Learn how to mix natural greens in watercolour using a simple 7 colour limited palette. I’ll guide you through my ‘Cheats Colour Mixing’ and create colour mixing guide using your own collection of paints. Let’s take those greens from garish to gorgeous!
What’s the go with tubes of green paint? You may have noticed they cop a bit of a bad rap. Straight out of the tube, some greens can look a little unnatural and easily overwhelm a painting. You can tone them down with a little colour mixing, but you don’t actually need green paint in your palette at all. Let me show you how to mix your own using my ‘Cheat’s Colour Mixing’ method.
In this video, we’ll explore colour mixing with watercolour, try different combinations and discover how to make greens that feel more at home in your artwork. I'm especially fond of finding fabulous greens for painting leaves, botanicals and Australian landscapes. You don’t need an enormous collection of paints. There’s plenty to discover in the colours you already own. If you haven’t already, refer to my ‘7 Colours, Endless Possibilities’ video where I delve into this limited palette more specifically.
Why mix your own greens?
Because there’s a whole world of green beyond the tube! Mixing your own lets you shift a colour warmer, cooler, brighter or more muted to suit what you’re painting. And when you mix with colours you’re already using elsewhere in your painting, those greens can feel more connected to the rest of your artwork.
This little swatching exercise helps you discover what’s possible before you’re halfway through a painting. You’ll get to know your paints, find some favourite combinations and create a handy reference to come back to. Less guesswork, more “ooh, that’s a good one”. All without buying another tube of paint.
Why number the colours?
It’s a shortcut! Writing “2 + 5” beside a swatch is much quicker than jotting down two full paint names every time. Keep a numbered key of your palette alongside your chart and you can easily see which paints to reach for when you want to revisit a mix. It also works with any paint set, including those without labelled colour names. You don’t need to know what a colour is called to discover what it can do.
Make your own Cheat's Colour Mixing Chart
- Choose a limited palette and give each colour a number.
- Start with a yellow and a blue. Mix them together and paint a small swatch.
- Using clean water, paint immediately beside the swatch, touching its edge so the colour flows into the wet area.
- Write the numbers of the colours you used beside your swatch.
- Try another combination and repeat! Vary the balance of your colours as you go. More yellow or more blue can take the same mix in quite a different direction.
Keep Exploring Colour
