Part 1: Making Mud

My students have been asking, "How do you keep your colors clean, and not make mud?"
This will be a 2 part post.
Part 1: How to make muddy colors
Part 2: Clean colors demonstration

Making mud - really means how to keep your colors clean and bright, but I think the best way to learn to make clean colors is first to make "muddy" colors.
The term "Mud" can mean "brown" or "grayed & not bright".
Having grayed down colors serves a purpose - mostly to help make your bright colors stand out from each other. Too many bright colors yelling all at once creates chaos.
To make brown when mixing oil paints follow this formula "More red than yellow, more yellow than blue".

But these are pastels so you'll have to layer colors on top of each other.
First, try mixing all the primaries on top of each other and then the magic touch - rub it in with your fingers. If you've taken a workshop or class from me you know how much I preach against rubbing with your fingers and this is the #1 reason why. - muddy colors. 

The image above shows mixing primaries to get muddy colors and mixing secondaries to also get mud. Complementary colors generally gray down the original color too.

The images on the right show a brightly colored drawing and below I drew the image with the same colors but then made a second and third layer with the complementary colors. Placing complementary colors on top grays/muddies the colors. Sometimes this will produce exactly what you want - a moody image - not bright and sunny for sure.

The next post will show the steps for a bright, sunny clean colored drawing.