How to Mix Watercolor Paint

Watercolor has two controls where the other mediums have one. The pigment ratio sets the hue, and the water sets the value. Painters get stuck when they reach for the wrong one, thinning a wash that is simply the wrong color. Chromilla gives you the ratio, and leaves the water to you and your paper.

Open the mixer in watercolor

What makes mixing in watercolor different

Water changes value, not hue

A diluted wash is the same mix laid thinner, so more paper shows through and it reads lighter. If the color is wrong, only the ratio between your pigments will fix it.

The paper is your white

Chromilla mostly keeps titanium white out of watercolor recipes and reaches for dilution instead. It brings white in only where a target needs an opaque body color.

Washes dry back

The model carries an 8 per cent value shift for watercolor with a faint cool nudge, so mix a touch stronger than the target reads while wet.

Granulation is not modelled

Ultramarine and the earths settle into the paper's tooth, and blooms and lifting are not in the maths at all. The ratio is right, the texture is yours.

Technique guides

Watercolor: dilution is not the same as mixingAdding water changes value, not hue. Where the pigment ratio still decides the color, with worked watercolor numbers from the Chromilla solver.

Everyday colors in watercolor

Short recipes with real tube ratios, solved for watercolor.

See every color in the mix library

Back to the guides hub, or read the science behind the solver. This page lives at /guides/watercolor.