Pigment pair · PW6 + mengsel

Mixing Titanium White and Payne’s Gray

Nine steps from one to the other, worked out with a spectral model rather than by averaging screen colors. Half and half gives #5E6F7D. Click any step to open it in the mixer.

The full range, Titanium White to Payne’s Gray

pure#F8F7F3 6:1#9BAAB5 3:1#8293A0 2:1#748593 1:1#5E6F7D 1:2#4D5C6A 1:3#455461 1:6#3B4955 pure#2E3A45

Ratios are parts by volume, the way you would put them out on a palette.

These two cancel each other almost completely. Somewhere in the middle of this range sits a gray with no lean at all, which makes this one of the most useful pairs on a palette: it gives you shadows and grays without a tube of black.

The quietest point: #F8F7F3

At pure this pair is at its most neutral. That is the mixture to reach for when you need a shadow or a gray that still belongs to the rest of the painting.

Open this gray in the mixer

What you are working with

Pigment	Index	Strength	Opacity	Lightfast	In
Titanium White	PW6	8/10	opaque	excellent	Oil
Payne’s Gray	mengsel	7/10	semi-transparent, granulating	good	Oil, Watercolor

Strongest white there is. Lightens a mixture but also chalks it; use as little as you can get away with to keep the chroma.

A bluish gray. Convenience over control; mixing your own gives livelier shadows.

Now do it with your own paints

This page assumes two tubes. The mixer works from everything on your palette at once, and from a color you pick out of your own photo.

Open in the mixer Start from a photo

Other pairs worth knowing

Titanium White and Ivory Black Titanium White and Naples Yellow Titanium White and Cerulean Blue Titanium White and Mars Black Titanium White and Yellow Ochre Titanium White and Phthalo Green Payne’s Gray and Chromium Oxide Green Payne’s Gray and Lemon Yellow Payne’s Gray and Ultramarine Payne’s Gray and Mars Black Payne’s Gray and Burnt Umber Payne’s Gray and Cobalt Blue

All 378 pigment pairs