​Watercolour colour wheel.

Colour wheel created with Daniel Smith watercolours

With careful paint colour choices and a good understanding of colour mixing you can create a miriad of colours with a small number of paints. There are many premixed colours available but you don't need to buy them as you can make your own with the above colours. For example, 'sap green' can be made with phthalo green and quinacridone gold, 'imperial purple' can be made with ultramarine and quinacridone rose or magenta. 'Indigo' can be made with phthalo blue and pyrrol scarlet, oranges can be made with pyrrol scarlet and hansa yellow medium.

The colours around this wheel are (clockwise from the yellow)

• Cool Yellow - cadmium yellow light (PY35) or use hansa yellow light (PY3)
• Greenish Yellow - green gold, rich green gold (PY129) or mix cool yellow and phthalo green
• Yellowish Green - sap green (mix of quinacridone gold and phthalo green) or mix a yellow green
• Mid Green - a mix of sap green and phthalo green
• Blue-Green - phthalo green (PG7)
• Turquoise - a mixed turquoise made from phthalo green and phthalo blue
• Cool Blue - phthalo blue (PB15:3)
• Warm Blue - ultramarine blue (PB29)
• Blue-Purple - a blue-purple made from ultramarine and quinacridone rose (PB29+PV19)
• Purple - a mid purple made from ultramarine and quinacridone rose or use imperial purple (PB29+PV19) or carbazole violet (PV23)
• Red-Purple - rose of ultramarine mix a red-purple using quinacridone rose with ultramarine
• Purple Red - quinacridone violet (PV19) or use quinacridone lilac (PR122)
• Red - quinacridone rose (PV19)
• Cool Red - anthraquinoid red (PR177) or pyrrol crimson (PR264) or a permanent alizarin crimson
• Warm Red  - cadmium red medium (PR108) or use pyrrol scarlet (PR255),
• Mid Orange - perinone orange or use transparent pyrrol orange
• Yellow Orange (mixed, or use permanent yellow deep or other PY110 yellow),
• Warm Yellow - hansa yellow deep (PY65) or cadmium yellow deep (Py35 or PY37)

See the tabs in this section for more detail. All paints used are Daniel Smith watercolours unless stated otherwise.
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