For artists and makers
Color for art & craft
Whether the medium is watercolor, acrylic, fiber, glaze, or dye, studio color questions rhyme: what color is actually in my reference, which small set of pigments covers it, and what happens when two of them meet. These tools answer in the browser before anything touches paper, canvas, or cloth.
Starting points
Three starter palettes, generated live
Each set is produced by the palette engine, not picked from a mood board. Open one in the generator to lock what fits and reroll the rest.
Limited earth palette
Because an ochre-and-umber register most media can mix from few pigments.
High-key pastel study
Because tint-heavy set for value studies and soft media.
Saturated pop set
Because for work where the color IS the subject: dye, resin, poster.
The shelf
Working colors of the field
The named colors artists and makers reach for, each resolved against the 31,912-name registry. Tap a swatch to copy the hex; open the name for the full page with codes, palettes, and contrast data.
- Burnt Sienna #A93400 the indispensable warm earth; skin, wood, and underpainting
- Raw Umber #A75E09 the fast-drying dark that replaces black in shadow mixes
- Burnt Umber #8A3324 raw umber fired warmer; the classic deep brown
- Raw Sienna #9A6200 transparent golden earth for glazes and first washes
- Yellow Ochre #C39143 the oldest pigment on the palette; sunlight without saturation
- Naples Yellow #FADA5F opaque pale warmth; the highlight mixer of the classical palette
- Ultramarine #1805DB the warm-leaning blue; with burnt sienna it mixes a full range of grays
- Cerulean Blue #2A52BE granulating sky blue that stays put in washes
- Prussian Blue #003366 deep, staining, green-leaning; one drop moves a whole mix
- Viridian #1E9167 the cool transparent green better mixed-into than used alone
- Sap Green #5C8B15 the convenience green of landscape work
- Cadmium Red #E30022 opaque fire; the warm red that dominates any mix it enters
- Quinacridone Magenta #8E3A59 the modern cool red that mixes clean violets cadmium cannot
- Titanium White #E4E4E4 the opaque white that turns any color into its tint
Speak the language
Terms this field runs on
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Subtractive color Why your physical mixes darken and dull: each pigment absorbs more of the spectrum than it reflects. Full definition →
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Subtractive color
Color made by removing light, as pigments and inks do. Mix many paints and you approach black, because each absorbs more of the spectrum.Full glossary entry → -
Value Squint and the hue leaves; what remains is the painting. Value plans survive; hue plans decorate. Full definition →
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Value
How light or dark a color is, also called brightness or lightness depending on the model. Two colors can share a hue but differ entirely in value, like navy and sky blue.Full glossary entry → -
Chroma Tube color is maximum chroma; almost everything observed in nature sits far below it. Mix down, not up. Full definition →
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Chroma
A more perceptually accurate cousin of saturation, used in Lab and OKLCH. Chroma measures colorfulness independent of lightness, which is why it gives more even results when building palettes.Full glossary entry → -
Tone Color plus gray: where most observed color actually lives. Master tones and mud stops happening by accident. Full definition →
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Tone
A color mixed with gray, which reduces its saturation without changing lightness much. Tones read as muted and sophisticated.Full glossary entry → -
Color temperature Every pigment leans: ultramarine is a warm blue, prussian a cool one. Mixes stay clean inside one lean. Full definition →
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Color temperature
Whether a color feels warm (reds, oranges, yellows) or cool (blues, greens, violets). Temperature drives a lot of pairing decisions, since opposite temperatures add contrast.Full glossary entry →
The workflow
How artists and makers use this site
- 1 Identify the reference Upload a reference photo and extract its dominant colors, or pick exact pixels with the magnifier. Every color gets a real name. Photo analyzer →
- 2 Reduce to a working set The reducer turns a reference into 3 to 8 working colors with a value plan and pigment-mix recipes for what the set leaves out. Palette reducer →
- 3 Preview the mix The mixer approximates pigment-style mixing between any two colors, the subtractive behavior screens hide from you. Color mixer →
- 4 Blend it like the medium The blend lab paints your palette as a spiral, wash, or pour and reports which neighboring colors will mud where they meet. Blend lab →
Field notes
What goes wrong, and the fix
- Matching hue and ignoring value A perfectly matched hue at the wrong value reads wrong from across the room. The reducer's value plan orders your working set light to dark; paint to that first. Value plan →
- Mixing across temperature leans Warm blue plus cool red makes gray-violet mud, not the violet on the reference. Keep mixes inside one lean, or reach for the quinacridone. The blend lab flags mud before the brush does. Mud report →
- Painting from an uncorrected photo Phone cameras warm shadows and crush darks, and a faithful copy of a lying photo lies twice. Sample the reference in the analyzer and read the real values before trusting it. Photo analyzer →
FAQ
Common questions
- Can this replace physical color mixing tests?
- No, and it does not pretend to: pigments granulate, stain, and shift in ways only a test swatch shows. It gets you to a plan fast, so the physical tests you do run are the right ones.
- How do I build a limited palette from a reference photo?
- Extract the photo's palette in the analyzer, keep the two or three colors that define the scene, and check with the mixer whether your pigments can reach the rest by mixing.
- Does this work for dye and fiber work?
- Yes: the fabric preview shows a palette woven rather than side by side, the mixer approximates how dyes blend where they meet, and extraction from photos of finished pieces helps you recreate or vary a result.
- What colors do I mix to make brown?
- Almost any complementary pair: blue plus orange, red plus green, or the classic ultramarine plus burnt sienna, which also yields a full run of useful grays on the way. The mixer shows the exact midpoint of any two colors you pick.
- Why do my mixes turn muddy?
- Usually too many pigments, or two pigments whose temperature leans fight each other. Stay near two-pigment mixes, keep them inside one lean, and run the pair through the blend lab, which flags mud-prone boundaries before you commit paint.
- What is a good starter limited palette?
- A warm and cool of each primary plus an earth and white covers most subjects: cadmium red and quinacridone magenta, ultramarine and cerulean, yellow ochre and a cool yellow, burnt sienna, titanium white. Every one of those has a page here with its mixing behavior.
Other work