Blue is a primary color. Hence, you can’t make it from any combination. But you can create shades of blue such as dark blue, light blue, and more by mixing other colors.
This primary color and its hues can be seen worldwide, from the sky to seas and oceans. If you’ve ever wondered what colors you could mix to make blue hues, you’re in luck. In this article, we’ll show you how to do that!
Read? Let’s dive in!
Some Shades of Blue
Below are some of the most common shades of blue:
- Light Blue
- Dark Blue
- Indigo
- Sky Blue
- Royal Blue
- Turquoise Blue
What Colors Combine to Form Light Blue?
It’s pretty easy to create light blue tints. The most straightforward and popular technique to lighten your blue color is to add a dash of white. For example, you can create a wonderful vivid hue of cornflower blue by combining ultramarine blue and white.
Adding a little yellow or light green to blue is another approach to brighten it. If you apply this strategy, you’ll see that you’ve not only lightened your blue but also made it slightly more relaxed.
What Colors Form Dark Blue?
Although there are two ways for brightening blue, darkening has three, depending on whether you desire a muted dark blue, a warm dark blue, or a chilly dark blue.
Adding a dash of dioxazine purple is one of the ways to darken blue. And this gives you a chilly dark blue. Also, you get a warm dark blue when dark purple is mixed with ultramarine blue.
In addition, dioxazine purple incorporates red pigments when mixed with cobalt blue, resulting in a muted dark blue.
How Do You Make Indigo?
Indigo is made up of two primary colors, which are red and blue. To produce indigo, blue must be the most prominent color in the mix. So you should combine one-third red and two-thirds blue in a well-calculated manner.
Since red is such a solid dominant color, you’d need to add a lot of blue to your mixture, depending on how vivid your red paint is.
Read also: What Colors Make Pink?
What Colors Make Sky Blue?
Begin with a substantial quantity of white and then gradually add a tiny amount of blue. Although any blue will do, ultramarine blue is an excellent starting point.
Then, you can add a small amount of magenta to turn it reddish blue. Finally, mix a pinch of yellow with the magenta to make a duller blue.
What Colors Combine to Make Royal Blue?
Royal blue is created by combining blue and purple. But, of course, you must combine both colors equally; otherwise, you’ll get something different.
You can also apply a little black to regular blue to attain royal blue. However, this combination requires a lot of work. So, it’s easier to stick with blue and purple.
How to Make Turquoise Blue
You can make turquoise with a mixture of blue and green. And there are different shades of turquoise that you may get. The shade depends on the quantity of blue and green in the mix.
For instance, when there’s more blue in the mix, you get a predominantly blue shade of turquoise.
What Colors Make A Blue Muted?
A muted color lacks the saturation of a bright one due to the process of mixing it with colors like black, white, or gray. Bright blue tones are beautiful to employ in your artworks, but they aren’t always appropriate.
Orange is a complementary color to blue and can be used to mute it. For example, cadmium orange is a vivid and warm color ideal for this job. A warm, dismal, and dark blue is created by mixing cadmium orange with ultramarine blue. Cadmium orange can also dull down cobalt blue, appearing less vivid.
Another fantastic muting choice for blue tones is burnt umber. Burnt umber is essentially a darker orange tint. Therefore, it’ll darken and muffle your blues considerably.
How to Use the CMYK Color Model to Create Blue Shades
All the info presented thus far is centered on the most basic and traditional color theory. However, there’s a completely different way of thinking about color. The CMYK model describes how printers mix varying ratios of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black to create other colors.
It’s pretty straightforward to make different blue hues with this model! For instance, you can create them by mixing magenta and cyan. The proportion of these two hues will determine the final blue shade.
See also: What Colors Make Brown?
Conclusion
Blue is a primary color that can’t be created by mixing other colors. But you can make various shades of blue by mixing different colors. Some of the shades of blue you can create by mixing other colors include indigo, light blue, royal blue, and more!
You can also make different blue shades using the CMYK color model, which describes creating other colors by combining different cyan, magenta, black, and yellow ratios.