Since the color blue is one of the three primary colors, you cannot mix a true blue but you can mix various tints, tones, and shades of blue to expand your palette without having to buy dozens of tubes of paint.
How to mix blues in painting
Colour mixing blue accurately can seem tricky as there are many types of blues to be found. Does the artist purchase lots of blue pigments for the different blues that can be perceived, or can lots of blues be mixed with a few basic pigments? Thankfully, there is a simple solution.
Different Types of Blues
How to Darken Blue
So with the colour temperature of the blue defined, the next consideration is tone. Of course, blue can always be lightened by the introduction of white. But darkening blue is not so simple. Adding black will create dirty greys. Adding blue’s complementary colour is a better option. Any colour in the red spectrum can be used for deepening blues. Cadmium red will darken blue almost to black, ideal for the bases of storm clouds or for the shadows of slate. How to Paint Deep Blues
One does not have to look far to see many different blues that on first impressions can seem bewildering. There is the violet-blue of a summer sky; powder-blue of the cornflower; arctic-blue of snowdrifts; silver-blue of cutlery; turquoise blue of a winter sky at sunset and iridescent-blue of moonlit clouds. The list is endless. When it comes to colour mixing blue, where is the best place to start? Categories of Blue Pigments
Like any other colour, there is only four ways a blue can go when one looks at the colour wheel, which is violet, green, light or dark. The rest is just down to purity of the blue. When it comes to the aforementioned colour wheel, blue can either be warm or cool. This is known as ‘colour temperature’. This is why many artists have at least 2 blue pigments within their colour selection: a warm blue and a cool blue. The warm blue will have a violet cast. A common choice for this blue is ultramarine. Ultramarine is rather translucent in nature but is an ideal colour inclusion for summer skies, warm lake reflections or blue markings on crockery. Ultramarine is also useful for painting bluish casts found in snow.
Painting Violet Colours
Adding a little permanent rose to ultramarine will further tilt this blue to violet. With a little white, this will result in the ideal colour found near the horizon of clear, sunny skies. This bluish-violet can also be used for certain flowers such as wisteria, pansies or petunias.
Cool Blues in Art
The cool blue will have a greenish cast. A common choice for this is pthalo blue, cerulean, monestrial or manganese. Pthalo blue is an ideal counterpart for mixing cool, wintry skies, denim or irises. Having a greenish cast, these blues are also a good blue counterpart for obtaining crisps greens. The addition of a little viridian will tilt this blue further into green, ideal for bluish foliage or pine trees in mist.
Start With a Primary Blue
A good starting point is a primary blue paint such as Ultramarine Blue, which is a dark color close to navy blue, as your base color. Cobalt blue is a lighter blue and is also a good color to have to help you to achieve cooler shades of blue.
When you start color mixing go slow. Add a small amount of your mixing color to your blue hue, to begin with. You can always add more but it is harder to fix the color if you have added too much.
Once you have the color mix you want, you can mix a larger amount using that formula.
Making Light or Dark Blue
The most basic mix for any color is to add white paint to make it lighter or black paint to make it darker. With these colors, you can achieve various blue shades ranging from very dark to very light.
However, if you stick to just black and white you will have a very limited palette of blue hues. What about the purplish blue of a night sky, the tranquil blue/green of a tropical ocean, or the muted blue/grey of distant mountains?
For these colors, we have to dig a little deeper into color theory and the color wheel and use secondary and complementary colors to expand our blue color palette.
Experiment With Secondary Colors
Secondary colors are created by mixing two primary colors in equal proportions. There are three secondary colors: green, orange, and violet. Green is created by mixing blue and yellow, orange is made by mixing red and yellow, and violet is created by mixing red and blue.
Secondary colors are positioned between the primary colors they are made from on the traditional color wheel.
Mixing secondary colors with your primary blue can create different shades of blue.
For example, mixing violet or purple with ultramarine blue will give you a beautiful darker shade of blue, perfect for a night sky.
Add a little phthalo green to this mixture and you will get an even deeper dark blue color.
Mixing different hues of blue using different blue colors
There are different beautiful hues of blue color. You can use them in your painting or artwork to create different moods and scenes. These blue colors can be mixed using the primaries as mentioned before. Also, you can make them by mixing existing paint colors.
Below I will be discussing the interesting blue hues available, how to mix them with available blue colors, their hex codes, and RGB and CMYK values of the color. With RGB and CMYK values, you can determine the relative amount of primary color you need to mix to get a certain blue color.
The below color mixing is related to Golden Heavy Body Acrylic Paints. However, it is highly related to any other acrylic paint brand as well. I have also included the parts of paints that need to be mixed in front of the paint name.
Navy blue: Mix 98 Ultramarine Blue * 1 Light Phthalo Blue
Hex #000080
RGB 30, 25, 139
CMYK 78, 82, 0, 45
Royal blue: Mix 1 Phthalo Blue Green Shade * 2 Cobalt Blue * 1 Ultramarine Blue
Hex #101D6B
RGB 18, 30, 107
CMYK 83, 72, 0, 58
Azure: Mix 3 Ultramarine Blue * 1 Light Phthalo Blue
Hex #007FFF
RGB 0, 127, 255
CMYK 100, 50, 0, 0
Prussian blue: Mix 2 Ultramarine Violet * 2 Primary Cyan * 1 Turquoise
Hex #003153
RGB 0, 49, 83
CMYK 100, 41, 0, 67
Cobalt Blue: Cobalt Blue acrylic color
Hex #0047AB
RGB 0, 71, 171
CMYK 100, 58, 0, 33
Teal: Teal acrylic color
Hex #008080
RGB 0, 128, 128
CMYK 100, 0, 0, 50
Turquoise: Mix 1 Phthalo Green Blue Shade * 11 Titanium White
Hex #40E0D0
RGB 64, 224, 208
CMYK 71, 0, 7, 12
Sapphire blue: Mix 5 Cobalt Blue * 1 Ultramarine Blue * 1 Light Ultramarine Blue
Hex #0F52BA
RGB 15, 82, 186
CMYK 92, 56, 0, 27
Other than these blue hues, sky blue is a tint of blue you will need in most paintings when doing the sky. I have written a whole article about how to mix sky blue by matching a sky in a reference photo.
As you can see, to mix most of the blue colors ultramarine blue, cyan, and phthalo blue are used. You will be able to mix any blue color using these colors. So consider adding them to your color collection.
The color bias of different blue colors
It is also important to mention the color bias of different colors. Color bias occurs due to the impurities in even the purest pigments. As an example, ultramarine blue has a red undertone. Hence it is a warm blue color and best for mixing purple, but not a good choice to mix with green.
Phthlao blue has a green undertone. It is the best blue to mix with green or greenish-blue colors. Because of the green undertone, phthalo blue is a cooler color because green is a cool color.
When you are mixing colors, remember to check the color bias. Always go with the color bias and mix the colors where the color bias is. (e. g. using ultramarine blue to mix warmer blue colors and purple)
You can check the color bias of any color by scraping it on white paper. The undertone it has will be the color it is biased towards.
Using blue to create different effects and emotions
Blue is needed to create different moods and effects in the painting. Below I have included a table with different blue hues and where they are best suited to your artwork.
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