Quick Color Mixing Guide

Let's try to review what we've learned in school during our elementary days about COLORS. Once we remember then we can create more layouts with ease.

Basic Colors: The basic colors (hues) to have in your studio are red, yellow, blue, white, black and gray. By mixing these colors you can produce multiple hues and values.

Primary Colors:Cannot be achieved by mixing any other colors
Red Yellow Blue

Secondary Colors: Mixing primary colors
Red and Blue = PurpleYellow and Blue = GreenRed and Yellow = Orange

Values:Black = shade (darken)White = tint (lighten)Gray = tone
Browns:Make brown by mixing any primary color with its complimentary color (see color wheel).
Grays:You can mix blue, orange and white to make gray but takes a bit of experimentation to get the right gray. In this case, it’s easier to purchase pre-mixed grays.

Color Wheel :If you don’t already have one, get one! It will help you to mix colors and come up with pleasing color combinations.

Complementary:Colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel compliment each other and will make each other pop.

Analogous:Colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. Choosing two or three colors next to each other will have a pleasing harmony because of their underlying similarity.

Monochromatic:Using any shade, tint or tone of one color will give a tone-on-tone effect