Color Wheel (guide to mixing clay)

Here is my very simple attempt to how to mix colors. Personally, I do not use a color wheel. I just have a good sense on how colors should be. It is not hard to get that color yourself. You can try it yourself with my simple guide here.

I have 6 colors of premo here:

- White (make colors lighter)
- Black (make colors darker)
- Translucent (makes the clay translucent; does not affect color)
- cadimum red (a very bright red)
- cadimum yellow or zinc yellow (both of them are very bright yellows, but zinc yellow is a bit darker than cadmium yellow)
- cobalt blue (a very bright, dark blue)

Basic mixed colors

To make orange, you mix a little bit of cadimum red and a lot of cadimum yellow until you get the orange you want.

- To make green, you mix equal parts of cadimum yellow and cobolt blue

- To make purple, you mix equal parts of cadmium red and cobalt blue
- To make brown, you mix equal parts of all the colors cadimum red, cadimum yellow, and cobalt blue.
In light, that would give you white light, but in color pigments that gives you brown.
- To make gray, you mix white and black together in equal parts.

Darker/lighter colors

To make a color darker, add black into the clay mix. Add a little bit at a time, knead, and then add more and repeat until the color is exactly as you want.

To make a color lighter, add white into the clay mix. Reeat the same steps as black unti you get the color you want.

You can also manpuliate the colors you want by adding different amounts of colors to make them lighter/darker than you like.

The world is your inspiration. With those basic colors I mix them into colors that I want for a particular work. I cannot give you specific mixes because I basically learned by doing. However, this is a start for you to make your own colors and be inspired. I hope this helps a little.