Getting started
Mixing Chart
3 minute read, 9 steps
A whole box of paints fills almost the whole chart. The useful question is what a few tubes can do: which colors three tubes and a white reach, which they miss, and which one tube fills the gap.
The Mixing Chart shows that for the tubes in your palette. Every square is a color your tubes can mix, with its recipe one click away. Here we start with white, yellow and blue from a box of Liquitex Basics and add one tube at a time.
- Open the chart with your own palette
- Chart three tubes and read what they reach
- Add one tube and watch the chart fill
- Get the recipe for any square
- Swap a tube and compare
- See how the Color pairs chart differs
Step 1
Open the chart with your palette
Open Mixing Chart in the menu. On a phone, open the menu with the button at the top left first.
The chart starts on a ready-made palette. Open the palette menu under Select Palette and press Select Another Palette. Pick your palette under My Palettes. No palette yet? See My Palettes.
Step 2
See what your whole box can mix
Press Generate Chart. With most of a box ticked, almost every square fills in: paint sets are made to cover nearly every color.
Step 3
Start with three tubes
Press Clear all 1. Then tick white, yellow and blue 2. A tick shows on each tube you picked.
Press Generate Chart 3.
Step 4
Read what they reach
Each column is a hue 1, from grays and reds to blues and purples. Light colors are at the top, dark at the bottom.
A striped square 2 is a color these tubes cannot reach. Yellow and blue make every green and blue, but no reds, no purples, not even a gray.
Step 5
Add one red
Tick a red and press Generate Chart again. Almost the whole chart fills in. That is why painters start with three primaries and white.
Step 6
Press a square for its recipe
Look at the violets: they are dull, and the lightest one is out of reach. Press any square to see its recipe: which tubes to use, and how many parts of each.
Recipes use at most three tubes plus white, so they stay easy to mix. Press another square to move the recipe there, or press Escape to close it.
Step 7
Add a tube to fill a gap
Tick a purple tube and press Generate Chart. The violets come alive, even the lightest. Before you buy a tube, chart it with yours to see what it adds.
Step 8
Swap a tube and compare
Some painters use black instead of blue. Untick the blue and the purple, tick black and press Generate Chart. Black and yellow make olive greens, but nothing turns blue.
Step 9
Compare with Color pairs
Press Color pairs, the classic chart, and press Generate Chart. Each cell is two tubes mixed in equal parts, so yellow and black come out almost black.
Press a cell to see five ratios, from mostly one tube to mostly the other. Even five parts of yellow to one of black stays dark. The olive on the range chart needs twenty-four parts of yellow to one part of black, plus some white. The range chart searches every ratio. The pairs chart shows five fixed ones.
Chart your own tubes
Pick three tubes and a white, see what they reach, then add one tube at a time.
Open the Mixing ChartFrequently Asked Questions
A whole box fills most of the chart, so it tells you little. A few tubes at a time show exactly what each tube adds.
No mix of the ticked tubes reaches that color. Add a tube of that hue, or a stronger one, and chart again.
