Since joining the content writing world, she has gained a lot of experience over the years writing on a diverse selection of topics, from beauty, health, wellness, travel, and more. Due to various circumstances, she had to close her therapy practice and is now a full-time freelance writer. Being a creative person, she could not pass up the opportunity to contribute to the Art in Context team, where is was in her element, writing about a variety of art and craft topics. Contributing articles for over three years now, her knowledge in this area has grown, and she has gotten to explore her creativity and improve her research and writing skills.
How to Make Paint Colors
This article was co-authored by Kelly Medford. Kelly Medford is an American painter based in Rome, Italy. She studied classical painting, drawing and printmaking both in the U.S. and in Italy. She works primarily en plein air on the streets of Rome, and also travels for private international collectors on commission. She founded Sketching Rome Tours in 2012 where she teaches sketchbook journaling to visitors of Rome. Kelly is a graduate of the Florence Academy of Art.
There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.
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Crafting that perfect shade of orange or pink can be a daunting roadblock for the beginner who doesn’t know where to begin when putting their palette together. Thankfully, nearly all colors in the spectrum can be created from just a few basic colors. Learning the color wheel will give you the foundation you need to produce any hue you desire.
Steps
Part 1
Part 1 of 3:
Mixing the Secondary Colors
- If you’re using brushes to mix paint, make sure to clean them in between mixing. You don’t want paint of a previous color mixing with the two you are currently mixing. Use soap and water for acrylic, or odorless mineral spirits or turpentine for oil. [2] X Research source
- You can mix your paints in a jar instead of a palette if you intend on preparing paint for later work.
- Color mixing is skill that takes hard work and experience. Practice with different amounts of paint, as well as different kinds of combinations, in order to get more acquainted with how your paints will interact. [3] X Research source
Start with the three primary colors. All other colors stem from the three primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. [4] X Expert Source
Kelly Medford
Professional Artist Expert Interview. 10 March 2021 These colors cannot be made from other colors. It’s useful to think of them as the base “parent” colors.
- You might consider purchasing larger quantities of the primary colors compared to other types of paint. Larger tubes of paint are often available in 200ml quantities.
- Paints come in two qualities: student grade and professional. Student grades are cheaper, but inferior than professional paints when it comes to longevity, intensity, and other factors. Student grade paints can also alter the mixing ratios required for certain colors, so be cognizant of your purchases. [5] X Research source
- Primary colors come in warm and cool tones to help you make even more colors. [6] X Expert Source
Why You Should Be Mixing Your Own Colors
When painting, there are many different techniques and aspects that you will use. One of the important things to know is mixing paint colors. Mixed colors are necessary for being able to paint a wide range of images and shades.
Color is where the emotion is found in a painting, and it is what creates an impact in art.
If you have just started out with painting, your set will probably only include a few colors. This does not matter, however, as long as you have the three primary colors, as these will allow you to mix colors of absolutely any shade you want. The primary colors consist of blue, red, and yellow. Together, these colors make up all of the colors you see.
Often, when the paint is used directly from the tube it is not the exact color shade you want. Sometimes it needs to be subdued a bit or brightened up. This is where mixing colors comes to be useful. Mixing colors is also a great skill for saving money and time, as it allows you to avoid buying every single shade of paint and rather making your own when you need a small amount.
Color-Mixing Guide: Understanding Color Theory
The first thing to know about mixing colors is understanding the three primary colors. You will most likely know about primary colors already and their importance. However, let us go over the topic of color theory to make sure that you are up to date.
Primary Colors
As you already know, red, blue, and yellow make up the three primary colors. Using combinations of these colors can result in a massive range of additional colors. You also need primary colors as you cannot mix them yourself. While this is pretty straightforward, there are many different shades of each primary color available. When buying your first paint set, it is best to have two of each primary color – one in a warm tone and one in a cool tone. To access a perfect color-mixing chart, the following shades of paint are recommended:
- Cadmium red (A warm red with a touch of yellow)
- Alizarin crimson (A cooler red with a touch of blue)
- Lemon yellow (A cool yellow with a bit of blue)
- Cadmium yellow (A warm yellow with a hint of red)
- Phthalo blue (A cool blue shade with some yellow in it)
- Ultramarine blue (A warmer blue containing some red)
When mixing secondary and tertiary colors, having two different shades of each primary color makes things easier. You can get the exact tone you want with less effort, and have more color options to play with. By having different shades of each primary color, you can also mix a wider range of colors. For example, you can use the different yellows and blues to achieve different shades of green.
Secondary Colors
Once you have all your primary colors ready, you can use them to mix secondary colors. Two primary colors combined will create a secondary color. Orange, green, and purple make up the secondary colors. You can follow a color-mixing chart to achieve the exact tone you want, but below is a basic color-mixing guide for achieving the secondary colors.
When mixing colors in this category, you can create a massive range of shades and tones. This can be adjusted depending on how much of each color you add, and which tones of primary colors you use. You can follow a color-mixing guide to get the exact shade you want, but really the best thing to do is just expermiment. The more you play around with mixing colors, the more you will start to understand which combinations produce which results.
Tertiary Colors
In a basic understanding, tertiary colors are really just variations of secondary colors. By mixing secondary colors with different ratios and shades, you can achieve a wider range of colors that we call tertiary colors. This can be done by mixing a secondary color with a primary color to create more variety. Tertiary colors are great for creating a more detailed color profile, and for transitioning from one color to the next.
When mixing colors here, you can create six different tertiary colors. These can all be modified to create a wider range of shades. The tertiary colors are:
When learning how to mix colors, you can see that each color is related, and that they all stem from the same basic shades. When mixing paint colors, you really only need to start with three primary colors to reach a much wider range of tones.
Color-Mixing Guide: The Color Wheel
When you start mixing colors, you will be faced often with the color wheel. The color wheel is a type of definitive color-mixing chart that can help you to understand the different color relationships. Having a color wheel will allow you to easily determine which colors to use when mixing certain shades.
Complementary Colors
If you look at the color wheel, certain colors sit directly opposite each other. These are complementary colors. As the name suggests, these colors complement each other when used next to one another, providing a brighter effect.
When looking at complementary colors, yellow and purple pair together, blue and orange go together, and red and green complement each other. Then there are split-complementary colors. This is a similar idea, but it uses the colors directly surrounding one as opposed to the opposite color. This produces the same effect as complementary colors but provides more variety.
Analogous Colors
To get analogous colors, you just look at the three colors that are next to each other in the color wheel. Just point to any part of the color wheel, and the three colors in a row will be analogous to each other. These are colors that are closely related, so they work beautifully when placed together.
Triadic Colors
Triadic colors are any colors that are spaced out evenly when looking at the color wheel. When used together, you create a bold and exciting arrangement of color. For example, orange, green and purple are triadic colors and work well together for an eye-catching effect.
Mixing of Tertiary Colors
The tertiary colors are created by mixing two adjacent colors of the color circle of the primary and secondary colors. These colors are also called fractional colors because they are not as bright and distinct as the primary and secondary colors.
Since in nature mainly these color tones are found, the tertiary colors are very important for natural-looking pictures. Examples of tertiary colors:
aekikuis / shutterstock.com
The Complementary Colors
If you take a closer look at color theory, you will learn that every color of the color circle has a complementary color. For each of the three secondary colors, the complementary color is the primary color that was not used in the production.
Knowing about complementary colors can help you choose a suitable color to influence contrasts and guide the viewer’s perception (see also: Complementary Contrast).
With regard to the secondary colors, the following complementary colors result:
- The complementary color of green is red
- The complementary color of orange is blue
- The complementary color of violet is yellow
Color Mixing Chart
User our Free Online Color Mixer
We have programmed a Color Mixer to mix your desired colors to see the immediate result, share the color mix or save the color as an image. Have a look here: Color Mixer.
Primary colors cannot be mixed by the user
The three basic colors, also called primary colors, cannot be created by mixing other colors. These primary colors are red, blue and yellow.
Mixing primary colors creates secondary colors
If you combine two primary colors with each other, you get a so-called secondary color. If you mix red and blue, you get violet, yellow and red become orange, blue and yellow become green. If you mix all the primary colors together, you get black.
Which shades of the primary colors should be mixed?
This depends on which secondary color and shade you want to create. If you mix a deep cadmium yellow with a red ocre, you will get a different shade of orange than with a titanium yellow. You can get a different secondary color pair with any combination of two primary colors.
The Mixing Ratio for Primary Colors
To get orange, you mix the primary colors red and orange. The mixing ratio of these two colors determines which shade of orange you will get after mixing. For example, if you use more red than yellow, you will get a reddish-orange. If you add more yellow than red, you will get a yellowish-orange. So we advise you to experiment with the shades you have. Try out different combinations and mixing ratios and keep a written record of your results so that you can mix the colors repeatedly.
Are there Different Shades of Red, Blue and Yellow to Buy?
You can choose from a variety of different shades of primary colors. Here are some examples:
- Blue: Cobalt blue, Caribbean blue, Celesan blue, Prussian blue
- Red: Cadmium red, scarlet, carmine and Venetian red. Learn also more on what colors make red.
- Yellow: Naples yellow, cadmium yellow, lemon yellow and yellow ochre
Bright Colors Due to Individual Color Pigments
In order to have the brightest possible colors, you should make sure that the colors you use consist of only one color pigment and not several. You can usually find information about this on the color itself or on the manufacturer’s website.
Preserving Tertiary Colors
By mixing a primary and a secondary color (for example, red and green) or two secondary colors (for example, orange and green) you get a tertiary color. Especially when you mix secondary colors, you usually get muddy colors like brown, gray, and black. Tertiary colors such as blue-lilac, yellow-green, green-blue, orange-yellow, red-orange and violet-red are all created by combining a primary and a secondary color.
The Mixing Ratios of Light and Dark Colors
If you want to darken a light color, you only need a small amount of dark color. For shades you want to lighten, the opposite is true. For example, if you want to lighten a dark brown, you need to use a lot of white color.
Be especially careful with dark colors such as brown or black, as the result can only be corrected with much lighter color.
The Optimal Combination of Opaque and Covering Colors
The opacity of your paint is very similar to mixing light and dark shades: to make an opaque paint opaque, you only need a small amount of opaque paint. To make an opaque color opaque, you only need a small amount of opaque color, whereas to make an opaque color translucent, you need a lot of transparent or opaque color.
Mixing of White and Black Color
You get black by mixing the primary colors yellow, blue and red. However, we advise you to buy white and black, as you will need these two colors again and again.
What are Complementary Colors?
Complementary colors are the colors that are opposite each other in the color wheel, i.e. they represent the opposite color. If you use complementary colors in an image, this can be irritating for the eye. But if you use these colors consciously, you can also create exciting effects.
aekikuis / shutterstock.com
Do not Mix Colors Completely
For a natural result of the color, you should not mix the used colors too thoroughly. This creates small differences in color within the mixed color, which makes a much more harmonious impression, especially in natural images.
Mixing Colors – Warm and Cool Shades
Some colors are perceived as warm and others as cool. Warm colors include yellow and red, while blue is a cool color. It is also possible to mix these characteristics, for example, to create a warm sky blue. If you mix two warm colors together, the result is also a warm color. Mixing a warm and a cold color tone, on the other hand, results in a rather neutral color tone.
Mixing Clean Green
To obtain a clean and beautiful green, we advise you to mix lemon yellow and phtalo blue. You can also have a look into our in-depth guide on how to mix green.
Which Color Shades are Suitable for Mixing Clean Colors?
The following shades provide a good base:
Mixing Gray and Brown
The tertiary colors gray and brown are obtained by mixing all three primary colors in different proportions. We have a separate tutorial on how to mix gray colors.
What Colors Make Brown
If you want to create a nice earthy brown tone, you should try the combination of red and green.
- Light brown: Gradually add white color to your brown mixture until you reach the desired shade. You can add red or yellow to get a warmer shade and prevent the color from becoming too beige and soft. If you want a cooler shade, you can add a touch of blue color.
- Warm brown: Try the gradual addition of different red and/or yellow color. If the mixture is too warm for you, you can cool it down a bit by adding blue. Warm brown tones are good for painting bricks, wood tones or trees in sunlight.
- Cool brown: For a cool shade of brown, you can add some blue colorto your base brown mix. If the mixture becomes too blue, you can add some red or yellow color to get a neutral brown again. Cool browns can be used to paint trees in a wintery atmosphere and dark hair or fur.
- Darker brown: To mix a dark but strong brown, you can add a dark blue. You should avoid mixing black with brown as much as possible, as this will only give you a muddy shade. Darker browns are excellent for painting twilight scenes or brunette hair.
If you want to know more, check out our guide on how to make brown paint.
How to Make Gray
A nice gray color is obtained by mixing a lot of blue color with a small amount of orange color and then adding white color until the desired brightness is achieved.
If you want to get a delicate shade of gray, you can mix a lot of white color with a little red and green. For a warm shade of gray you should try mixing violet with yellow.
What Colors Make Purple
Since violet is the complementary color to yellow, you get violet by mixing blue and red.
Purple is a violet with a high blue content, therefore the mixing ratio must not be 1:1. So if you add a little more blue than red, you get purple. By increasing the amount of blue you can adjust your purple tone individually. Learn more about in our article what colors make purple.
What Colors Make Orange
- Reddish Orange: Mix one part of yellow color with two parts of red color. To get an intermediate tone of red and orange, you can alternatively mix one part of red with one part of orange color.
- Yellowish orange: Mix one part red paint with two parts yellow paint. To get an intermediate shade of yellow and orange, you can alternatively mix one part yellow with one part orange.
We have compiled everything about what color makes orange in a separate article.
What Colors Make Green
To mix the one dark green color, different colors are needed. Often there is one green color in the paint box. If this color is too light for you, you can simply mix it with some black color so that the green becomes darker and darker. Check out our what colors make green guide for more tips and tricks.
To prevent the green from becoming too dark, you should be careful not to add too much black color too quickly. This way you can make sure that you get the dark green you want without the color becoming too dark.
What Colors Make Pink
A really popping-out hot pink color tone can be mixed with one part blue (for example Phthalo Blue), two parts red, and about one part violet. After thorough mixing, you can add a small amount of white to lighten your mixture up a bit up to your liking. You can find more information in our what colors make pink guide.
Tint Down
If one color seems too intense to you, you can soften it with a complementary color or a little brown. For example, you can soften too harsh gray tones with a little umbra. You should not use black for this purpose, as the color then appears a little dull and not soft.
Clean Tertiary Colors
To obtain clean tertiary colors, you should follow the following basic rule: The more different colors you mix, the muddier the result. If your colors look muddy, there is often only one solution: mix the colors again.
Test the Colors Before Painting
Before you really start painting, it is recommended to test the mixed colors on a piece of paper or canvas from time to time, because the colors on paper have a different effect.
Optical Mixing of Colors (Divisionism)
Besides the physical mixing of colors, there is also the technique of optical color mixing. You paint two colors next to each other, which are optically mixed by the human eye when viewed. This technique is called divisionism in technical jargon.
Set Certain Colors Next to each Other For a Higher Intensity
To make lighter colors stand out more, you should paint them next to neutral colors. A red looks more intense if it is painted next to a gray tone. With dark colors, it behaves exactly the other way around. For example, a dark green will be more intense if it is surrounded by a light color like lemon yellow.
Depth and Space Through the Use of Warm and Cool Colors
The juxtaposition of warm and cool colors is another optical color mixing technique. This is done because the eye perceives cool colors as being further away than warm colors. For example, if you want the eye to perceive a greater depth of the canvas when looking at it, you can place warm earth colors in the foreground of a landscape picture and use cooler and cooler colors towards the horizon.
Mixing Acrylic Colors
When mixing acrylic paints of different manufacturers and different compositions, undesirable chemical reactions can occur. Therefore you should only mix acrylic paints from the same product line. Self-produced and mixed colors should always have the same composition.
With regard to different color shades, mixing acrylic colors is possible at any time. For this purpose, special color cards and also color mixing tables are available from specialist dealers (e.g. paint and varnish dealers, handicraft supplies, paint manufacturers). So you can mix the acrylic colors either exactly according to the table or simply by feeling.
Duncan van der Merwe ( Color Theory Expert, Video Editor )
Duncan graduated with a diploma in Film and TV production from CityVarsity in 2018, after which he continued pursuing film while taking on a keen interest in writing along the way. Since having graduated, he began working as a freelance videographer, filming a variety of music videos, fashion and short films, adverts, weddings and more. Throughout this, he’s won a number of awards from various film festivals that are both locally and internationally recognized. However, Duncan still enjoys writing articles in between his filming ventures, appreciating the peace and clarity that comes with it.
His articles focus primarily around helping up-and-coming artists explore the basics of certain colors, how these colors can be paired with other shades, as well as what colors are created when you mix one with another. All while relating these shades to historically significant paintings that have incorporated them into their color palette. As a lover of the arts himself, he takes great interest in the Renaissance era of paintings, an era that has directly inspired many of his favorite films.
Learn more about Duncan van der Merwe and about us.
