Mixing guide
Green is yellow plus blue, but every yellow and every blue makes a different green. The cleanest greens come from a green-shade yellow and a green-shade blue with no red between them. Below are the working two-pigment greens, then how to push them lighter, deeper, cooler and earthier without going muddy.
Start with two tubes. The bias of each one decides whether you get a clean spring green or a dusty olive.
Cool, fresh, slightly opaque. Reads as new leaves.
The cleanest, highest-chroma green most palettes can hit.
Warm yellow plus warm blue gives a duller, golden-olive green by design.
Once you have a clean base green, shift its value before you shift its hue.
For landscape and foliage, pure mixed greens often look too sweet. Knock the saturation back with a touch of the complement (a warm red or a burnt sienna) and the green starts to read like a real leaf.
If your green looks dull when you wanted bright, the blue almost certainly carries red in it. Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue and Indanthrone all lean violet, so adding yellow drags the mix toward all three primaries. Swap to Phthalo Blue or Cerulean for cool, clean greens. If the green is still flat, you have probably added a fourth tube (often white) and dropped the chroma. Rebuild with just two pigments and tint last.
Try it on your tubes
Tell Chromilla which yellow and blue you own, paste the target hex, and it returns the ratio calibrated for your brand.
Open Chromilla →