Have you ever bought paint and the color you get isn’t what you expected? Or, you bought the wrong color shade, and the store did not accept returns? Do not worry. You can mix it with some other ingredients to create the color you want.
You should not rush to throw the wrong paint color away. You can still save it by making your custom paint mix. Thus, you can also save money to buy new paint. However, how to mix custom paint colors? Some of the steps below might be the perfect solution for you.
Tools and Materials That You Need
Before starting the process of mixing your custom paint colors, you need to understand that the colors you get may not be exactly as what you’ve expected. However, at least you can get colors that are close to what you want. Here are some ingredients that you need.
- color wheel
- craft colorants
- white paint
The results of this mixing depend on the initial colors, available colorants, and your experience in mixing paint colors. Besides, the paint base also has the role of determining how much the color turns bright or dark.
How to Mix Custom Paint Colors
How to mix the paint will affect the final result of your custom paint. Therefore, you need to know the techniques so that the colors appear as expected. Here are some ways on how to mix custom paint colors that you need to know.
1. How to Lighten Up the Color
You can add white paint to make lighter color paint. In this case, the amount you add depends on how dark the starting color is and how pale the color you want. However, if the color you want is far from the starting color, you might need a lot of white paint.
For convenience, you can take small amounts of paint first. For example, you can take a few cups of base paint, then mix with a few cups of white paint until you get the color you want. Keep in mind the measurements so you can make the mixture again later.
2. How to Darken the Color
If you need a paint that is darker than the starting color, you can add a black or gray craft colorant into it. In this case, if the color tends to be deep, you can use black craft colorant. Moreover, if the starting color is lighter, you can use the gray one.
Usually, to make light paint darker, you don’t need to add too much black craft colorant. However, to make sure the color will turn out good, you should try a little in size first. If you have found the right amount of paint, you can mix in more paint.
3. How to Intensify the Color
You can add more base colors to create more vivid custom paint colors. For example, you can add yellow or orange to lighten up brown. Besides, if you want to brighten the color of sage green, you can add more green paint.
This process might be interesting because you can try various measurements until you find the right color composition. Therefore, you should also try to find each color derivative to produce colors that you have expected.
4. How to Tone Down the Color
To reduce the color intensity, you can add a complement to your base paint. In this case, the complement is two colors that are close together if you look at the paint color wheel. For example, the violet colorant can reduce the intensity of bright yellow so that the color will look calmer.
It is the reason why you need a color wheel. You can see what colors are close so that your custom mixed paint will not fail. Furthermore, to get a fitted final result, maybe you need some trials and errors.
5. How to Change the Hue
When making a custom mixed paint, you can also change the color temperature, tone, and even hue. For example, you can add yellow to green to produce a warmer green, or what we call moss green. Another example, to create purple, you can add red and blue.
It requires patience and practice to understand these color mixes. Furthermore, you also need to know that complex colors like brown, cream, and gray are more difficult for you to modify because they have contained many color components.
That’s how to mix custom paint colors that you can try. With the right mix, you can produce colors that are close to the color you expect. However, to get the best results, you may need to do several experiments.
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