acrylic paint color mixing

How to Mix Acrylic Paint? A Complete Painter’s Guide

While painting being a pro painter, you always need different colors to make your painting attractive, and sometimes the available colors do not go with what you want. Then at that time, the very first idea that usually pops up in the painter’s mind is to mix two different shades. But before that, it is essential to have a better understanding of “How to Mix Acrylic Paint?”.

How to Mix Acrylic Paint
How to Mix Acrylic Paint

No doubt it’s a good idea to mix two paints in order to make a new shade, but it also doesn’t work every time. It is only possible when you know that both colors you are going to mix are of the same consistency, nature, and texture.

Sounds Challenging? Don’t worry. In the below article, I have sorted down all of your queries in one place, including the questions like “How to Mix Acrylic Paint” and “How to Shade with Acrylic paint?” and to know the answer, you need to have a look at the entire article.

What Is the Color Wheel for Painting with Acrylic?

First of all, you need to know the theory of the color wheel for painting with acrylic, and when you understand it, you can easily get amazing shades by mixing different colors. In a wheel chart, colors are classified into three groups such as:

  1. Red, blue, and yellow in a primary group.
  2. Orange, green, and violet in the secondary group.
  3. Blue-green, blue-purple, yellow-orange, red-orange, yellow-green, and red-purple vary in a tertiary group.
Acrylic paint color charts
Acrylic paint color charts

Primary Color Group

Primary colors are the main colors that you must have in your painting box because you can mix them in other shades to gain a new tone. So, if you are painting something and you have only acrylic paint’s primary color and you don’t have much time to purchase a new one, then you have the option to mix these primary paints to get the color you need.

But if you are making a combination of different hues to get primary colors, then you are wasting your time because it’s impossible.

Secondary Color Group

Orange, green, and violet colors are formed when you mix any two primary colors and make sure you are taking the same quantity of each color.

Tertiary Color Group

When you mix the secondary color with the primary color, then you will get the tertiary color. Tertiary mostly produced darker shades such as brown and black.

How to Mix Acrylic Paint? What’s the Process?

You can mix acrylic paints, but you need to be very smart about the mixing process. So, if you are mixing two acrylic paints, make sure you are buying both paints of the same brand, and it is also necessary to ensure that the paints are of the same consistency.

If you mix thick acrylic paint into thin paint, then you will waste your paint. Add water-based paints should mix in water-based paints and oil-based paints into oil-based paints, so don’t mix the colors which have opposite characteristics.

How to Mix Acrylic Paint
How to Mix Acrylic Paint

After understanding the basic things which I have discussed above now, you can make a colorful acrylic painting by following the rules of the color wheel. Here are seven tips mentioned below that will help you with acrylic paint color combinations:

1. Skin Color Possible with Primary Colors

If you are drawing a picture of a human being, then you will surely want to have a skin color paint that will give a real look to your painting. When you see the person you are painting has a little dark complexion, then you will think, “How to make it brown with acrylic?”

Stop thinking too much because you can get the brown color when you take one tablespoon of each primary color and blends them well until you get the required shade. When the brown hue appears, you can use it.

To get the same shade as per skin color, you can add dark blue acrylic paint or black paint into the primary color mixture. And if you want to make the lighter shade, then use white color in the mixture.

2. Different Shades of Blue

Suppose you are sitting at the beach, and the overall view of the beach attracts you a lot, like the color of the sky or water, and immediately you want to save that view in your painting but to paint the view, you know how to shade with paints.

As I know to paint the night sky view, I want dark shades of blue, so to get the deeper blue color, you need to add red paint into the blue shade, but don’t use brown color in the mixture because it will not fulfill your requirement.

One thing you need to keep in your mind is that you can get dark paints very easily but turning the darker paints into light shades is very hard.

3. Mix White Paint for Solid Color

If you want opacity in your art, then you need to use the titanium white color because it is capable of making your painting more attractive.

So, add a white color in your selected color to get the ideal coverage, but if you exceed the quantity of white color, then your paint color will get fade.

4. Dark Shades

While painting, I also need dark shades of acrylic paints, so it is recommended to mix a little amount of dark blue or brown color into your paint instead of using black color.

Because black color will turn your paint into a dark blackish shade, and then you will not be able to get back the actual color that you want.

How to Make Black Acrylic Paint?

For Black Shades, Use Complementary Colors: Sometimes I need different shades of black in our painting, and it is possible by mixing complementary colors. So, if you mix red into green, orange into blue, and yellow into violet, you will have a true warm shade of black.

How to Mix Acrylic Paint
How to Mix Acrylic Paint

How to Make Purple Acrylic Paint?

In my experience, If you are painting or something related to that, suddenly you remember that you lack purple color, and at that moment, it’s also not available at any nearby place in the hour of need. Then don’t worry, a very simple, handy solution is available for all of us.

This process can efficiently be done by anyone by simply mixing two major colors that are blue and red. It’s an instant and very convenient solution.

Acrylic Paint Looks Dark After Getting Dry:

Most of us use watercolors, and I know that it looks dark when wet, but they will appear one or two shade lighter after getting dry. In case you are dealing with acrylic paint, then the theory of water paints will not go right here.

If you make the mixture of acrylic paints dark, then the paint will look darker than your expectation when it gets dry. So, if you want to get your desired dark tone when it gets dry, then you have to make the one or two shades lighter mixture of acrylic paints.

Go through the Color wheel:

If you want unique shades and don’t know how to make them, then go and have a look at the color wheel because it will help you to create unique and amazing colors which you haven’t used in a while.

How to Mix Acrylic Paint
How to Mix Acrylic Paint

What Are the Ways for Acrylic Color Paint Combinations?

There are four methods for mixing paint. You can follow any of the methods to mix it:

1. Paint Trays for Acrylic Paint Mixing

Put all the paints into the paint tray which you want to mix, and then blend the color well with a brush. When you get the appropriate color, you can use it in your painting. In the tray, you will see how beautifully the paints will merge.

2. Acrylic Glazing

First, take the two colors such as red and blue, which you want to use in your painting. Now apply a thin or transparent layer of red paint when it gets dry, then apply the second layer of blue color. It is recommended to try it first on a rough paper or board to see which shade is producing if you have got the color you want, then you can use it.

3. Optical Color mixing

It’s quite a unique technique in which you will dip the paintbrush in red and blue colors, respectively. After that, apply this paint combo on any surface a new third color will be formed, which you can consider as purple.

If I apply the paint single handily, there will be no major change in the formation of paint colors.

4. Wet into Wet:

According to this method, when you have applied the first layer of the paint on the surface, then instantly apply the layer of the second color before it gets dry.

What If I Mix Some Water in Acrylic Paint?

Mixing water with acrylic paint can make the consistency of the paint thick. In my opinion, adding some concentrated amount of water is necessary, but if you exceed the adding limit of water, it may spoil the formation of the paint.

Mixing water with acrylic paint
Mixing water with acrylic paint

How to Make an Acrylic Colors Mixing Chart?

If you want to create your chart, first take chart paper, then draw the boxes with a ruler to make it look like a color palette chart.

Paint similar colors in consecutive boxes, and then write the name of each color under each box you have painted. Surely this acrylic paint mixing chart will help you in the future when you are looking for desired color shades.

How to Find the Best Thinner for Acrylic Paint?

As I know, thinner is a necessary product for paint purposes means the thinner is added to acrylic for better results.

Isn’t it good to find the best thinner for your acrylic paint? Because everyone wants perfection in every field of life. So, the perfect and reliable thinner for this purpose is rubbing alcohol, the best among all.

FAQs: How to mix Acrylic Paint?

Yes, acrylic paint can be mixed with wall paints to modify your house color. Generally, fluid acrylics are the best option for this process.

It works. You will just have to mix your acrylic medium with your paint color. Regular acrylic paints can’t be used without the medium on any piece of fabric.

You can use every kind of acrylic on wood. For that, we need a wide flat paint brush, and we have to wait for the paint to get dry as we apply a second layer. After that, if you are willing, then you can also paint the back of the wood.

That is not suggested to mix paints or acrylic with resin because the resin is an oil by-product. So, in such types of mixtures, acrylics don’t mix efficiently

It’s recommended not to mix paints of different natures because they can disturb the texture of the paint.

If you want to get orange color by mixing two colors, then you can make it possible by mixing red and yellow colors.

Conclusion

So, from the whole article, you have found the conclusion of Can You Mix Acrylic Paint? and “What Will Be the Result of Acrylic Mixes?” The answer is yes, it’s possible if you follow the color wheel theory and precautions that I have discussed throughout the whole article. It will be great fun with acrylic paint color mixing.