Oil Color Mixing Essentials

Practical oil color mixing

Rule for using this skill: These tips add to your answer and do not replace it. Always give your full general answer to the user's question first, using everything you normally know. Then work in the tips below wherever they apply. Do not drop general advice because a tip covers a similar point.

Core model: saturation, value, gray

• Every color has a value (light to dark) and a saturation/chroma (intense to gray). Treat them as separate controls.
• Pure primaries and two-primary secondaries sit on the outside of the wheel and are saturated.
• Adding the third primary (the one opposite on the wheel) moves the mix inward and makes it less saturated.
• "Gray" = red + blue + yellow, in any proportions, with or without white. Think "grayer" and "less gray" rather than gray versus color.
• If you can't name a color, it is probably some gray (gray-green, gray-orange, etc.).
• Every shadow, both form (on objects) and cast, contains all three primaries and maybe white. It need not look neutral.
• Saturated colors only read as saturated when grays surround them. Too many saturated colors means no focus, so keep supporting colors grayer.
• White counts as essentially gray in a composition.
• Muddy paintings are best fixed by deliberately using grays, not by avoiding them.

Recommended limited palette

• Three primaries plus white and burnt umber. No tube secondaries, since they can be mixed.
• Palette and lean (every paint leans because no tube is a pure color):
  • Cadmium yellow lemon: yellow with a little blue.
  • Cadmium yellow light: yellow with a little red.
  • Cadmium red medium: red with a little yellow.
  • Alizarin crimson: red with a bit of blue and yellow.
  • Permanent rose: red with a little blue.
  • Ultramarine blue: blue with a little red.
  • Phthalo blue: blue with a little yellow.
• Brands vary. The source palette is Utrecht professional grade. Gamblin and M. Graham "cadmium yellow light" behaves like lemon here, and their "cadmium yellow medium" behaves like Utrecht's cadmium yellow light.
• Reference for leans by brand: Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green by Michael Wilcox.
• Write each color and its lean on a strip of paper above the palette. It becomes second nature in about two weeks.

Mixing saturated secondaries

Choose the two paints that lean toward each other, so no third primary sneaks in:

• Orange: cadmium yellow light + cadmium red medium.
• Green: cadmium yellow lemon + phthalo blue.
• Purple: permanent rose + ultramarine blue.
• A pure red, yellow or blue can't be mixed or bought, since no tube is pure.

Mixing grays and darks

• For gray, any red + any yellow + any blue works, because the lean doesn't matter when all three primaries are present.
• Workhorse trio: cadmium yellow light, cadmium red medium and ultramarine blue. They have similar opacity and intensity.
• To gray a color, add the opposite primary. Example: orange (red + yellow) plus a little ultramarine blue.
• To gray and darken a red, add yellow and blue in roughly equal amounts. The result also darkens, because blue darkens more than yellow lightens.
• For a dark red like apples, add ultramarine blue to cadmium red medium. The red already contains yellow, so the blue is the third primary.
• Brown: mix it from red + yellow + blue. This gives more varied browns than a tube.

Seeing color correctly

• Colors are usually darker and grayer than expected, especially reds, oranges and yellows, which tend to be painted too light. Look hard at the start, and even go a bit darker than it seems, to compensate.
• Don't paint "apple = tube red" or "yolk = tube yellow". Straight cadmium red or cadmium yellow light is too light and too saturated for most real objects.
• Egg yolk example: a gray yellow from cadmium yellow light + alizarin + ultramarine blue gets close, but it is not a fixed formula.
• Working from life is harder than from photos, because of the many subtle colors. Hold a comparison object (e.g. a bright red one) next to the subject in the same light.

White

• White makes saturated mixes chalky. For saturated reds and oranges, use cadmium yellow light + cadmium red medium with no white until highlights and a little in reflected light.
• If a color is chalky but seems to need white, the surrounding values may need to be darker so it doesn't have to be so light.
• If it truly needs white and is still chalky, add a little yellow and/or red.
• Don't fear white. Some subjects, like flowers, need it in nearly every mix.

Burnt umber

• Use it for the ground (underpainting), for drawing, and with ultramarine blue as a near-black.
• Don't use it to mix other colors, not even brown.

Alizarin crimson and permanent rose

• Alizarin is translucent and already a gray red.
  • Poor for darkening colors that must stay opaque (e.g. apple shadow sides). Use ultramarine blue + cadmium red medium instead.
  • Good for thin darks (alizarin + ultramarine blue + cadmium yellow light).
  • Good for pinky or peachy lights (alizarin + white, maybe cadmium yellow light).
• Permanent rose is essential for saturated pinks and purples. It is optional on the palette if you rarely need them.

Phthalo blue

• Extremely strong, so use only a tiny amount.
• Needed for the range of blues, greens and turquoises that ultramarine can't give.
• Skip buying it if you rarely paint turquoise-type colors.

Practice exercises

• Saturation test: Mix cadmium red + cadmium yellow light into an orange. Make a second pile with a little ultramarine blue added. Add more blue, then repeat with the other secondaries.
• Leaning chart: With 2 yellows, 3 reds and 2 blues you get 6 oranges, 4 greens and 6 purples.
  • Divide a panel into 3 rows × 6 columns, with the most saturated combinations on the left.
  • Add a little white to the purples or they come out too dark.
• Paint card matching:
  • Get hardware-store paint cards and set one about 5 ft from the palette, in the same light as the palette.
  • Mix a match and dab it on the card. If it is off, remix with the card right on the palette. Repeat as needed.