B1 Blue Sky

As we leave Primary Blue and head towards Yellow, the collision of the two colors seems to cause a brief brightening of the color spectrum, where we find the B1 Sky mixing group’s 3 colors.  

Blue Sky(5) is a classic Sky Blue that is extremely versatile in mixing, much like our Primary Light Red and Bright Yellow.  However, to make true Secondary Blue I mix equal parts Blue Sky and Royal Blue (from B2 Primary group) because it would fall right between them both in value and in Hue.  

Pure Secondary Blue is not a popular color except for mixing, but it’s important because of what I’m going to say next.  I tend to only use Blue Sky to pull or mix colors towards Yellow, and I use Royal Blue to pull and mix colors towards Red, and I get better, cleaner results that way.  For example, I would reach for Sky blue to make or pull a Turquoise, and Royal Blue to make or pull a Violet.

Raw’s Blue Sky is spot on as a Curelluan Blue for any painters out there.  

Blue Haze(8) is a very deep dirty & clean Blue that almost looks Blue Green.  But its Blue character still shines through and dominates the most.  It can be used to deepen any of the other Blues, and works great to make deep shadows using a complimentary color like Dark Orange from RY2 across the wheel.

Baby Blue(2) is as pure and perfect a Baby Blue as you could hope for.  This is well known to be the go-to for working with color portraits and Flesh colors.  It will cleanly desaturate and even out the Flesh colored ink, fusing it seamlessly into the clients skin tone.  Besides that, It’s great any time a very light Blue is called for, and could really be used in either mixing group B1 or B2.