Last Updated on February 26, 2026 by Dee
There’s a moment — right when two colours touch on wet paper — that honestly never gets old. That slow bloom of pigment spreading into pigment, creating something entirely new. It’s the reason most of us fell in love with watercolor in the first place.
But here’s the thing nobody tells you when you’re starting out: mixing watercolor colours isn’t just about slapping two paints together and hoping for the best. There’s a logic to it, a feel you develop over time. And once you understand even the basics of how to mix watercolor colours, your paintings go from “muddy mess” to “oh, that’s actually gorgeous” surprisingly fast.
I spent years teaching colour mixing to beginners, and I can tell you — it’s the single skill that transforms someone from frustrated to confident at the painting table. Whether you’re working from a massive palette or just six pans of colour, knowing how to mix changes everything.
I’ve put together a free printable Colour Mixing Chart for you — grab it right after the table of contents below!
Table of Contents
Free Colour Mixing Chart Printable
This printable colour mixing chart gives you a ready-made reference for your painting sessions. Print it out, keep it next to your palette, and use it to predict mixes before you commit paint to paper. It covers primary, secondary, and tertiary combinations so you can see exactly what each pair of colours creates.
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Understanding the Colour Wheel (Primaries, Secondaries, Tertiaries)
Quick Answer: The colour wheel is your roadmap for mixing. Three primary colours (red, yellow, blue) combine to create three secondaries (orange, green, purple), and mixing a primary with its neighbouring secondary gives you six tertiaries. That’s the entire foundation of watercolor colour mixing.
If you’ve never sat down and actually mixed a colour wheel from scratch, I genuinely recommend it. Not because it’s a thrilling afternoon activity, but because your hands learn something your brain can’t just read about. You start to feel how much yellow it takes to push a blue toward green, or how just a whisper of red turns orange into something warm and burnished.
Primary colours can’t be mixed from other colours — they’re your starting point. Secondaries sit between each pair of primaries on the wheel. And tertiaries? Those are the beautiful in-between shades like blue-green, red-orange, and yellow-green that make paintings feel real instead of cartoony.
The key thing to notice: colours opposite each other on the wheel (called complementaries) create muted, earthy tones when mixed. Colours next to each other (analogous) create vibrant, harmonious combinations. This simple concept is honestly 80% of what you need to know about watercolor colour theory.
If you’re just getting started with watercolor, these watercolor painting ideas for beginners are a gentle way to put colour mixing into practice.
The Only 6 Colours You Actually Need
Quick Answer: A limited palette of just six colours — a warm and cool version of each primary — gives you a far wider mixing range than a box of 24 pre-mixed paints. This is the approach professional watercolourists swear by.
Here’s the palette I always recommend to students: a warm red (like Cadmium Red), a cool red (like Alizarin Crimson), a warm yellow (Cadmium Yellow), a cool yellow (Lemon Yellow), a warm blue (Ultramarine Blue), and a cool blue (Cerulean or Phthalo Blue). That’s it. Six tubes or pans, and you can mix virtually any colour you’ll ever need.
Why warm and cool versions? Because not all reds are the same. A warm red leans toward orange, a cool red leans toward purple. When you mix a warm red with a warm yellow, you get a fiery, brilliant orange. Mix a cool red with a cool blue, and you get a rich, clean purple. Mix a warm red with a cool blue? That’s where things go muddy — and understanding why is the secret to colour mixing success.
I use my Winsor & Newton Cotman set as a starting point and pull out just these six colours. Honestly, limiting your palette forces you to learn mixing faster than any tutorial could.
For loads of project ideas using a simple palette, check out these simple watercolor ideas for beginners.
Wet-on-Wet vs Palette Mixing: When to Use Each
Quick Answer: Palette mixing gives you control and predictability — you mix on the palette before touching the paper. Wet-on-wet mixing happens directly on damp paper, letting colours mingle organically. Both have their place, and learning when to use each is what separates stiff paintings from ones that feel alive.
Palette mixing is your safe space. You squeeze out two colours, swirl them together on your ceramic mixing palette, and you know exactly what you’re getting before the brush hits the paper. Perfect for when you need a specific shade — say, for a shadow or a particular flower petal.
Wet-on-wet mixing is where the magic lives. You wet the paper first, drop in one colour, then touch in a second colour right next to it (or into it), and watch them find each other. The colours bloom and blend in ways you can’t fully control, and that unpredictability is what gives watercolor its signature look. Skies, water, soft backgrounds, loose watercolor flowers — they all benefit from letting colours mix on the paper itself.
My rule of thumb: mix on the palette when precision matters, mix on the paper when you want that watercolor looseness and spontaneity. Most paintings need both approaches, so don’t pick a favourite — learn to switch between them.
How to Mix Greens That Don’t Look Fake
Quick Answer: The secret to natural-looking greens is to mix them yourself rather than using greens straight from the tube. Combine different blues and yellows, then mute them with a touch of their complement (red or orange) to pull them toward the earthy, complex greens you actually see in nature.
Greens straight from the pan — Viridian, Sap Green, Hooker’s Green — almost always look too intense and artificial when used alone. Nature doesn’t do neon. Real leaves, grass, and foliage are complex mixes of yellow-greens, blue-greens, grey-greens, and olive tones, often with warm undertones peeking through.
Start with blue and yellow. Ultramarine + Cadmium Yellow gives you a warm, slightly muted green — perfect for sunlit foliage. Phthalo Blue + Lemon Yellow creates a bright, cool green that works for tropical leaves or spring growth. Now here’s the real trick: add a tiny amount of the complementary colour (red or burnt sienna) to knock back the brightness. Suddenly your green looks like it belongs in an actual landscape.
I keep a swatch page in my Canson XL watercolor sketchbook with all my favourite green mixes labelled. It saves so much time when I’m mid-painting and need “that exact olive tone” again. Try these mixing experiments in your own watercolor sketchbook — it’s genuinely fun once you start seeing the range you can get from just two or three colours.
Creating Beautiful Skin Tones and Earthy Neutrals
Quick Answer: Skin tones and neutrals come from mixing all three primaries together in different proportions. Start with a base of yellow + red (to get an orange), then add tiny amounts of blue to mute and deepen. Adjusting the ratios lets you create everything from pale porcelain to deep umber.
This is where colour mixing gets really satisfying. Forget buying a tube labelled “flesh tone” — those single-colour skin tones look flat and lifeless. Real skin has warmth, coolness, shadows, and translucency all happening at once. And watercolor is perfect for capturing that because it’s naturally translucent.
For light skin tones, start with a lot of water, a touch of yellow ochre and a tiny hint of Alizarin Crimson. For medium tones, increase the red and add a whisper of Burnt Sienna. For deep skin tones, work with Burnt Umber as your base and add warmth with reds or coolness with blues in the shadow areas.
Earthy neutrals follow the same principle. Mix all three primaries and you get a “chromatic grey” that’s infinitely more interesting than black mixed with water. Push it toward blue and you’ve got a cool shadow tone. Push it toward red and it’s a warm terracotta. These mixed neutrals are what give watercolor paintings depth and atmosphere.
Avoiding Muddy Colours (The Most Common Mistake)
Quick Answer: Muddy colours happen when you accidentally mix all three primaries together in roughly equal amounts, or when you overwork wet paint on the paper. The fix? Use fewer colours per mix (stick to two, maximum three), work quickly on wet paper, and learn which colour combinations create clean results.
Every watercolourist has been there. You’re painting along, everything looks lovely, and then suddenly — brown sludge. Where did that come from?
Mud happens for two main reasons. First, you’ve unknowingly combined all three primaries. Maybe you mixed a blue-leaning green with a red, or layered orange over purple. Any time red, yellow, AND blue all show up in a mix (even sneakily through secondaries), you’re heading toward brown-grey territory.
Second cause: overworking. Watercolor is at its best when it’s fresh. If you keep going back into a wet wash with more colour, lifting and reapplying, the pigments churn together and lose their vibrancy. The paper surface gets roughed up too, which makes everything look dull.
My biggest piece of advice? Mix your colour on the palette first, test it on scrap paper, then lay it down on your painting in one confident stroke. Walk away. Let it dry. The less you fiddle, the cleaner your colours stay. It takes some trust, but it works every single time.
Building a Colour Mixing Chart (Step by Step)
Quick Answer: A colour mixing chart is a grid where you list your palette colours across the top and down the side, then paint the mixture of each pair where they intersect. It’s the single most useful reference tool a watercolourist can make, and it takes about an hour.
Here’s how to build one. Get a piece of good watercolor paper — something that handles water well, like Canson XL or heavier. Draw a grid with a pencil and ruler. Write the names of your palette colours across the top row and down the left column.
Now, for each square where two colours intersect, mix those two paints on your palette (roughly 50/50) and paint a little swatch. Let each one dry completely before judging the colour — watercolor always dries lighter than it looks wet. Label each square while you remember what you mixed.
When you’re done, you’ve got a personalised reference for your exact paints. No more guessing, no more accidental mud. You can see at a glance which pairs make clean greens, which create lovely purples, and which combinations to avoid. Tape it to the wall behind your painting setup and you’ll reach for it constantly.
Grab my free colour mixing chart printable at the top of this post if you want a head start — it gives you a pre-made grid template to fill in with your own paints.
My Favourite Colour Combinations for Watercolor
Quick Answer: Some colour combinations just sing together in watercolor. Here are the mixes I reach for again and again: Ultramarine Blue + Burnt Sienna for shadows, Quinacridone Rose + Aureolin for florals, and Phthalo Blue + Burnt Umber for dramatic dark tones.
After years of mixing and experimenting, certain combos earn a permanent spot in your muscle memory. These are mine — the ones I’d take to a desert island if I could only bring a handful of paints.
Ultramarine Blue + Burnt Sienna — This mix creates the most gorgeous range of greys and shadow colours. Lean it blue for cool shadows, lean it brown for warm ones. It’s my go-to for almost every painting.
Quinacridone Rose + Aureolin Yellow — Clean, luminous oranges and peach tones. Perfect for flowers, sunsets, and skin tone highlights. The transparency of both pigments means the mix glows on the paper.
Phthalo Blue + Cadmium Yellow — Brilliant, lively greens. Great for spring foliage and tropical scenes. Add a speck of Burnt Sienna to calm it down for more natural landscapes.
Phthalo Blue + Burnt Umber — This creates an incredibly rich, near-black dark that’s far more interesting than using black paint. Gorgeous for dramatic skies and deep shadows.
Try these combinations yourself and see which ones click for your style. For more painting inspiration, have a look at these watercolor painting ideas for beginners — they’re perfect for testing out new colour mixes on actual subjects.
Essential Supplies for Colour Mixing
You don’t need a mountain of supplies to start mixing beautiful watercolours. A solid student-grade paint set, decent paper, and a proper mixing palette will take you further than a cupboard full of individual tubes. Here are the essentials I recommend to every beginner.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best watercolor colours for beginners to start with?
Start with a warm and cool version of each primary: Cadmium Red, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, and Phthalo Blue (or Cerulean). These six colours let you mix virtually any shade you’ll need. A good student-grade set like the Winsor & Newton Cotman range includes most of these and is an excellent starting point without breaking the bank.
Why do my watercolor mixes keep turning muddy?
Mud usually happens when all three primaries accidentally end up in the same mix, or when you overwork wet paint on the paper. Stick to mixing just two colours at a time (three maximum), test your mix on scrap paper first, and resist the urge to keep fiddling with wet washes. Lay the colour down and leave it alone — watercolor rewards patience.
Do I need to buy green paint, or should I always mix my own?
You can absolutely mix beautiful greens from your blues and yellows, and I’d encourage beginners to start there because it teaches you so much about colour relationships. That said, having one or two convenience greens (like Sap Green or Green Gold) in your palette for quick work is perfectly fine once you understand how to adjust them with other colours.
How do I make my watercolours more vibrant?
Vibrancy comes down to three things: using enough pigment (don’t over-dilute), mixing colours that sit close together on the colour wheel (analogous colours create cleaner mixes), and working on good quality paper that doesn’t dull the pigments. Also, fewer layers often means brighter results — watercolor gains its luminosity from light passing through the paint and reflecting off the white paper underneath.
Can I mix watercolors on the paper instead of a palette?
Yes, and it’s one of the most beautiful things about watercolor. Wet the paper first, drop in your colours side by side, and let them blend naturally. This wet-on-wet technique creates soft, organic transitions that you simply can’t achieve on a palette. It’s brilliant for skies, water reflections, and loose watercolor flowers. Just remember to work quickly and confidently — the more you touch it, the less magical it looks.
Final Thoughts
Colour mixing isn’t something you master in an afternoon. It’s something you build a relationship with, one painting session at a time. Some days you’ll nail a mix on the first try and feel like a genius. Other days you’ll create six shades of brown-grey sludge and wonder what happened. Both are part of the process.
The best thing you can do right now? Grab your paints, wet your palette, and start experimenting without any pressure to produce a finished painting. Just mix. Watch what happens when yellow meets blue at different ratios. See how a speck of red changes everything. Let yourself be surprised.
Print out the free colour mixing chart above and start filling it in with your own paints this week. You’ll learn more from that one exercise than from a month of watching tutorials.
Now go make a beautiful mess.
Let’s stay connected! I share weekly watercolor tutorials, tips, and creative encouragement across all my platforms:
- Pinterest: pinterest.com/artsydee — Save pins, find inspiration boards, and discover new painting ideas
- YouTube: youtube.com/@artsydee — Watch step-by-step watercolor tutorials and painting sessions
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Free Watercolour Palette Planning Sheets
Planning your palette before you paint saves wasted pigment and muddy mixes. These sheets give you empty swatch boxes for warm, cool, and nature-inspired palettes, plus space for mixing notes so you build a personal colour library you can reference every time you pick up a brush.