How to Mix Purple Watercolor Paint

I’m a self-taught artist who loves sharing tips and tutorials for painting with watercolor and gouache, and using the Procreate app on the iPad.

Everyone knows that red and blue make purple, but there’s a bit more to it than that when mixing watercolor paint. Learn how to create the perfect purple every time by choosing the right reds and blue colors.

Mixing paint colors is one of the most valuable lessons for watercolor painting. I love experimenting with color and mixing to create unique paint colors for my paintings. It also means I don’t need every single color on my palette.

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Color Mixing Basics: Color Theory

I always thought that I was getting muddy colors because of low-quality paint. While that is part of it (cheaper paints use less pigment, so the color is not as pure), there’s a bit more to it.

The color wheel can be divided into warm and cool sides. When you mix colors on opposite sides of the wheel, the results can be muddy because you’re basically mixing red, yellow, and blue at the same time, which can make brown, black, or gray.

Temperature

Specific colors can skew towards warm or cool as well. If you’ve ever picked out paint for your home, you’ve probably noticed this.

Reds and yellows are pretty easy to figure out which are cool and warm. Cool reds are closer to magenta (quinacridone rose), and warm reds (pyrrol scarlet) are closer to orange.

Cool yellows (hassa yellow) appear slightly towards the green side, but are mostly a pure yellow. Warm yellows (new gamboge) are closer to yellow-orange.

Blues are trickier. Cool blues are closer to blue-green (cerulean or phthalo blue), and warm blues are closer to indigo (French ultramarine).

This seems a bit backward to me because I tend to the teal family as being a warmer blue. If you think of the pastel versions, aqua feels much warmer to me than a pale baby blue.

Complementary Colors

Complementary colors are colors that are opposite of each other on the color wheel. When placed next to each other, they complement each other by making each other appear more vibrant.

However, when the colors are mixed, they have the opposite effect. This is because you’re combining red, yellow, and blue, which makes brown when combined in equal amounts.

watercolor tube made from multiple pigments — Daniel Smith New Gamboge is made of 2 pigments: PY 97 and PY110.

Others have a thicker pigment that doesn’t mix as well.

Some colors stain more than others, so they hit the paper and the color settles more than the other color that it’s mixed with.

A smoother paper can help. Rougher papers have grooves for the pigments to settle in.

Using less water can also help. The pigments have less time to separate before the water dries.

How to Make Purple Watercolor

Supplies Needed:

Daniel Smith Watercolor set

I normally love my Winsor & Newton kit for painting, but the watercolor palette didn’t work so well for mixing purples. The warm red is just a little too orange.

watercolor swatches using winsor & newton palette

However, the Daniel Smith set is perfect for mixing colors. The hues are vibrant and beautiful! I love how this set mixes!

When in doubt, swatch it out.

Try the following different combinations to see what color you like:

Cool red + cool blue
Cool red + warm blue
Warm red + warm blue
Warm red + cool blue

watercolor swatches mixing reds and blues to create purples

To mix a vibrant purple, you get the best results from mixing cool colors.

The warm red mixtures contain more yellow, so the color becomes muddy. (Remember red + blue + yellow = brown.) They do create beautiful colors for shadows, though!

Depending on what you’re painting, you may prefer the brighter colors or the muddier versions, so it’s nice to know how to mix them all.

The top two rows of swatches are made by varying the amounts of red or blue in each mixture. As you can see, you can get a variety of colors.

The bottom row was made using special mixes of my new Jean Haines Master artist set from Daniel Smith. This set was a splurge, but it contains so many pretty colors that granulate. I’m not a fan of purple, but the imperial purple is absolutely gorgeous!

This set has taught me how much fun it is to mix purples with unlikely shades of dark greens to make inky violets and forest green mixtures.

My biggest piece of advice is to not just mix the standard colors. Try some weird ones to see what you can create. Who would have thought to mix green and purple? (Brown hues also make some stunning purples!)

Making Pastel Purples and Violets

Pastels are made by adding more water. Use a palette with deep wells when mixing pastels.

Adding white watercolor to the purple mixtures will also give you lighter, pastel versions (too much white can make the paint opaque, so keep this in mind).

An opaque version may be perfect for what you are doing, but it is generally frowned upon by watercolor purists. But who cares if you’re having fun?

To make lavender, you can either dilute ultramarine blue or add white. I love both versions.

To make lilac, add quinacridone rose (or another cool red) to ultramarine blue and dilute the mixture. It also looks pretty when you add white.

You can use the same mixture to make a mauve color. Just add a bit more of the quinacridone rose. If you prefer a more muted version, add a tiny drop of yellow into the mixture to tone it down.

How to Make Dark Purple

Making dark purple is easy!

Just mix indigo (or another dark blue color) with red. In this example, I used quinacridone rose.

You can also add black to the purple mixture. I prefer mixing with Payne’s gray because it’s a bit softer and has a blue tone that works well with purple.

Adding granulating colors will create a granulating purple. Daniel Smith Lunar Black is a fun black to add for this effect.

Color Mixes from My YouTube Video

In the video, I mixed a bunch of fun purple colors. Here’s the labeled page from the video with all of the colors I used.

Mixing Pre-Made Violets Into Other Colors

My favorite way to paint with purple is to create shadows. It’s possible to get really moody colors when you mix pre-made violets with other colors.

Mixing violet with burnt umber creates a warm plum color. Mixing violet with phthalo green creates a moody blue-violet color.

If you just want to tone down a bright violet, you can mix a bit of yellow. Since this is the complementary color for purple, it mutes the vibrancy.

My Favorite Ready-Made Purple Watercolors (Updated)

Purple isn’t my favorite color, so I don’t use it often. However, there are a few purples that I like.

ready made purple watercolor swatches — The top left color by Holbein should say “Lavender”.

Holbein Lavender – I LOVE this color so much that I have it in gouache as well. It’s the perfect light purple, almost periwinkle.
Winsor and Newton Cotman Mauve – This color leans slightly more towards magenta.
Dr. Ph Martin’s Violet – This color is a classic shade of purple. Dr. Ph Martins radiant watercolors are great for a vibrant punch of color.

My new favorites are moodier and all of them granulate.

Rembrandt Dusk Pink -This moody dark purple is gorgeous.
Daniel Smith Shadow Violet – I love using this color for skies. It has really pretty pink undertones.
Daniel Smith Moonglow – This color is magical. At first glance, it looks like a cool dark purple, but when you look at it more closely, you can see bits of aqua shining through. (This color contains pigments that are not lightfast, so be careful.)
Daniel Smith Rose of Ultramarine – I never thought I would like this kind of color, but there’s something about it. It granulates really nicely, too.

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How to Mix Purple Watercolor Paint