How to Use a Triad Template
Use this circular aluminum template to help create watercolor triads, develop your color intuition, and bring harmony to your color mixes!
By The Art Toolkit Team
Plan watercolor triads with ease with the new Art Toolkit Triad Template! Using the small sections for primary colors and the larger sections for mixing secondary colors, this template helps to explore color mixes, creating unity in your paintings and bringing harmony to your watercolor mixes. In this video, Art Toolkit Founder Maria Coryell-Martin demonstrates how to use the Triad Template with a variety of triads.
The Triad Template is two tools in one: a template with six sections to plot your primary and secondary colors, and a circular protractor. We designed the Triad Template with Lisa Spangler to create an easy tool for exploring color mixes.
Paint List
This video demonstration includes the following four triads:
1. Hansa Yellow Light, Quinacridone Rose, Phthalo Blue
2. Hansa Yellow Medium, Pyrrol Red, French Ultramarine
3. Raw Sienna, Deep Scarlet, Indigo
4. Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Cobalt Teal Blue
Other Supplies
Hahnemühle 100% Cotton Watercolor Book, Landscape
The Story Behind the Triad Template
When Lisa first started studying color, she explored mixes on little scraps of paper. They could be hard to keep track of, and she wanted to standardize her mixing process!
Lisa 3D printed her first Triad Template version to help her explore color mixing. When she shared it with us during a live demo, we knew we had to make one! She sent us prototypes to play with, and we developed our version of the Triad Template from there. We designed it out of strong yet lightweight aluminum to be slim and easily slip inside your sketchbook or Art Toolkit. In addition, we added the feature of a circular protractor for versatility! It has taken some years to finesse our final version, but here it is, and we’re so excited to share it with you!
Once you have traced the template onto your page, you can paint in the section in a variety of ways. Lisa shares, “I have different ways I like to fill in the secondary colors. My favorite way is to make brush strokes with the different mixes, but my second favorite technique is letting all the colors mix on paper.”
For those who like more precision, Lisa shares another way to use the Triad Template. You can also turn the template and divide the bigger sections into three parts: two narrow ones on the outer part of the section and a bigger one in the middle. Dividing the large sections into subsections allows you to be even more precise with your mixing.
Finally, Lisa will embrace a looser approach by letting her yellow spill together with her blue to see the greens that emerge without being too constrained to the triad lines, but using them more as a guide, “just letting them all mingle together.”
For Those Who Love to Know a Little More
Working with a limited palette of 3-5 colors can create harmony and bring mood and atmosphere to your paintings. For example, a blue used in the sky can also be used to mix green for the landscape.
As you explore triad mixes, remember that combining complementary colors creates neutrals.
Primary triads are sets of yellows, reds, and blues, and they can vary in intensity and mood.
Low-intensity triads include more muted earth pigments and can mix soft and moody colors.
There’s no one “right” or “wrong” triad to use! Explore your own triads to see what colors and moods resonate with you.
Australian artist Jane Blundell is also a terrific color resource, and you can see a selection of triads on her website.
We hope you enjoy exploring color mixes with this new tool, and be sure to tag us on socials @ArtToolkit: we love to see what you create!
