I mostly use green Phthalo blue. Phthalo blue mixed with white makes nice sky blue.
Why sky is blue? A bit of science
Why actually the sky is blue?
The sunlight is just white but we know for fact that we see the blue sky!
The atmosphere of our planet acts like a prism and the white sunlight gets scattered everywhere.
Blue light happens to be scattered more than any other color lights, have the smaller waves and it travels faster. Hence, the sky is blue (Source)
There are colors that have strong collective associations – what we call memory colors: sky blue is one of them.
Different blue colors
If we will collect all blue paint tubes we will find lots of shades of blue:
- Ultramarine blue,
- Prussian blue,
- Phthalo blue (green and red),
- Primary Cyan,
- Cobalt Blue,
- Cerulean Blue are the most common ones.
But there are also turquoise blues, Light Blue and many more.
Some brands name their colors Sky blue but even they don’t seem to find a middle ground as all the colors are simply very different:
Artists claim that none of them can substitute the true sky blue, first because the sunlight interferes with our subjective perception but also because the sky has also different shades and tints within, including…yellow and magenta!
There are also different skies: summer sky, winter sky, bright day, cloudy day, different seasons and so on.
How To Make Sky Blue Colour – Tips upfront
- Ultramarine, Phthalo blue (greenish blue) and Cobalt Blue works best to make sky color.
- bright, saturated clear blue sky – cobalt blue or cerulean and lots of titanium white make decent sky blue. Add ivory black or cadmium orange to dull it.
- If the sky looks a bit purple I’d use Prussian blue.
- Ultramarine and Phthalo work well even without white for darker blue color.
- for lighter areas of the sky – Cobalt blue with a lot of white.
- you can mix Ultramarine with primary cyan, cobalt blue and white to mix sky blue
- for cloudy sky use Phthalo, Ultramarine or Cobalt blue with a touch of Yellow or Magenta.
- generic sky blue in paint is always some blue paint with white.
I’ve made a video of my testing process:
Ultramarine blue may seem purple-red-ish but not as much as Prussian blue and it stays very blue, intense color for bright sky.
Straight from the tube or with a little bit of white it can match deep sky blue color and darker areas of the sky.
But it may appear lighted on thinner and tinted paper. I just tested out of curiosity on grey pastel paper and you can see that Ultramarine seems lighter here, yet matches sky color perfectly with some white.
Mixing sky blue with primary cyan
Following are the different blue colors I mixed. I have also included the name of the colors I have mixed to get the color swatch. Color swatches are painted on the side of my canvas pad.
Let’s start mixing the colors. I highly recommend you watch the video to get a better understanding. Add a blob of titanium white to your palette. Then add only a dash of cyan. Mix the colors well with a palette knife or a brush. Here I have used a palette knife.
Color after mixing Titanium White with a dash of Cyan
Just from the first mix, you can see, the sky blue color matches the lighter color at the bottom of the sky of the reference photo. Now I am going to add more cyan to match the darker blue colors of the reference photo.
Dark Blue color after mixing with more Cyan
Here I was able to match the middle blue colors of the sky. It is not the darkest but not the lightest either. It is in the middle. Next, I wanted to match the top sky blue color. That color is not saturated as pure cyan and it is darker. So to mute the blue color I add a bit of yellow and mixed in ultramarine blue to darken the cyan because ultramarine blue is a darker blue color compared to cyan.
After mixing a dash of ultramarine blue and yellow into the previous cyan and titanium white mixture
As you can see, the color I mixed almost matches the darker blue color at the top. But I need to darken it more to match the top color. So I mixed in a bit of burnt umber to darken the mixed colors. This gave me the exact colors of the very top of the sky.
Mixing in Burnt Umber to darken the previous mixture of cyan, titanium white, ultramarine blue, and yellow
Reference Photo Colors
The reference photo you see on the screen may differ in colors when compared to the colors on the printed reference photo I used. This is because we can view pictures in RGB primary colors with a digital screen. But the printer I used to print the photo use CMYK colors as primaries. Because of this, the photo will have a cyan base, as it is a primary color in the CMYK color model.
Mixing sky blue with ultramarine blue
Here I am going to mix sky blue with ultramarine blue and titanium white. Following are the colors I have mixed along the way. I have also mentioned the colors I have mixed to get a certain color swatch. Color swatches are painted on the side of my canvas pad.
Color swatches with Ultramarine Blue
I first started by mixing a titanium white blob with a dash of ultramarine blue. Again I recommend you watch my video to get a better understanding of the process. I mixed a nice sky blue, but it did not match the light sky blue color at the bottom. However, I painted a swatch of it.
Mixing Titanium white with a dash of ultramarine blue
Next, I lightened the sky blue color with more titanium white. It yielded a nice light blue color and I painted a swatch of it.
Mixing more Titanium White with ultramarine blue to lighten the color
Next, I wanted to experiment with the sky blue color more and get a muted greenish color. To do this I added a dash of yellow color to the light blue mixture.
Adding a dash of yellow to the previous mixture gets a muted greenish-light blue color
Next, to mute the color bit and get a purplish-blue color, I added a dash of magenta. However, I have added too much magenta here and got a reddish color. To fix it I have added more ultramarine blue. Then I got a dark purplish muted blue color.
Adding a dash of magenta to the previous mixture for a purplish muted blue color
You can get any sky blue color you want by playing with color. Determine the base blue color of your reference first. Whether it is purplish, blue, greenish-blue, or just cyan. If it is purplish blue, you can use ultramarine blue. If it has a green undertone, then you can use phthalo blue. If it is cyan, you can use that.
Mix complementary colors to reduce the intensity of a color. Mix cool colors with warm colors to mute or nutralize any color. The complementary colors of blue are magenta, red and yellow. That is why I am mixinng these colors to reduce intensity of the blue color.
Adding Titanium White to get light colors of mixed blue
Now I am mixing in more titanium white to lighten the muted sky blue color I got. While I am lightening the color, it matched the blue color at the bottom of the reference photo.
Matching the mixed sky blue color of Titanium white, ultramarine blue, yellow, and magenta
Conclusion
Sky blue color can be made by mixing ultramarine blue or cyan with titanium white. To darken the color add a dash of burnt umber. To mute the color add a dash of yellow or magenta. You can use any blue color as the base that matches the reference photo. But most of the time, ultramarine blue or cyan works the best. If you do not have a reference photo, then it is best to start with ultramarine blue.
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