how to mix colors: everything you need to know

An understanding of how to mix colors brings joy and excitement to the art of painting.

Who doesn't love color? Artists have the power in our hands to make the perfect color mixtures for our artwork.

We can create a range of colors that are often unavailable in store-bought paints.

Let's explore the joy of mixing colors.

How to mix colors for the painting artist.Color makes our paintings sing!

what materials do we need for mixing colors?

Color Wheel: A color wheel is indispensable when we are learning how to mix colors. It shows the relationship between different colors and it's useful in predicting the result of our mixing.

Use the color wheel for mixing paint colors.Mix colors with the primaries.

Primary Colors: We will use a limited palette of the three primaries for mixing. Yellow, red and blue are equally spaced around the color wheel.

The primaries cannot be mixed from any other colors.

Manufactures don't make the exact primary colors. The following three colors are widely available and they are fine to practice mixing.

  • Cadmium Yellow
  • Cadmium Red
  • Ultramarine Blue

Palette: A place to layout the colors that has enough space for mixing.

Palette Knife: Watercolor would of course be mixed with a brush. Oil and acrylic artists would benefit from using a palette knife.

Painting Surface: Practice canvas paper or watercolor paper are just fine to see the results of mixing.

What colors do artists use for mixing?

The great master artists like Monet, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt often used a limited palette to create their masterpieces. Modern artists use a limited palette for many subjects.

We can paint any subject with a limited palette. These three colors are extraordinarily useful. We only need red, yellow and blue to mix the skin colors for a portrait painting.

Many experienced artists use a double primary palette, also called a split primary palette. It has a warm and cool version of each primary color, recommended for a full palette.

how to mix colors

Get your materials together and practice mixing colors. You'll be surprised how easy it is.

mixing the secondary colors

Mix two primary colors together to get a secondary color.How to mix the secondary colors

Looking at the color wheel, each secondary color is half way between two primary colors.

Create each secondary color by mixing together a small patch of their two primary colors:

  • Red and yellow = orange.
  • Blue and yellow = green.
  • Red and blue = violet (purple).

Orange, green and violet are so easy to mix!

We can get more colors by varying the amounts of each primary color.

Now we don't have to buy these colors because we can just mix them.

how do we mix more green colors?

Learning how to mix green colors.Mixing green colors

Thalo Blue is a very strong blue that is not on our practice list. However, it makes the most beautiful greens.

Use just a touch of Thalo Blue with yellow to mix a green. See tip #2

Now we can mix more greens:

  • Starting with the mixed green, add more yellow to get a nice spring green.
  • Add blue to your green for a cool blue-green.
  • The addition of red to the original green will produce a darker, more subdued green.

We can mix additional greens with other blues and yellows. Ultramarine Blue and yellow make quieter natural looking greens.

Nature provides a wide variety of greens. It's easy to mix variations of green.

tertiary colors: expand our mixing possibilities

We can mix the tertiary colors, so we don't have to buy them.How to mix the tertiary colors.

Tertiary colors are created by mixing a primary color with a secondary color.

We have the secondary colors we just mixed on our palette. Now, mix our orange with primary yellow to create yellow-orange. See the YO example.

Mix more tertiaries clock-wise around the color wheel:

  • YG - yellow-green
  • BG - blue-green
  • BV - blue-violet
  • RV - red-violet
  • RO - red-orange

We know how to mix colors, so we don't have to buy any tertiary colors.

top tips for mixing colors

1. Single pigment paints produce clean, clear colors. Look on the paint tube and make sure the color is manufactured with only one pigment color. Most companies list the ingredients on the tube. If they are not on the tube, check their website.

2. When you are learning how to mix colors, always add the dark color to the lighter color. It only takes a tiny bit of a dark to change a light color.

Mixing paint colors with a palette knife.Palette knives are handy for mixing.

3. White is a cool, opaque color. Rather than using white to lighten a color, add the lighter color beside it on the color wheel. The mixed color will remain bright without a chalky appearance.

4. Mixing paint colors with a palette knife instead of a brush, uses less paint.

5. Don't mix paint colors thoroughly before putting them on a painting. The color variations add interest to our paintings.

6. When we start a painting, mix a large pile of a neutral color from the painting's color scheme. Adding white to the mixture makes greys. Use the neutral color or grey to subdue any of the other colors in the painting. This maintains color harmony because all the colors are related.

7. Clean the brush before mixing a new color. Any paint left in the brush could alter the new color we are mixing.

What terminology do we use for mixing colors?

Color terms are a key in learning how to mix colors. We know color names such as red and green, etc. What else do we need to know?

Hue is the name of the actual color. For example, apple red or fire engine red are both red hues. Olive green is a green hue.

Shades are created by mixing any hue with black. A shade is darker and duller than the original color.

Tones are made by mixing a color with grey.

Tints are made by mixing a color with white. However, adding white to a color will give it a chalky appearance.

Saturation/Chroma is the color's purity or intensity.

Value is the light or darkness of a color.

Mastering these terms will lead to more refined and satisfying color mixing.

adjusting colors: color mixing video

This video shows how to adjust the hue, value and saturation of colors.

how do artists create color harmony?

Harmony is an essential art principle that brings balance and appeal to our artwork.

We create harmony in our paintings by using a color scheme that has a limited number of colors.

The colors work together seamlessly, rather than clashing or competing with each other.

The popular painting color schemes use only two to four colors.

An exception is the analogous scheme that may use up to five colors.

A multitude of additional colors can be mixed from the selected scheme. The mixed colors are all remain in perfect harmony.

Using color schemes means we don't have to keep so many different colors in stock.

how do we mix dark, neutral colors?

We mix the neutral colors from the colors we are already using in the painting. This maintains the color harmony of the painting.

We can mix black, brown or grey by combining the three primary colors. There are two different ways to do that.

  1. Mix equal parts of the three primary colors.
  2. Mix one part of a primary color with two parts of its compliment. The compliment of any primary is always a secondary color which contains the other two primaries.

simple, quick dark mixtures

Mixing simple, quick dark paint colors.Mix our dark colors

Viridian Green and Alizarin Crimson mixed together create a nice black.

Adding additional Viridian or Alizarin will slant the black toward green or red.

Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue are one of my favorite go-to mixtures.

Adding more Ultramarine makes a cool black.

Use more Burnt Sienna for a nice variety of warm browns.

How to mix grey colors

Mixing white with any of our dark, neutral colors will create various tints of grey. It's so easy when we know how to mix colors, then we don’t have to buy tubes of grey paint.

See mixing tip #6

how do we use color in our paintings?

A guide to using warm, cool and natural colors in our paintings.

How to mix colors that look more natural

How to mix natural looking colors from your artist palette.Compliments quiet each other.

Sometimes we want calmer, natural looking colors in our paintings.

Mixing any color with its compliment will subdue it and make it look more natural.

Complimentary colors are directly across from each other on the color wheel.

There are two ways to subdue a color and make it a more natural looking color.

  • Mix a color with its complimentary color.
  • Mix the color with a black, brown or grey that we have mixed from the colors used in the painting.

Bright, bold colors are lots of fun, but natural looking colors are beautiful, too.

what are warm colors?

How to use warm and cool colors in your paintings.Warm and Cool Colors

Warm colors contain yellow and convey energy. They are known to "advance" toward us, so they make areas of the painting look closer.

Use warm colors in the foreground and middle area of a painting.

How do we mix warm paint colors?

We can make any color warmer by adding yellow or orange which contains yellow.

For example, if we are painting an orange, the center of the orange is bulging toward us. Paint the center warmer to make it advance toward the viewer.

The sides of the orange would be painted cooler to make them turn away from us.

cool colors

Cool blue colors can feel tranquil or unhappy. They recede into the painting and look farther away.

We mix cool colors by combining a color with blue or green or purple which contain blue.

  • We can create distance in landscape paintings by mixing some blue into the background areas.
  • Make the edge of an object turn away from us by adding cool colors to the edge.
  • We may also, use cool colors to set one object behind another.

the joy of mixing colors

The art of how to mix colors is an essential skill for artists. By understanding the relationship between colors, you'll be able to predict the outcomes of your mixes and create a harmonious color palette.

Using the knowledge of hues, shades, tones and tints, you'll be able to adjust the colors for your desired effects.

Feel free to explore additional pages on the website to uncover more resources about painting art.

Get your paints out and explore the joy of mixing colors. The world is your canvas, brimming with possibilities.

Make your paintings sing with color!

more about using color




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