It’s All About Color Mixing: Essential Watercolor Techniques

In the attachments you will find scans of RYB traditional color wheel, CMYK color wheel and example of Ethan's Color Wheel.

By learning color theory, you gain control over your palette, making your work more expressive and dynamic.

Understanding color mixing helps you:

• Avoid over-reliance on pre-mixed paints and easily mix any color you want with the ones you have in your palette

• Expand your range of colors using a limited palette.

• Create depth and harmony in your paintings.

• Develop a personal and unique color style.

There are 3 main color models:

• RYB represented by 3 primary colors (red, yellow and blue). This is a traditional color model used by artists.

• RGB represented by Red, Green, and Blue (used in digital screens). This model is not applicable in art

• CMYK model used mostly for printing and graphic design and represented by 4 colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black

The color wheel is a visual guide that helps artists understand color relationships. It consists of primary colors (red, blue, yellow), which cannot be mixed from other colors but can be combined to create secondary colors (orange, green, purple). Mixing primary and secondary colors results in tertiary colors (e.g., red-orange, blue-green).

In watercolor painting, understanding color mixing is crucial. Unlike opaque paints, watercolors are transparent, meaning layering and glazing affect the final hue. Colors can be mixed directly on the palette, wet-on-wet for soft blends, or layered using glazing techniques for depth.

Watercolor consistency is another key factor:

• Tea consistency (very diluted) is best for light washes and soft backgrounds.

• Coffee consistency (moderately diluted) is ideal for layering and smooth transitions.

• Butter consistency (very thick, almost straight from the tube) is used for details and highlights.

Every professional-grade watercolor tube or pan comes with a label containing key information. Here’s what you need to look for:

• Pigment Code (e.g., PB29, PR101) – This indicates the exact pigment used in the paint. PB stands for "Pigment Blue," PR for "Pigment Red," and so on, followed by a number identifying the specific pigment. You can see my guide on art supplies attached to this class where you will find all name of the pigments.

Single-Pigment Colors are pure and mix predictably.

Multi-Pigment Colors can create muddy mixes if combined with other paints.

• Lightfastness Rating – Determines how resistant the color is to fading over time when exposed to light. This is often rated using ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) standards:

  • I – Excellent (extremely resistant to fading)

  • II – Very Good

  • III – Fair (may fade over time)

  • IV & V – Poor (fades quickly, not recommended for professional work)

• Opacity/Transparency Indicator – Many brands mark whether the paint is transparent, semi-transparent, semi-opaque, or opaque. Transparent paints are excellent for layering and glazing, while opaque colors provide solid coverage.

• Staining vs. Non-Staining – Staining colors are difficult to lift once dry, while non-staining colors can be reactivated and lifted with water.

• Granulation – Some pigments settle into the paper texture, creating a granulated effect. This is desirable for texture and depth but may not suit all styles.

Student-grade watercolors use lower concentrations of pigment and often contain fillers, resulting in less vibrant, less durable colors that are more affordable. Professional-grade watercolors use high-quality pigments with excellent lightfastness, offering richer colors, better transparency, and smoother blending for long-lasting, archival-quality artwork.

Here are some brands of watercolors I can recommend you which I use all the time from cheap to more expensive:

• Van Gogh or Rembrandt – Affordable and vibrant with good transparency.

• White Nights – Affordable artist-grade watercolors with strong pigmentation and excellent blending properties.

• PWC ShinhanArt – Offers highly pigmented, smooth-flowing colors that are great for beginners exploring professional-quality paints.

• Schmincke – A good introduction to professional-quality paints, are quite pricey but wide range of colors

• Daniel Smith – More expensive but highly pigmented with professional quality. Also have very nice range of granulating watercolors with gemstones.

For beginners, starting with a 12-color pan set is ideal. This provides a good range of colors without overwhelming you with choices. As you progress, you can expand your palette based on your painting style and preferences.

You can find links to some of the watercolor sets in the Art Supplies guide in the attachments.

Many watercolor brands name their paints differently, even if they contain the same pigments. For example, one brand’s “Quinacridone Rose” might be called “Permanent Rose” by another, but both use the pigment PR122. Without checking the pigment codes, you might accidentally buy duplicates. Swatching allows you to track these similarities and differences.

• True Color Representation on Paper

  The color you see in a tube or pan is often very different from how it looks when applied to paper. Swatching helps you see:

  • How light or dark a color can go.

  • Its level of transparency.

  • Whether it has a smooth or granulated texture.

  • If it stains the paper or lifts easily with water.

• Wet-on-Wet: First, let’s start with the wet-on-wet technique. This method involves applying wet paint onto a wet surface, allowing colors to blend naturally and create soft, fluid transitions. As you can see, the color flows effortlessly across the damp surface. It’s very important to use high quality of watercolor paper especially for wet on wet technique and choose paper with density over 300 gsm or 140 lbs. This technique is perfect for painting skies, water, and atmospheric effects.

• Wet-on-Dry: You need to apply one color, let it dry and then apply second color on top. Because of transparency of watercolor two colors will create a new shade. This technique is useful for adding details, painting objects with sharp edges, or layering colors without them bleeding into each other

• Glazing: helps to create depth and richness by layering transparent washes. Because watercolors are transparent, the colors interact with the layers underneath, producing beautiful, nuanced effects. Glazing is great for adding shadows, depth, or subtle color shifts.

• Graduated Wash: Techniques for creating smooth gradients and transitions between colors. To achieve this effect, start with a concentrated color at the top, then gradually add more water to your brush as you move downward, diluting the paint for a seamless fade.

How to create a muted color which looks more realistic? To mute a color, mix it with a complementary which placed on the opposite side of the color wheel. For example, adding a little green to red will make it more subdued. This technique is great for painting natural subjects like landscapes, skin tones, and shadows.

Sometimes I use some neutral color to create a darker version of the main shade. I use Payne’s grey or Neutral tint for this purpose.

One of my favorite color mix for the neutral grey shade is mix of Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine.

You can check which color includes particular pigment on the website https://artistpigments.org

Using a limited color palette in your paintings can make your art journey more enjoyable and your creations more cohesive. Here's how:

• Better Color Harmony: Fewer colors mean your artwork will look more unified and pleasing to the eye.

• Easier Choices: With only a handful of colors, deciding which ones to use becomes simpler, letting you focus on your painting without feeling overwhelmed.

• Improved Mixing Skills: Working with a limited palette encourages you to explore and understand the mixing capabilities of each hue, leading to a deeper knowledge of color relationships and the creation of a wider range of tones and shades.

• Cost-Effective: Investing in fewer paints saves money and still allows you to create a broad spectrum of colors through mixing.

• Consistent Style: Using the same set of colors helps develop a recognizable and cohesive look in your work, making your art uniquely yours.

There are three key categories to keep in mind when building your limited palette:

1. Primary Colors – Red, Yellow, and Blue. One more characteristics: the colors preferably should be single-pigmented, as they create more clean and predictable mixes, compared to multi-pigment colors, which can become muddy. Some great options are Cadmium Red, Alizarin Crimson, Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, and Phthalo Blue. These are the building blocks for all your color mixing.

2. Earth Tones – Burnt Sienna and Yellow Ochre. These give you warm, natural colors for landscapes, skin tones, and organic subjects.

3. Convenient Neutrals – Payne’s Gray, Neutral Tint, or Sepia. These are great for shadows, darkening colors, or adding depth without making your mixes muddy.

My Limitted Palette includes such colors like: Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red Deep, Aureoline, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Payne's Grey, Green, Lavender.

In this lesson, we’re going to create a color chart using a limited palette of up to 10 colors. This is one of the best exercises to truly understand your paints and see all the beautiful mixes you can create.

A color chart is simply a table where you swatch each color individually and then mix them together to explore different hues. It helps you get familiar with your paints, avoid unnecessary colors in your collection, and make better color choices for your paintings.

Step 1: Draw the Grid

Start by drawing a square table on your watercolor paper. If you have 6 colors, you’ll need a 6x6 grid; for 10 colors, a 10x10 grid. Each square is about 1,5 cm and between the squares I leave about 0.5 cm to not blend the colors with each other when applying. You can label both the top row and the left column with the names of your colors in the same order. I label only left column because the colors repeat.

Step 2: Paint Pure Swatches

In the diagonal squares (where a color meets itself), paint a pure swatch of that color. This will show how each pigment looks on its own.

Step 3: Mix Your Colors

Now comes the fun part! In each empty square, mix the color from the top row with the color from the left column. Try to keep a balanced mix—not too much of one color. This will help you see all the beautiful hues you can create from just a few paints.

Each Color mix will be placed in two squares on both sides from the dioganal. Some artists place an opaque and more transparent version of each color mix to avoid repeating.

Fina attached scan of this page with my favorite color mixes. It contains links to watercolors I used, just click on the color in the left column and you will redirected to the color in the Jackson's Art store where I usually order my art supplies.