How to Blend/Mix colors proportinally in Illustrator

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
March 24, 2021
2 replies
755 views

Hello community.
I am currently working on a historical colour theory book project and trying to reproduce a colour system from the early 1900's in illustrator (it's a long story).
In the instructions in the original manuscript, the author is literally mixing percentages of pure colours with neutral grey. See below. How could I replicate accurately mixing a percentage of 'pure' colour with a specific percentage of neutral grey in Illustrator?

Thanks.

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Correct answer Ton Frederiks

I'd also be interested to know how you created your versions though.

Rhys

I picked up the main middle color from the book and blended between a light (changing saturation down and brightness up) and dark swatch (changing brightness to zero) while keeping the Hue the same.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

But I may have misunderstood an you want to blend to a 50% gray?

R

Rhys5DD6Author

Participant

Thanks for your quick response Ton.

The colour theory book is Robert Ridgway's Color Standards and Color Nomenclature https://archive.org/details/mobot31753002026018/mode/2up

As a bit of context, I'm attempting to rebuild Ridgway's colour palettes. While there may be better ways, I'm interested in following and 'duplicating' the steps that Ridgway describes in the book (acknowledging that he was using Munsell's colour wheel and literally mixing pigments).
I've created the 'Pure' colour plates, but now need to create the subsequent plates where he mixed percentages of grey to the pure colours. Again I acknowledge, that I'm comparing digital, on-screen and a scan etc but it still seems off when I either just adjust brightness. See below.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

It is an interesting experiment.

But very difficult (impossible?) to achieve.

He worked with impure pigments which have been changed during time.

I guess he would have come closer in this digital age.

I played with some of the colors and blended them to black and white-ish, some come close, others are way off.

I hope someone comes up with a bright idea.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

What colour theory book is this (just curiousity)?

Can you try HSB?

Where Hue is the pure colour when fully Saturated and the decreasing the Brightness increases the amount of gray (so you may need to invert the numbers; 100 Gray = 0% Brightness).

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