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What Colors Make Teal, Burgundy, Coral and More: A Complete Color Mixing Guide

How To · 7 min read

8 min read

Whether you are painting a room, working on a canvas, or mixing nail polish, getting the right color often means combining two or three others. This guide breaks down the fundamentals of color mixing and gives you exact recipes for popular shades that are surprisingly hard to mix from scratch.

The Basics: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Colors

Every color you see can ultimately be traced back to a small set of primary colors that cannot be created by mixing other colors together. In traditional paint mixing, those primaries are red, blue, and yellow.

When you combine two primaries in roughly equal amounts, you get secondary colors:

• Red + Blue = Purple (violet)
• Red + Yellow = Orange
• Blue + Yellow = Green

Take the mixing one step further by combining a primary with a neighboring secondary, and you arrive at tertiary colors like red-orange, yellow-green, or blue-violet. These six tertiary hues round out the classic twelve-step color wheel that artists have relied on for centuries.

Understanding this hierarchy matters because most real-world colors people want to mix — teal, burgundy, coral — are tertiary shades or tinted versions of them. Knowing which primaries and secondaries sit nearby on the wheel tells you where to start.

Additive vs. Subtractive Mixing: Why Screens and Paint Behave Differently

If you have ever wondered why mixing red and green paint gives you muddy brown while red and green light on a screen produces bright yellow, the answer is that light and pigment follow two completely different mixing models.

Additive mixing starts from darkness. You add wavelengths of light together, and each new wavelength makes things brighter. That is why combining all three RGB primaries produces white light.

Subtractive mixing starts from white (the paper or canvas). Pigments absorb certain wavelengths and reflect others. Each pigment you add absorbs more light, which is why mixing too many paint colors together trends toward a muddy dark tone rather than a clean bright one.

The practical takeaway: when mixing physical paints, less is more. Keep your recipes to two or three pigments whenever possible, and use white or black to adjust lightness rather than adding more hues.

Color Mixing Recipes: Popular Shades

Below are straightforward recipes for eight colors that people frequently search for. Each recipe assumes you are working with standard acrylic or latex paints. Exact ratios will vary by brand, so treat these as starting points and adjust to taste.

Teal (#008080)

Blue + Green + a touch of White

Start with equal parts blue and green, then lighten with small amounts of white until you reach the depth you want. For a warmer teal, lean toward more green. For a cooler, ocean-like teal, increase the blue.

Burgundy (#800020)

Red + a little Blue + a touch of Brown

Begin with a rich red base. Add blue sparingly — a little goes a long way — to shift it toward purple. Then deepen the tone with a small amount of brown or burnt umber. Avoid adding black, which can make it look flat.

Coral (#FF7F50)

Red + Orange + White

Mix red and orange in a roughly 1:1 ratio, then add white gradually to reach the soft, warm tone coral is known for. The white is what separates coral from plain red-orange, giving it that characteristic pastel warmth.

Sage Green (#9CAF88)

Green + Grey (or Green + White + a touch of Black)

Sage is essentially a muted, desaturated green. Start with a medium green and mix in grey to soften the intensity. If you do not have grey, add white first, then tiny amounts of black. A hint of yellow can warm it up nicely.

Mauve (#C8A2C8)

Purple + Pink + White

Combine purple and pink, then soften the result with white until you hit the dusty, muted lilac tone of true mauve. The pink keeps it warm and prevents the color from reading as a cold lavender.

Navy Blue (#000080)

Blue + Black

This one is simple but easy to overshoot. Start with your blue and add black in very small increments. A tiny amount of black goes a surprisingly long way. Some artists prefer adding a dark blue like ultramarine instead of black to keep the color vibrant.

Terracotta (#C86432)

Orange + Brown + a touch of Red

Mix orange and brown in equal parts as your base, then adjust with red to bring out the earthy warmth. Burnt sienna is a great shortcut if you have it. Add a tiny bit of white if your result is too dark.

Olive (#6B8E23)

Green + Yellow + a touch of Brown

Start with green and add yellow to brighten it, then mute the vibrancy with a small amount of brown. The brown keeps olive from looking like lime green and gives it the natural, earthy quality the color is named for.

Practical Tips for Mixing Paint Colors

Seven Rules That Save Wasted Paint

1. Always start with the lighter color. It takes far less dark pigment to shift a light color than the reverse. Add dark colors in tiny amounts.
2. Mix more than you think you need. Reproducing an exact custom color later is nearly impossible. Mix a generous batch and store any leftovers in an airtight container.
3. Test on a scrap surface. Paint dries slightly different from how it looks wet. Acrylics tend to dry a shade or two darker; watercolors dry lighter. Always test and let it dry before committing.
4. Use a palette knife, not a brush. Palette knives mix paint more thoroughly and do not waste pigment in bristles.
5. Keep a color journal. Write down your ratios when you find a mix you like. Something as simple as “3 parts cadmium yellow + 1 part raw umber + a dot of white” will save you time in future sessions.
6. Clean between mixes. Even a small amount of residual pigment on your knife or brush can shift your color unexpectedly. Wipe your tools clean between each new mixture.
7. Limit your palette. Resist the urge to add a fourth or fifth color to fix a mix. More pigments generally means muddier results. If a three-color mix is not working, scrape it off and start fresh with a different approach.

Going Beyond the Basics: Understanding Undertones

One detail that trips up beginners is undertone. Not all reds are the same — some lean toward orange (warm), while others lean toward purple (cool). The same is true for every color on the wheel. When a recipe calls for “blue,” the blue you choose matters enormously.

For example, mixing a vivid purple works best with a cool red (like alizarin crimson) and a warm blue (like ultramarine). Using a warm red and a cool blue pushes both pigments away from purple on the color wheel, resulting in a dull, brownish violet instead.

Before mixing, hold your paint tubes against a white background and ask: does this red look slightly orange, or slightly pink? Does this blue look slightly green, or slightly purple? Matching undertones to your target color is the single biggest factor in getting clean, vibrant mixes.

Verify Your Colors Digitally

Even with careful mixing and good lighting, it can be hard to tell whether the shade you have mixed is actually the one you intended. This is especially true when comparing your paint to a reference image on a screen, since monitors and pigments render color differently.

The Color Identifier app can help here. Point your phone camera at the paint swatch and the app will tell you the exact color name and hex value in real time. It is a quick way to confirm you have hit the right shade or see how far off you are before committing to a full coat of paint.