job really needs. Or that really intensely dark, mottled nasal bone on a dapple grey is right on the money. In other words, don’t try to tame down chaotic patterns and colors. If people are shocked, let them be shocked. It’s life! And really, what fun is realism if we play it safe all the time? Nature doesn't play it safe with color, and maybe neither should we.
There are many ways to shade muscles to both artistically amplify them and to add mass, and whatever method we use will depend on our own sensibilities. For instance, some artists really amplify muscles, treating each muscle group as a study of highlighting and shading. On the other hand, other artists treat such things in a more generalized way, focusing more on tonal differences over the different regions of the body or the nature of the coat or pattern. Still, others blend both approaches, even adding in their own spin. There’s a lot of invention out there! Either way though, the most typical philosophy is to highlight and shade muscles with "the sun at high noon," where the highlight is on the top rim of the muscle and the shade is on the bottom. We can use a whole passel of colors to do this, so don’t be married to just a few. Indeed, a varied spectrum best captures realism, coat quality, and artistic appeal—and those unconventional colors can really shine here, too. Just don’t overkill. It’s not always a good idea to have each muscle equally spotlighted. In fact, choosing which muscles to amplify and which to tone down can make all the difference in the outcome. Varying the spotlight also lends more interest to a piece and that’s always a good thing.
Unconventional colors can also be instrumental to make complementary mixes that will add mass and volume by shading the undersides of our piece such as the belly and jaw if we choose to do that. When photoshowing was the dominant form of showing, this was common practice to create a stronger illusion of mass in a photo. But as live showing became the dominant showing experience, this practice waned, almost nonexistent today. It’s our choice but just know that those unusual colors are useful here, too.
Now we need to talk about overworking—oh yes, it's a very real thing. You see, there's an energy, a vibration to our work that creates a kind of spontaneous magic, an inherent greatness. If we're doing our job properly then, we preserve that energy, even amplify it throughout the process to completion. As such, there's a definite point when a piece is truly done, when we've gone as far as we can go with it, that it's as perfect as it can be at that moment. At that point, it's incredibly important to stop and call "done" then move onto the next piece. Truly, knowing when to call "done" is as important as starting in the first place! However, if we aren't very careful or if we're too manic about "perfection," whatever that is, we're going to miss that point of "done" and go past the point of no return, ruining our piece by overworking it. What's overworking then? It's when all those happy accidents, magic, spontaneity, and that inexplicable greatness is simply extinguished outright, erased by our augering things into the ground to get things "just right." In other words, overworking happens when any additional touch becomes a liability rather than an asset, and believe me when I say, that point comes a lot sooner than we think. So stay sensitive to when "done" actually happens, not when we want it to happen. Our paintwork and portfolio will thank us for it, trust me. Know when to put the brush down.
Smearing It All Around
If there are five things to hold close to heart when learning how to use color, especially the unusual ones, it’s these:
- Stay open–minded. Try to avoid habitual thinking and approaches. Don’t just accept things because “that’s the way they’re done,” especially when they’re our own habits, conventions, and formulas. Put them to the test, using nature is the barometer. Rethink and reenvision. Really analyze and observe, and take nothing for granted. Nature uses all colors in all sorts of ways so we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss any of them. Truly, if we mix some weird orangey green, that might just be the ticket for a portion of the hooves. A handy trick is to scan our references into Photoshop and use the ink dropper tool to color sample areas. It’s surprising just how much our assumptions skew from the actual colors! For instance, there can be a lot more green or violet in some colors than we may realize.
- Be bold. Don’t be afraid or timid. Take risks. Experiment. Explore. Discovering pigments is an adventure! Don’t be afraid to get goofy when mixing them, either. So go ahead—mix that rose with burnt umber, that ivory black with apricot, that green with burgundy. Paint those chromatic scales. See what happens! We’re only limited by our willingness to venture out and discover.
- Practice. Make a mistake? Awesome! We just learned something! There’s no such thing as failure here. So keep at it and stretch, and soon we’ll learn how to better predict how our colors will behave. We’ll also learn how to manipulate this further through technique and application, and soon we’ll be able to achieve exactly the results we want. That said, we should consider practicing color use on a junker first before simply jumping into our intended piece. There's little fun to be had color-correcting our piece when we can make all our oopsies on a junker first.
- Observe observe observe. Really pick apart what we see with a clinical eye to truly decipher the colors involved. Discern their warmth or coolness, too, because that's also incredibly important. And name those colors, identify them just as if we had to pick them out of our paintbox because that's exactly what we'll be doing later on.
- Don't stop. Hit a roadblock? Take a detour. Spinning our wheels? Switch gears. Just keep moving forwards. Yes, we're going to run into difficulty. Yes, we're going to make mistakes. Yes, we're going to get lost in our process. But just keep surging forwards, in any direction, and we'll soon find our momentum again.
A great paintjob is really the “hook,” the finishing touch and first impression of any well–done realistic equine piece. It’s also a boon by drawing in the eye and begging further attention. Great paintwork just grabs your attention and holds onto it, even sinking into your inspirations with a powerful impact. If we want to produce that effect in our own paintwork then, the best way is a full utilization of a varied palette and skillful application of color theory. We cannot be afraid of color and so we cannot discount any color for our brushes. Rather, when we understand color, we not only create a deep, varied body of work, but we come closer to nature’s hues and that really amplifies the realism of our paintwork. In doing so, we maintain our sense of wonder and discovery, and that keeps our work fresh and vital. So liberate your palette and use everything the beautiful rainbow has to offer! We can’t wait to see the beautiful cacophony of color you create!
“All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.”
—Marc Chagall
Originally printed in the 1996 August–September issue of The Hobby Horse News column, In The Studio. Updated and republished 2018. Updated and republished again in 2025.
