How To Make the Color Green - The Right Way

It's time to learn how to make the color green and change its temperature, saturation, chroma, and shade! Green is one of the most basic colors artists and crafters use to create elements like landscapes, plants, and more. It also symbolizes hope, fertility, immortality, growth, regeneration, jealousy, sickness, and more.

How To Make the Color Green Paint and Watercolor

The traditional color wheel in the color theory lists green as one of the secondary colors, so making it requires two different primary colors: blue and yellow.

GREEN = BLUE + YELLOW

How To Make the Color Green: What You Need

To successfully create the shade of green paint or watercolor, you will need the following materials and tools:

• Mixing Palette or Container: Your mixing palette or container is a tool you need to hold and mix the colors efficiently and mess-free.
• Palette Knife: The palette knife ensures the colors are well-blended.
• Yellow and Blue Oil or Acrylic Paint or Watercolor: Of course, you will need your yellow and blue coloring agents. While you can use any of the blue and yellow shades in your arsenal, I highly suggest using cadmium yellow light and ultramarine blue to create a standard green shade.
• A Sheet of White Paper: To ensure you have the right shade of green for your artwork, you will need to test the blended colors on white paper.
• Paintbrush: Together with the sheet of white paper, you will use the paintbrush to test the resulting color.

How to Make the Color Green: The Steps

Now that you have the items needed to create green paint or watercolor let's start with the steps you need to take to do so.

1. Pour or squeeze equal amounts of ultramarine blue and cadmium yellow into your mixing palette or container.
2. With your palette knife, mix the two colors thoroughly.
3. Dip your paintbrush into the resulting color and test it on your white sheet of paper. If you have the right shade of green, then you're ready to use it. If not, add a little amount of yellow to lighten it or blue to darken it, blend, and test.

How To Make Light Green

While you can play around with the ratio of blue and yellow used, specifically adding more yellow, there are two other ways of making light green paint or watercolor, such as mint green and lime green. They include:

• Adding White Paint or Watercolor
• Using Lighter Shades of Yellow

Adding White Paint or Watercolor to Make Green

Similar to making red, brown, and other colors, titanium white paint or watercolor will lighten whatever shade of green you have at hand. To do so, simply follow these steps:

1. Place your green color on your mixing palette or container.
2. Add a drop or small dollop of white coloring agent.
3. With your palette knife, mix the two colors thoroughly.
4. Dip your paintbrush into the resulting color and test it on your white sheet of paper. If you have the right shade of light green, then you're ready to use it. If not, add a little amount of white to lighten it further.

Using Lighter Shades of Yellow to Make Green

Another great way to make light green is to use a lighter hue of yellow paint or watercolor. I highly recommend cadmium yellow light, yellow ochre, and Naples yellow.

That said, here are the steps on how to make a light green hue using lighter shades of yellow:

1. Pour or squeeze equal amounts of ultramarine blue and any of the yellow colors above into your mixing palette or container.
2. With your palette knife, mix the two colors thoroughly.
3. Dip your paintbrush into the resulting color and test it on your white sheet of paper. If you have the right shade of green, then you're ready to use it. If not, add a little amount of yellow, mix, test, and repeat if necessary.

How To Make Dark Green

Like with making green paint or watercolor lighter, there are different ways to produce darker shades of green, like forest green, besides using more blue than yellow.

What I highly recommend is adding a tiny amount of any of the following colors to any of your green coloring agents:

• Dioxazine Purple: Purple not only lends its dark tints to green; it will also add warmth to it. Hence, use it if you need a warm, dark shade of green.
• Burnt Umber: This color combines red and brown, which are both dark colors. Adding it to your green will produce an earthy green hue that will be perfect for dimensions, shadows, and other earthy elements in your art.
• Pthalo Green: Yes, adding dark green to your green will darken it quickly. However, you should note that you will produce a saturated shade of green when doing so. But you can counter this by adding a tiny amount of alizarin crimson to the final color mix.

Steps To Make the Color Green Darker

Whatever color you choose above to make your green paint or watercolor darker, here are the steps you should take:

1. Place your green color on your mixing palette or container.
2. Add a drop or small dollop of purple, burnt umber, or pthalo green coloring agent.
3. With your palette knife, mix the two colors thoroughly.
4. Dip your paintbrush into the resulting color and brush it on your white sheet of paper to test it. If you have the right shade of dark green, then you're ready to use it. If not, add a little amount of purple, burnt umber, or pthalo green to darken it further.
5. If you're using pthalo green and want to reduce saturation, add a tiny drop or dollop of alizarin crimson and blend.

How To Make Cool or Cooler Green

When producing cool or cooler green, like sage green and emerald green, you have two options, namely:

• Adding a Cool Color
• Adding a Dark Shade of Green
• Combining Cool Blue and Cool Yellow

Adding a Cool Color to Make the Color Green

Colors that you can add to your green paint or watercolor to decrease its temperature are:

• Provence violet bluish to make a subtle, cool green.
• Dioxazine purple doesn't just make greens cooler but also darker.

To make a cooler shade of green using any of the colors above, here's what you need to do:

1. Place your green color on your mixing palette or container.
2. Add a drop or small dollop of province violet bluish or dioxazine purple.
3. With your palette knife, mix the two colors thoroughly.
4. Dip your paintbrush into the resulting color and brush it on your white sheet of paper to test it. If you have the right shade of cool green, then you're ready to use it. If not, add a little amount of province violet bluish or dioxazine purple.

Adding Cool Green

Cool green that can make your green paint or watercolor cooler are as follows:

• Veronese green not only makes green cooler but also saturated.
• Pthalo green produces a more saturated shade of cool green and darkens your green coloring agent.

To make a cooler shade of green with any of the darker shades of green above, do the following:

1. Place your green color on your mixing palette or container.
2. Add a drop or small dollop of dark green.
3. With your palette knife, mix the two colors thoroughly.
4. Dip your paintbrush into the resulting color and brush it on your white sheet of paper to test it. If you have the right shade of cool green, then you're ready to use it. If not, add a little amount of cool green and blend.

Combining Cool Blue and Cool Yellow

Blue and yellow colors make green, but if you're very particular about its temperature, you should make sure you combine cool yellow and cool blue, as both have tints of green. That said, I highly recommend the following:

Cool Blue

• Phthalo or Winsor Blue
• Cerulean Blue
• Turquoise Blue
• Manganese Blue
• Prussian Blue
• Cyan Blue

Cool Yellow

• Hansa Yellow Light
• Cadmium Yellow Light
• Lemon Yellow

Now, here are the steps on how to make the color green cooler with this technique:

1. Pour or squeeze equal amounts of cool blue and cool yellow into your mixing palette or container.
2. With your palette knife, mix the two colors thoroughly.
3. Dip your paintbrush into the resulting color and test it on your white sheet of paper. If you have the right shade of green, then you're ready to use it. If not, add a little amount of yellow to lighten it or blue to darken it, blend, and test.

How To Make Warm Green

Like with making cool or cooler green, there are different ways to make warm green. They include:

• Adding a Warm Color
• Combining Warm Yellow and Warm Blue

Adding a Warm Color

From my experience, the best colors to add to your green to make it warm or warmer are:

• Cadmium Orange
• Cadmium Red
• Alizarin Crimson
• Burnt Sienna

To make warm green by adding any of these warm colors, do the following:

1. Place your green color on your mixing palette or container.
2. Add a drop or small dollop of the warm color of your choice.
3. With your palette knife, mix the two colors thoroughly.
4. Dip your paintbrush into the resulting color and brush it on your white sheet of paper to test it. If you have the right shade of warm green, then you're ready to use it. If not, add a small amount of the additive.

Combining Warm Yellow and Warm Blue

The easiest way to make warm green is to combine warm yellow and warm blue, as this type of yellow and blue leans more toward the green spectrum. Your top options are:

Warm Yellow

• Yellow Ochre
• Naples Yellow
• Raw Sienna
• Cadmium Yellow Medium

Warm Blue

• Ultramarine Blue
• Indanthrone Blue
• Cobalt Blue
• Stone Blue

To make warm green by combining warm blue and warm yellow, here's what you need to do:

1. Pour or squeeze equal amounts of warm blue and warm yellow into your mixing palette or container.
2. With your palette knife, mix the two colors thoroughly.
3. Dip your paintbrush into the resulting color and test it on your white sheet of paper. If you have the right temperature and shade of green, then you're ready to use it. If not, add a little amount of yellow to lighten it or blue to darken it, blend, and test.

How To Make the Muted Green

Muted greens, like olive green, moss green, and forest green, are vital to your painting, especially if you're creating a masterpiece with landscapes and pine trees. To mute different shades of green, you use one of its complementary colors because it will make both colors less of their own true colors.

I find that the most effective one is cadmium red.

Steps on How To Make The Color Green Muted

Muting your green paint or watercolor is easy; simply follow these steps:

1. Place your green color on your mixing palette or container.
2. Add a tiny drop or dollop of cadmium red. Make sure you don't add too much, as you might end up with a brown color.
3. With your palette knife, mix the two colors thoroughly.
4. Dip your paintbrush into the resulting color and brush it on your white sheet of paper to test it or ensure you don't have brown.

How To Make the Color Green Polymer Clay

What if you're making polymer clay jewelry or crafts but don't have enough green clay? Well, there is a way to make the color green polymer clay!

How To Make the Color Green Polymer Clay: What You Need

For this tutorial, you won't need anything but your polymer clay. Here are the color combinations that you can choose from:

• Warm Yellow Clay and Cool Blue Clay: Dull or muted green
• Warm Yellow Clay and Warm Blue Clay: Warm, medium green tone
• Cool Yellow Clay and Cool Blue Clay: Cool, medium green tone
• White Clay: To lighten and brighten the green clay
• Black Clay: To darken and mute the green clay

How To Make the Color Green Polymer Clay: The Steps

Now that you have your clays ready, here are the steps that you need to take to make your own green polymer clay:

1. Pinch off the same amounts of the blue and yellow polymer clay.
2. Smash them together on a clean surface and knead them into a ball.
3. Roll, stretch, and knead the clay ball repeatedly until the colors are well blended or you can no longer see shades of blue and/or yellow.

How To Make the Color Green Polymer Clay Light and Bright

If you need a light, vivid green polymer clay, here's what you need to do:

1. Pinch off a tiny piece of white polymer clay.
2. Mix it with your green clay.
3. Smash them together on a clean surface and knead them into a ball.
4. Roll, stretch, and knead the clay ball repeatedly until the colors are well blended or you can no longer see any shades of green and/or white.

How To Make the Color Green Polymer Clay Dark and Muted

If you need a muted, darker shade of green polymer clay, here's what you need to do:

1. Pinch off a tiny piece of black polymer clay.
2. Mix it with your green clay.
3. Smash them together on a clean surface and knead them into a ball.
4. Roll, stretch, and knead the clay ball repeatedly until the colors are well blended or you can no longer see any shades of green and/or black.

Making the Perfect Green Color

So, how to make the color green paint, watercolor, and polymer clay? It's as easy as combining the same amounts of two primary colors: blue and yellow! You can change its properties, like its chroma, by adding a tiny amount of the right color.

Make sure you don't overdo it, or you might end up with a different color. So, take your time and have a lot of patience.