To get started, you don’t need to buy every color in the craft store. A simple, affordable core set of student or professionalPaints set—includes everything you need to build your color-mixing foundation.
- Primaries: Red, Yellow, Blue
- Neutrals: Titanium White and Mars Black
The 4 Golden Rules of Color Mixing
1. Mixing the Secondaries
When you mix two primary colors in equal parts, you create a “secondary” color:
- Yellow + Blue = Green
- Red + Yellow = Orange
- Red + Blue = Purple
2. Mastering Tints & Shades
Understanding how to lighten and darken your mixtures is the key to adding depth and dimension to your paintings.
- Tints: Add White to any color to make it lighter and pastel.
- Shades: Add Black (or your darkest color) in tiny amounts to create deeper, moodier, and earthy tones.
3. Toning Down Brightness (Complementary Colors)
Colors located directly opposite each other on the color wheel are called complementary colors (e.g., Red and Green, Blue and Orange, Yellow and Purple). Mixing just a tiny dab of a color’s complement into it will mute the intensity, making it look much more natural and less “neon”.
4. The “Light to Dark” Rule
When mixing two colors, always start with the lighter color first, and slowly pull in the darker color. Pigments like Phthalo Blue or deep reds are incredibly powerful. If you drop a large amount of dark paint into a small puddle of yellow, you will waste paint trying to correct the mix.
A Simple Practice Exercise
Before you jump into a complex canvas, grab a piece of practice paper and try this:
- Put a small dab of Blue and a small dab of Yellow on your palette.
- Mix a 50/50 ratio using a palette knife or brush and paint a square.
- Add a tiny bit more Blue to the same mix and paint a square below it.
- Add a bit of White to your mix and paint a third square to see how tinting works.
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