Experimentation Sparks Creativity

If you’ve ever mixed two beautiful colors together only to end up with a muddy mess, you’re not alone.

Like many artists, I grew up believing there were three primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—and that by mixing different proportions of them, I could create every color imaginable. It seemed simple enough… until it didn’t work.

Then there was the whole “warm” and “cool” color theory. I don’t know about you, but I always found that confusing. Which red is warm? Which blue is cool? And why did my “perfect” purple always turn brown?

Years ago, I came across a fascinating book by Michael Wilcox called Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green. Wilcox, who has a science background, makes a bold statement:

There are no perfect reds, yellows, or blues.

That idea completely changed the way I thought about color.

Curious, I drove to my local Home Depot and stood in front of the wall of paint chips. (They’re free, by the way—I highly recommend doing this exercise yourself!)

I picked out every paint chip I could find that someone might call “yellow.” Then I spread them out and started looking closely.

Something surprising happened.

Some yellows leaned toward green. Others leaned toward orange. Some were bright and vibrant, while others were muted and earthy.

They were all yellow……but they weren’t the same yellow.

The same was true for reds and blues.

That’s when I realized that instead of thinking about colors as simply “red,” “yellow,” or “blue,” it made much more sense to think about the direction each color leaned. Was the yellow biased toward green or orange? Did the blue lean toward violet or green? Was the red closer to orange or violet?

Once I started seeing color this way, my color mixing became far more predictable.

Instead of guessing, I could anticipate what would happen before I ever picked up my brush.

Understanding color isn’t about memorizing recipes. It’s about learning the personality of each pigment.

This is exactly the kind of creative exploration I teach in my Wonderful Watercolor online class. Want to experiment more with color? Join me in Portugal in April 2027.

Next in the series: Why Your Purple Always Looks Muddy—and the simple color secret that changed the way I mix every painting.