How to Mix Your Own Colors of Paint

I usually only use a couple of colors of paint. Although it’s nice to have pre-mixed paint colors like brown and green, I typically mix my own from the primary colors. Why? 1. It saves me money on paint. 2. I usually have to mix the pre-mixed colors anyway to get exactly what I need. 3. It’s fun and part of the process of discovery. It works for me and might not work for everyone. And rather than buying a range of shades of one color, I use white paint or water to achieve a range of shades of the same color for paintings that require depth. Here’s how both processes work:

  1. Mixing Colors to Create New Colors. You may remember this from school, but here’s a refresher:

    • Primary Colors: Red, Blue, Yellow

    • Secondary Colors: Purple, Green, Orange

      • These come from mixing the above colors.

    • Red + Blue = Purple

    • Blue + Yellow = Green

    • Yellow + Red = Orange

    • Tertiary Colors = Vermillion (Red-Orange), Amber (Yellow-Orange), Chartreuse (Yellow-Green), Teal (Blue-Green), Violet (Blue-Purple), Magenta (Red-Purple)

    • Mixing Red + Green = Brown

    • Mixing All Primary Colors + Secondary Colors = Black (but requires a little experimentation to get just right, ie. don’t use very much yellow)

  2. Making a Range of Shades from One Color

    • Water. If you are using watercolor of gouache, you can thin the paint with water. If painting on a white surface like white paper, you’ll see the color lighten on the paper as you add water to it.

    • White Paint. If you want a more opaque look, you can mix white paint with your gouache paints to lighten the color.

Here I am mixing all the colors from the three primary colors.

Mea Christie