Mixing guide
How far three colors and white will take you
A small palette gives you color harmony for nothing and forces you to learn what your paints actually do.
The instinct when a mixture will not come right is to buy another tube. It is almost always the wrong move. A painting made from three colors and white hangs together because every mixture on the canvas shares the same ingredients, and that kind of harmony is very hard to arrange deliberately on a full palette.
There is also a learning argument. With ten tubes you can approximate almost anything without understanding why, and you will still be guessing a year later. With three you are forced to know what each one does, and that knowledge transfers to every palette you use afterwards.
The usual choice is one yellow, one red and one blue, plus white. Which ones you pick sets the boundaries of what you can reach: yellow ochre, cadmium red light and ultramarine give a warm, earthy world, while lemon yellow, quinacridone rose and phthalo blue give a far brighter and colder one.
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.
Warm light on stone #C7A882
Bread and butter for an earth-based limited palette.
9× Yellow Ochre +4× Titanium White +1× 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.
4× Yellow Ochre +3× Titanium White
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.
6× Cadmium Yellow Light +1× 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.
3× Lemon Yellow +1× Burnt Umber
Very thin wash, roughly 1 part paint to 8 parts water.
A usable green #6E7A4A
No green in the palette, and yet.
8× Yellow Ochre +4× Ultramarine +1× Titanium White
10× Titanium White +9× Yellow Ochre +1× Ivory Black
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.
5× Cadmium Yellow Light +2× Phthalo Blue
9× Viridian +3× Yellow Ochre +2× Burnt Sienna
Medium wash, roughly 1 part paint to 1 parts water.
Cool shadow #6C7180
Where the blue earns its place.
7× Ultramarine +2× Titanium White +1× Yellow Ochre
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.
9× Titanium White +1× Ivory Black
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.
3× Lemon Yellow +1× Phthalo Blue
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.
10× Ultramarine +6× Burnt Sienna +1× Phthalo Blue
Thin wash, roughly 1 part paint to 4 parts water.
Neutral dark #38332E
All three at once, in the right proportion.
5× Ultramarine +3× Yellow Ochre
3× Yellow Ochre +3× Ivory Black +2× Titanium White
10× Phthalo Blue +3× Cadmium Yellow Light
4× Ultramarine +2× Burnt Umber +1× Payne’s Gray
Full wash.
Worth remembering
- Mix a full chart of your three before you start painting with them. Two hours spent on that saves weeks.
- When a color will not come, the answer is usually a different ratio, not a different tube.
- Note what the palette cannot do and choose subjects accordingly. Limitation is only useful when you work with it.
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.