Mixing guide
How to mix green
Which blue and which yellow you pick decides everything. Here is the full range, with the mixtures worked out.
Green is where a limited palette earns its keep, because the green you can buy in a tube is almost never the green in front of you. Mixed green has a range that no single tube covers.
Everything depends on which blue and which yellow. A cool yellow with a cool blue gives the sharp, clean greens of spring; a warm yellow with a warm blue gives the olive and khaki of late summer. Phthalo blue with lemon yellow is almost fluorescent; yellow ochre with ultramarine is the green of a shaded hedge.
Note that the mixtures below come from a spectral model rather than an average of screen colors. That matters here more than anywhere else: blue and yellow only make green because their reflectance curves overlap around 500 to 540 nanometres, and a tool that averages red, green and blue values will tell you they make gray.
The mixtures
Each one worked out on a real palette with the spectral model. The number after the mixture is how far it lands from the target: under 2 you cannot see the difference, under 4 it does not matter in a painting.
Fresh spring green #6FA03C
New growth in full light. Needs a cool yellow.
5× Cadmium Yellow Light +1× Phthalo Blue
5× Cadmium Yellow Light +1× Phthalo Blue
9× Viridian +7× Lemon Yellow +4× Yellow Ochre
Full wash.
10× Yellow Ochre +5× Titanium White +4× Ultramarine
This palette cannot quite reach that color with 3 pigments in one mixture. What you see is the closest it gets, which is worth knowing before you spend an afternoon trying.
Deep foliage green #3C5B33
The mass of a tree, away from the light.
6× Phthalo Blue +5× Cadmium Yellow Light
9× Cadmium Yellow Light +6× Phthalo Blue +1× Ivory Black
10× Yellow Ochre +3× Phthalo Blue +1× Burnt Umber
Full wash.
8× Yellow Ochre +7× Ultramarine
Olive green #7A7A43
Dry grass, old leaves, anything late in the season.
7× Cadmium Yellow Light +2× Phthalo Blue
10× Yellow Ochre +3× Ultramarine +1× Titanium White
3× Yellow Ochre +1× Ultramarine
Full wash.
10× Yellow Ochre +3× Ultramarine +1× Titanium White
Blue-green #2E6F62
Pine, sea water, anything cooled by distance.
5× Lemon Yellow +3× Phthalo Blue
5× Yellow Ochre +5× Phthalo Blue +2× Titanium White
3× Viridian +1× Phthalo Blue +1× Yellow Ochre
Medium wash, roughly 1 part paint to 1 parts water.
6× Ultramarine +3× Yellow Ochre +1× Titanium White
Worth remembering
- Reach for the cool yellow when you want a green to sing, and the warm yellow when you want it to sit back.
- Phthalo blue is so strong that a sliver changes everything. Put out less than looks right and work towards the color.
- Almost every green in nature has been knocked back by something. Pure mixed green is rarely what you actually see.
Your paints, your photo
These mixtures assume the palettes above. Tick off what you actually own and pick the color straight out of your reference instead.