Cal's Blog


Winton Oil Paints to RGB Color Equivalents subscribe via RSS If you are ever wondering what your Winton oil paints (by Windsor & Newton) equate to on the computer screen there is a great resource available I recently discovered: ArtPaints.com. This website has done a lot of work in converting colors to several color methods including CSS, CMYK and RGB color types. They also conveniently include the product number for some products. Why mention Winton oil paints instead of a higher quality paints that can be found at this resource? First is pricing. Art students are who are looking to experiment with color and understand how color works need to use economical supplies. Second, economical supplies are not archival. Students who know from the onset of art making that their works are temporary in nature learn to be objective about their own process and are less likely to influenced by ego. Believing that every piece of artwork that is created deserves to be archived for all of human history belittles art that does deserve such veneration and is detrimental to the learning process. Once technqiue is mastered any work can be improved upon in the future by a more skillful and mature self. Third, Winton colors are limited in scope; there are only approximately 44 named colors and of those, many are extraneous if not irrelevent. A basic, limited palette can be reduced to two colors of each primary covering warm and cool variants: Cadmium Red/Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow/Yellow Ochre, and Cerulean Blue/French Ultramarine. Three additional "non colors" e.g. Raw Sienna, Raw Umber and Flake White can round out a basic (although a bit bright) color wheel. Black for the most part should never be used and is easily created from this set relative to other colors in a picture's scene.

Winton Oil Paints to RGB Color Equivalents

subscribe via RSS

If you are ever wondering what your Winton oil paints (by Windsor & Newton) equate to on the computer screen there is a great resource available I recently discovered: ArtPaints.com.

This website has done a lot of work in converting colors to several color methods including CSS, CMYK and RGB color types. They also conveniently include the product number for some products.

Why mention Winton oil paints instead of a higher quality paints that can be found at this resource?

First is pricing. Art students are who are looking to experiment with color and understand how color works need to use economical supplies.

Second, economical supplies are not archival. Students who know from the onset of art making that their works are temporary in nature learn to be objective about their own process and are less likely to influenced by ego. Believing that every piece of artwork that is created deserves to be archived for all of human history belittles art that does deserve such veneration and is detrimental to the learning process. Once technqiue is mastered any work can be improved upon in the future by a more skillful and mature self.

Third, Winton colors are limited in scope; there are only approximately 44 named colors and of those, many are extraneous if not irrelevent. A basic, limited palette can be reduced to two colors of each primary covering warm and cool variants: Cadmium Red/Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow/Yellow Ochre, and Cerulean Blue/French Ultramarine. Three additional "non colors" e.g. Raw Sienna, Raw Umber and Flake White can round out a basic (although a bit bright) color wheel. Black for the most part should never be used and is easily created from this set relative to other colors in a picture's scene.