Nine Colour Mixing Grid

I've been sorting through some large sheets of paper and came across this chart from many years ago. I was always frustrated that a normal mixing chart only showed one or maybe two possible mixes, so I created this one to show 18 possible mixes.

The grid is 27cm x 27cm, created with 9 rows and 9 columns of 3cmx3cm squares. Each square is divided again to create 9 1cm x1cm squares. It's a fiddly to draw up and an even bigger fiddle to paint, but rather interesting. On single square can not really show the full range of possibilities - especially with interesting mixing neutrals like phthalo blue and cadmuim red, which creates Indian red hues, Prussian and indigo hues and a lovely mixed black. (I'd recommend using pyrrol scarlet rather than cadmium red as a warm red though)

It was made with a warm and a cool red, yellow and blue as well as three secondaries - orange, purple and green. 

The diagonal line of squares from top left to bottom right just show 9 variations of each of the 9 colours, which were lemon yellow, cadmium yellow deep, perinone orange, cadmium red, crimson red, imperial purple (mixed from PB29+PV19), ultramarine blue, phthalo blue and sap green. 

I'd use very different colours today - but this is just one of the many and varied charts I created to test out colour palettes. More mixing charts can be seen here, gouache mixing charts and wheels with a split primary palette here and some sample triads here.

Oranges

Week two was Oranges

Orange is one of my favourite colours, and I love the mixing pair of an orange and a blue. Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber and a number of the orange-earth pigments are also neutralised oranges as you can see in the little painted mix with Ultramarine, but I've chosen to focus on the brighter oranges here.

While I don't usually include an orange in my palette (apart from Transparent Pyrrol Orange, which I use as a warm red), since it is so easy to mix with Hansa yellow and pyrrol scarlet as shown, there are some gorgeous orange pigments available.

A limited palette with 6 QoR watercolours. Another with 6 Daniel Smith colours.

I tested quite a few QoR colours when they first came out in 2014 - 6 from tubes I was sent as samples and others from small dried out sample dot cards. You can see them all here.

They are all on my website in the Painted Watercolour Swatches section, which is creeping to almost 800 different painted samples now. If you have some more watercolours and would like to send me a sample to paint out, please get in touch :-)

I've been asked about adding some mixing information about these paints.

They are made with a new type of synthetic binder rather than the traditional gum arabic. It makes them feel and behave differently from traditional watercolours - a bit like painting with liquid acrylic, I felt. Golden make wonderful acrylics but I'm afraid I don't find these to be wonderful watercolours - I guess they are just not what I am used to. However, for those who are starting out they may work well. There are certainly some excellent colours but also some that are simply.... weird.

Anyway, I'll include a paintout I did using the palette of 6 that I chose. I decided to go with a balanced full gamut palette of nickel azo yellow PY150, transparent pyrrol orange PO71, quinacridone magenta PR122, ultramarine violet PV15, ultramarine blue PB29 and viridian PG18. No earth colours, and all transparent with three normally granulating pigments. Viridian and ultramarine violet are often quite weak colours so I thought these would be good to test the QoR claim of stronger colours. They are pretty powerful if you pre-wet them well before use, but not very granulating and quite difficult to lift.

QoR exploration - 6 colour full gamut palette.

I was intending having three neutralising pairs in this little palette. As you can see each pair doesn't quite make a grey but there's a lot they could do.

QoR have a much more powerful purple than this - Dioxazine purple, and a much more powerful green - Phthalo green. So this palette could be made up with stronger colours. Bismuth Vandate yellow could be used instead of Nickel Azo yellow. They also have a strong crimson which is the mixing opposite to Phthalo green, which could be used rather than the magenta. So this palette is not intended as a recommended palette, just an exploratory one.


That's the limit of my exploration of these paints. Partly, I guess, since I would actually very rarely set up a palette without burnt sienna, cerulean and a good warm yellow. Also, though it's a pretty colour, and a great mixer, I don't like painting with quinacridone magenta. While I love exploring what limited palettes can do but I don't actually choose to paint with them :-)

I don't know how well this brand would mix with traditional watercolours as I haven't tested them further. If anyone else has, please comment below.

Here is a similar full gamut palette made up with Daniel Smith paints - a powerful crimson (Pyrrol crimson), and the very strong Carbazole violet (the same pigment as Dioxazine violet) and phthalo green. There is more about this palette here. Once again it isn't a palette I would necessarily choose to paint with though even though they are so much fun to explore! My smallest palette contains lots of earthy pigments including burnt sienna and is shown here though I do have a full gamut palette in a silver locket ;-)

Daniel Smith 6-colour full gamut palette exploration 

Quiller palette

Here is my paint-out of the 12 colour Steven Quiller palette. The colours are intended to be set out on a round palette so that the mixing opposites are opposite each other. These pairs can be use to mix neutrals including the earth hues. I explored how these colour mixed to see how it worked. I wasn't overly excited, by either the paints or the mixes, though it's a nice version of Ultramarine Violet.

I think there are nicer colour choices for this type of palette, though I still love my earth pigments :-)

To see a number of other opposite mixes, see my 24 colour single pigment colour wheel here.

2 - Mixing with Burnt Sienna

Part 2 of a series of posts about mixing with my Ultimate Mixing Palette colours. 

Burnt Sienna comes in a huge range of hues. I have posted about many of them here and more can be seen on my website in the Painted Watercolour swatches section here. 

Burnt Sienna is a neutralised orange. It is a wonderful colour to have in your palette as a mixing colour. It speeds up the creation of other colours, especially grey mixes with blues, as you would otherwise have to mix a yellow and a red and then to blue to create a grey. Even in a very limited palette of a single red, yellow and blue, Burnt Sienna is an excellent 4th colour addition.

While Burnt Sienna is available in a options from a burnt orange to a burnt umber hue and is made from a range of pigments and pigment mixes, I prefer the earthy PBr7 Burnt Sienna (Daniel Smith, though Da Vinci and M.Graham are very similar in colour) as I find it useful as a convenient skin colour when washed out with lots of water as well as being a great earthy warm brown in landscape work. It is also the perfect mixing partner with Ultramarine to make my Jane's Grey - a convenient dark shadow colour that also acts as a neutral tint for the other colours, without introducing a deadening black pigment. To see some of the alternative pigments I tried, have a look here.

Here is Daniel Smith Burnt Sienna mixed with 13 of my Ultimate Mixing Palette colours. It creates yellow ochre and raw sienna hues with the yellows, burnt scarlet and brown madder hues with the reds, wonderful greys and deep blues and browns with the blues and a range of other browns with Raw Umber and Goethite. With Phthalo Green it creates lovely pine greens and with Buff titanium create flesh-tones. 

To see more mixing charts with these and many more colours see the Watercolour Mixing Charts tab on my website. These charts are also available in book or eBook form.

For the full range of colour mixes that can be created with my Ultimate Mixing Set of colours, see my book The Ultimate Mixing Palette; a World of colours. Both books are available through blurb.com as physical or eBooks here.

The Ultimate Mixing Palette: a World of Colours - updated

My next book, 'The Ultimate Mixing Palette: as World of colours', is now available on Blurb.com

This is a very different book to my first one 'Watercolour Mixing Charts'. That contains 98 charts and shows a vast range of colours but also uses a huge number of different paints. It's a fascinating study of colour mixing!

This book uses a more limited palette so it is possible to purchase the same colours and re-create the mixes. I really think it will be a most valuable reference for anyone working with watercolour. It has taken almost a year to create and is based on almost 35 years of watercolour exploration. It has over 7500 individual colour swatches - that's a lot of hues with just these fourteen pigments :-). The charts were carefully painted, then professionally photographed with a large format camera and carefully colour-matched. They look fabulous on a computer screen and the printed physical book is also very true-to-life.

You can see my previous book, Watercolour Mixing Charts, as well as the various versions of the Ultimate Palette book here. Click on any to see a preview.

It is available as an eBook or as a physical book in hardback or softcover formats in Premium Lustre paper, which is slightly thicker so my recommended paper. The softcover version is also available in standard paper.

The link to the eBook is here. This shows the first 30 pages. The eBook will work in iBooks on iPhones, iPads and Mac computers.

The Ultimate Mixing Set.

My website has more information and a tab with a list of alternate paints to the Daniel Smith ones I have used.

The professional touch

I scanned the colour charts for my new book myself on my Canon scanner. I didn't clean them up or adjust them and they look ok though not a perfect match...

But I also took them to my wonderful printer Fine Art Imaging and had them professionally scanned using a large format camera, then colour matched and cleaned up. What a difference the professional touch makes :-)

The new book, titled 'Ultimate mixing palette: a world of colours', has 49 charts and two colour wheels to show every possible two colour combination and the most useful three colour mixing combinations of my 15 colour 'Ultimate Mixing Palette'. Each chart has additional notation and cross referencing.

You can see many more colour charts done using a huge range of colours here. These are also available as a book, which has been updated with renewed images. The idea of my new book is that it is very easy to use the same paints or similar pigments to reproduce the same hues. This is a wonderful colour mixing reference :-)

Watercolour Mixing Charts - updated

I have painted many watercolour mixing charts that are available to view on my website. There were painted over a number of years - perhaps ten years? - and I painted them to test hundreds of different mixing combinations.

In 2012 I made them into a book, 'Watercolour Mixing Charts', and published them on Blurb.com. Later I also made the eBook available. The First edition is still available through the Apple Store.

In 2015 I spent may hours cleaning up the charts further on photoshop, and re-publishing the second edition. I have numbered all the charts for greater ease of use. This is now available as a hardcover book, a softcover book and an eBook on Blurb.com. The eBook works on the Mac platform so will load into iBooks on your Mac computer, iPhone or iPad. If you have the Windows platform you can now but the book as a PDF.  Here is a link to all the second edition versions. You can see a preview of the whole book.

I a considering adding a Premium Lustre paper hardcover option as well.

Here is the eBook link.

March 2015 update: I have just published another book, 'The Ultimate Mixing Palette, a World of Colours', which covers the amazing range of mixes you can get with just 15 colours. It shows every possible two colour combination with the 15 colours that make up my 'Ultimate Mixing Set' and the most useful three colour mixes. You can see all versions of both books here, and link to the website page about this palette and book here.

Then I have a few other book ideas on the go :-)

Colour exploration - a single pigment colour wheel

My sketch books have been busy!

Below is a colour wheel painted out in only single pigment colours. Some are not quite ideal, and not all are necessary, but an interesting exercise to do.

• Ultramarine Violet in the 5.30 position is very weak in Daniel Smith. Another brand may be better, though it is a weak tinting pigment. Try Da Vinci or perhaps QoR.
• Amethyst Genuine could go in the 5.30 spot instead, but is very dark and neutralised. 
• Indanthrone Blue in the 4.30 position is also a neutralised blue. 
• Cobalt Turquoise in 2.30 is not as bright and powerful as a mix of Phthalo blue and Phthalo green would be, and is more opaque and granulating but I love it!  Amazonite genuine is a more transparent alternative.
• Cobalt Green in 1.30 would be better replaced with phthalo green YS.
• In the 11.30 position I have placed New Gamboge, but have mixed Quinacridone Gold below as that's my favourite warm yellow.
• Quin Rose in 7.30 could equally be Quin Magenta PR122. They are different but are both used as a cool clean mixing red for making purples.

Notice the two triangles in the middle connect the primary triad Hansa Yellow Medium, Ultramarine and Pyrrol Crimson and the secondary triad Benzamida orange, Phthalo Green and Carbazole Violet. Together they make fantastic 6 colour palette seen here.

Each of these pairs opposite each other on the wheel neutralise each other to a grey or black, creating a huge range of earth and tertiary colours, with the exception of the yellow greens and the red purples.

Here they are painted out in pairs.

3 - lovely deep greys

12 - don't neutralise each other to grey. good for orchids!

1 makes raw umber hues

2 neither ultramarine violet nor Smalt a perfect combination. Try amethyst?

4 Lovely orange earth colours

5 Indigo and red earth hues

6 Orange earth hues

7 Indian red and venetian red hues

8 Deep greens and greys

9 Black, grey, plum, aubergines

10 Lovely purples and deep greens

11 not so interesting.

I don't tend to work with a palette of pure bright colours as I love the earth pigments, but it's fascinating to see where they all fit into the palette.

Ultramarine and Oranges - looking for a neutralising pair.

My previous post showed what is possible with a quartet of transparent non-granulating colours based around Phthalo Blue RS and Transparent Pyrrol Orange D.S. See here

But what if you don't mind granulation and love Ultramarine but still want a really bright limited palette?

In these sketch book tests I was looking for an orange to neutralise with Ultramarine to create blacks, greys, deep blues and browns the way Burnt Sienna does.

Row 1 - a tiny dot sample of W&N new limited edition Transparent Orange PO171with their limited edition Phthalo Saphhire which is very like Phthalo blue RS. This mix makes greens rather than greys and black.

Row 2 - W&N Transparent Orange mixed with DS Ultramarine. This looks promising but I ran out of my dots sample! I'll add to this if I get some more. It is a lovely orange, though incredibly similar to the Schmincke PO71 version :-)

On the right is the more red Transparent Pyrrol Orange DS - made from the same PO71 as Schmincke Transparent Orange seen in row 3, but, as is often the case, it doesn't mix in the same way. It is so important to know the brand, colour name AND pigment numbers to be able to match a particular paint mix.

Row 3 - W&N Phthalo Sapphire next to DS Phthalo Blue RS - you can see how similar they are. Then Schmincke Transparent Orange and DV Benzimida Orange Deep PO36 which are also very similar though perhaps the Benzimida Orange Deep is cleaner and slightly less yellow? I then mixed Benzimida Orange Deep with Ultramarine - creates a wonderful range of earthy browns, greys, black and deep blues :-) Very similar to the mixes I get using Burnt Sienna and ultramarine.

4 - Ultramarine blue mixed with Schmincke Transparent Orange. These are also lovely lively colours with a hint more yellow perhaps.

5 - Phthalo Blue RS mixed with Benzamida Orange Deep and they don't neutralise, though they do produce lovely greens. (Even better with Phthalo blue GS!)

So the perfect neutralising bright orange for DS ultramarine seems to be Da Vinci Benzamida Orange Deep or Schmincke Transparent Orange with W&N Transparent orange looking promising. Three different pigments, three very similar colours.

Would they be the same with other brands of Ultramarine?
Below is Ultramarine Finest and Transparent Orange, both Schmincke. Lovely.
The second row is DaVinci Ultramarine Blue with DV Benzamida Orange - same as with DS

Oranges and ultramarine blues, different brands.

Next is DS Ultramarine with Schmincke Transparent Orange and finally DS ultramarine with Benzamida orange again.

Schmincke Transparent orange has a slightly more golden glow, so adds a slightly green cast to the neutrals.

To see Ultramarine mixed with Purple Magenta and Hansa Yellow medium, click here

Colour exploration - 4 bright, non-granulating watercolours - an amazing quartet. (updated)

I have been exploring limited palette options again and came up with this set. This is an unusual palette of watercolours for me as it doesn't contain Ultramarine, my favourite blue, or Burnt Sienna, my favourite earth orange, and it does contain Quinacridone Magenta though that is not a favourite! Note this is called Purple Magenta in Schmincke or Quinacridone Lilac in Daniel Smith - who added this pigment to their range in 2017. I find it a difficult 'real world' colour and would generally rather use a rose or crimson. However, PR122 is an amazing mixing colour which, like phthalo green, can transform other colours beautifully and mixes very cleanly but in my opinion is best not used alone.

This quartet of colours is designed to be transparent, bright and non granulating - a bit like working with inks - and works beautifully!

It is based around a fabulous pair of transparent watercolours - Transparent Pyrrol Orange DS and Phthalo Blue RS DS. These neutralise each other completely to create a fantastic range of greys, black, warm browns and burnt oranges. See the first colour mixing row 1.

Other manufacturers make Phthalo blue RS (or Winsor Blue RS) but I have not found an alternative brand for this orange. Schmincke make Translucent Orange with the same pigment but it is not as red. (see separate post on oranges and blues) QoR also make a transparent pyrrol orange but it is not the same hue. As mentioned in the comments below, I'd recommend using Daniel Smith with or without Schmincke for this set, but I find W&N colours can fight with DS colours so I don't suggest mixing those brands.

Hansa Yellow Medium PY97 Daniel Smith, Purple Magenta PR122 Schmincke (or use the new DS Quinacridone Lilac), Phthalo Blue R.S. PB15 Daniel Smith and Transparent Pyrrol Orange PO71 Daniel Smith.

To make oranges and greens a mid yellow is added - Hansa Yellow Medium PY97 DS, though it could be Schmincke Pure Yellow or W&N Winsor Yellow or DV Hansa/Arylide Yellow Medium. This is a lovely bright yellow. for even more transparency it could also be a PY150 yellow such as DS Nickel Azo Yellow but I like the purity of Hansa Yellow Medium.

2 -  Hansa Yellow Medium mixed with Transparent Pyrrol Orange PO71 DS 

4 - Hansa Yellow Medium mixed with Phthalo Blue RS PB15 DS to make bright greens. 

To make purples and reds and crimsons the very bright Magenta PR122 is required. This was not made by Daniel Smith when I created this post (I often wondered why not) but was added to the range in 2017 and is called Quinacridone Lilac. Is also available as Purple Magenta by Schmincke or Quinacridone Magenta in many other brands including W&N, Daler Rowney,  Old Holland, and QoR. It is often used as a primary red pigment. I prefer the Schmincke version or the new DS version. The advantage of this pigment over my usual preferred PV19 Quinacridone Rose is that it will create a rich crimson when mixed with Transparent Pyrrol Orange.

3 - Mixed with the DS Transparent Pyrrol Orange it creates gorgeous reds and crimsons 

5 - Mixed with Phthalo Blue RS it makes amazing purples  

6 - I mixed Purple Magenta with Yellow as they also make wonderful oranges, reds and crimsons. 

You can see how easy it is to create bright mixes of oranges, greens and purples. 

7 - I then added a little magenta to the Phthalo Blue RS to create a warmer blue, which made more neutral greens when yellow was added 

8 - I did the same thing adding some Transparent Pyrrol Orange to the yellow to made it warmer, then adding the blue to make more mossy greens 

9 - The last row is all three primaries mixed together to create a range of darks and neutral earth hues.

Another very bright transparent and non-granulating pigment is Phthalo Green PG7. I use this for many mixes, especially to make a rich black with a crimson. I mixed it with the Purple Magenta (1 below) to see if it would neutralise to black. Like Quinacridone Rose, it makes great purples but not black. 

Mixes with my amazing quartet along with Phthalo Green PR7.

2 -  I mixed a crimson hue by mixing Transparent Pyrrol Orange with Purple Magenta, then mixed that crimson with Phthalo Green and yes - blacks and aubergines are possible. 

3 - back to my bright quartet colours, I tested the yellow to see what earth yellows I could create just with my initial 4 colours. Alone mixed with a purple made from the blue and magenta, hansa yellow medium creates some interesting cool earth colours. 

4 - With a little orange added Hansa Yellow Medium creates yellow ochre and raw sienna hues and some raw umber options.

5 - I tried mixing a crimson from the magenta and orange then creating a phthalo green hue to try to create the same aubergine and black options. It comes close, though required all four pigments. I try to steer away from 4 pigment mixes but it is possible. 

So I think a phthalo green is a useful addition if you want to limit yourself to three pigment mixes but increase to 5 bright transparent colours. Phthalo Green yellow shade would be the best option as it neutralises magenta to a grey. And if you want a 6th? A purple is the obvious choice for a balanced palette. Such lovely sets of 6 can be seen here, but as purple is very easy to mix, I'd rather add Quinacridone Gold DS :-)

My next tests will be with Ultramarine instead of Phthalo Blue RS to see if I can find a completely neutralising bright orange........ see here.

Happy painting!

eBook now available

I have updated my Watercolour Mixing Charts to an eBook (iBook on a Mac) as well as the printed version. At only $5.99 you can have all those charts at your fingertips on your iPhone or iPad in a couple of clicks. Just click here

Or you can buy the physical book in paperback or hard back. Click here.

I am now working on a smaller mixing book using just 14 different colours, to go with my recommended watercolour beginner or limited palette set of colours.