If youve been dreaming of creating the perfect purple, youve come to the right place.
Before we start, if youre interesting in moreacrylic paintingmixing guides, check out thishow to make brown paintguide.
What colors mix to make purple?
Purple is made by mixing red and blue together.
The ratio of red and blue makes a difference too.
If you add more red to your mix youll get warmer purples like violet and lilac.
Contrarily, if you add more blue into your mix youll get cooler purples like indigo and lavender.
Because its going to help you mix vibrant purples and avoid the mistake of making muddy purple concoctions.
And its easier (dare I say, more interesting) to understand using the color wheel.
When mixing any two primary colors together, you get the secondary color thats sits between them.
In this case, you get purple by mixing red and blue together.
Make light purples, like lavender and lilacs, by adding in varying amounts of white.
Alternatively, you get darker deeper purples (like eggplant and plum) by adding black into the mix.
And this has to do with color theory and the good ol color wheel again!
In technical jargon, opposites on the color wheel are called complimentary colors.
And when you mix 2 complimentary colors together, you get brown.
The closer they are to purple, the purer your purple will be.
If you dont have those exact paints handy, dont worry.
Below are some alternatives, that I tried and tested.
They all make gorgeous purples that are all slightly different.
Some of them even mixed some popular store bought paints like Dioxazine purple, prism violet and brilliant purple.
Note that they are mixed in mainly 1:1 ratio, blue to red.
Thats why my Quinacridone Magenta and Ultramarine blue is my fave purple mix, because theyre so versatile together.
More on that below in my color mixing chart exercise.
The brand I used was Liquitex basics, but Ive seen these colors carried in other brands too.
Mixing aqua green with quinacridone magenta yields a beautiful mauve purple (pictured below).
you’re free to then lighten it up with some white and darken it with some black.
Magentas and fluorescent pinks to the rescue!
My favorite red alternative is fluorescent pink, because it yields a gorgeous bright and vibrant purple.
Ive paired fluorescent pink with ultramarine blue below in a 1:1 ratio.
Some other great options are medium magenta and quinacridone magenta.
Some examples of warm purples are lilac, prism violet, orchid, red wine and mulberry.
They have more or a pink undertone to them.
One way to achieve warmer purples is to buy different magentas/reds to get the perfect hue.
To get warmer purples add more of your red/magenta into the mix compared to the amount of blue.
The reason why this trick works?
Its because blue is a cool color and red is a warm color.
In the bottom row I added ultramarine blue and fluorescent pink in a 1:2 ratio.
I then added some white to create the lilac and barbie purple.
Grey was added to make the warm mauve and summer mauve.
And finally black was added to make the dark purple plum and red wine color.
To get cooler purples start out with equal amounts of blue to red and notice the color.
I then added some white to make the lavender and brilliant purple.
To make the chill mauve and cool mauve I added some light grey.
The eggplant and concord grape color was made by adding in a tinge of black.
Technically speaking, anytime you add white to lighten a color the resulting colors are called tints.
The more white you add to the mix the lighter and pastel the tints will become.
I would start out with a 2:1 ratio to original pruple to white to begin.
This will lighten your purple a bit, usually enough to see a difference.
Then slowly add more white into your mixx until youve achieved your desired light purple color.
How Do You Make Lavender Color?
This yields a beautiful light cool lavender color.
And if you want to darken it just add more of your original purple back in.
The technical term for this is creating shades of purple.
Now, black can be a tricky paint color to work with.
What I usually do is add black just to the tip of my palette knife and mix it in.
Youll wasted less paint if you start small.
My favorite black to make various shades of purples with is Mars Black.
How Do You Make Indigo Color?
Learn how to make 16 different purples in this color chart exercise.
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