Color mixing is one of those things that looks like it should be easy, but once you try it for yourself you realize there’s a lot to it. In this post, I cover the top 10 color mixing tips that I have for beginners. Over the past few years, my color mixing videos have gone viral on social media. I …
5 Reasons Why Color Wheels Aren’t Helpful for Mixing Colors
Some of my color mixing videos went viral over the past year on social media. As a result, I receive a lot of questions about color wheels. Some of the comments are about how to use color wheels for mixing colors. The interesting thing is that I don’t really rely on color wheels or recommend them very often. Color wheels …
What Colors Make Brown? The Ultimate Guide to Mixing Brown
In this post, I demonstrate how to mix brown, dark brown, and light brown. I include a video demonstration and a free PDF that contains all of the recipes for mixing brown. These formulas will provide similar results in acrylics, oils, watercolor, and gouache. How do you mix brown? Brown is basically dark red or dark orange so the easiest …
The Difference Between Mars Black and Ivory Black
At first glance, choosing a black paint seems like an easy decision. The two most popular black pigments are Mars Black and Ivory Black. One is warm and the other is a cool, you just have to decide on which one you want to use…right? Not exactly, It’s a little more complex than that. So what’s the difference between Mars …
Yellow and Black Makes Green
You may find it perplexing that yellow turns green when you mix it with black. Some artists use this to their advantage when painting with a limited palette, but it can catch you by surprise if you aren’t expecting it. So, why does yellow turn green when you add black to it? Dull olive green is an accurate representation of …
Acrylic Color Mixing Chart: Free PDF Download
My free color mixing chart contains 29 color mixing recipes for mixing the most common colors used in painting. You can download it by subscribing to my email newsletter. Once the signup is complete, you will receive a welcome email that contains a link to the PDF. The color mixing chart is also part of my color mixing course, see …
9 Acrylic Blending Techniques
There are a number of blending techniques that you can use with acrylics. In this post, I demonstrate 9 ways to blend acrylics using a different brands of regular and slow drying acrylics. I demonstrate each blending technique by creating a simple gradient on a canvas panel. Throughout the post, I also provide a few examples of my paintings that …
Magenta Is the Secret to Mixing Purple
If you’re having trouble mixing purple, it’s probably because you’re mixing red with blue. For reasons explained in this post, mixing red and blue creates brown. So how do you mix purple? The key to mixing a brilliant purple is using magenta instead of red. You can mix purple from Quinacridone Magenta and Phthalo Blue. Other blues, such as Ultramarine …
The Top 90 Art Terms in Plain English
In this post, I cover the top 90 art terms that are most relevant to drawing, painting, and photography. There are many terms that are unique to art. You’ll encounter new words and phrases when learning about art through books, magazines, and workshops. If you don’t understand what they mean, it will be difficult to follow the discussion. Some of …
Color Mixing Demo: Matching 8 Colors With Acrylics
Everybody has a simple understanding of the basic color mixing recipes, but it requires more skill to match a color exactly. Fortunately, there are some basic strategies and principles that you can learn. In this article, I discuss the basic color mixing strategies that I use for achieving exact color matches. It includes a 20 minute video where I match …
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