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I have dozens of tubes of acrylic paint, and I know I’m not the only one who does. The challenge I was having was really understanding the differences between them all. Through my blog and Youtube channel, I’ve been exploring how my various tubes of paint mix with other colours, understanding how undertones affect and I’ve learned a ton. But creating a colour wheel with all my colours plotted onto it has probably been one of my biggest leaps forward in understanding colour.
So what’s the big deal about plotting all your acrylic paint on a colour wheel? First, the caveat that all colour wheels are different so you can adapt or be creative with how you create something similar. But this is what I learned with the version I made:
- It helps you understand your tube colour’s chroma. My colour wheel has rings, kind of like a dartboard, where the outer ring is the highest chroma and the inner ring is the lowest chroma. Some colours are obviously lower chroma, like a yellow ochre. Others aren’t so obvious.
- It helps you see what acrylic paint colours are basically the same. When you have a ton of tubes, it can be overwhelming to choose a paint colour. Now I have a nice, neat display of all my tubes. And I can stop myself from buying new tubes when I run out of a certain colour because I know I have another that’s almost the same.
- It’s an incredible tool to start experimenting with colour schemes. Now I can look at this colour wheel and pick colours based on if I want to do a complementary, analogous, triadic colour scheme and more.
- It helps me see what colour gamut I’ll have when mixing different colours. Gamut is the colour range that’s possible when mixing two colours. For example, when you mix a yellow and red together, you’ll get varying shades of orange. However, if you mix low chroma yellow with a low chroma red, you’ll only be able to mix a gamut that includes various low chroma oranges. If I want a gamut that includes a high chroma orange I’ll need to choose high chroma yellows and reds.
- It helps me better understand warm vs. cool colours. I chose to colour labels that emphasize this as well, using warm cardstock for the warm colours and a cool grey for the cool colours.
- It reminds me to use colours beyond what I typically use. I usually use the same acrylic paint colours on my palette, anywhere from six – 12 colours, typically. That’s a really great habit because it allows you to really get to know those colours. But i don’t think it’s a great habit to only use those colours. Experimenting with different colours can be useful to really understand colour theory or just discover a brand new colour that might be better on your palette.
Tips to make your own
- Create the surface to plot your colour wheel. I used cardstock on a cork board with push pins because it was fairly inexpensive and allows me to adjust easily as I learn more about paint colours or to add new colours.
- Choose how many sections to have on your board. I chose to just have six pie-shaped sections, one for each major colour hue (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet). Within each of those pie sections, I also added the rings to indicate chroma. Then I added labelling around the edge of the pie sections to approximately indicate the undertones of each hue. For example, I had a large label that said Blue, and then two smaller labels for Green-blue and Violet-blue.
- To get the lines on the surface, you have a choice. I used my Cricut because I have one, but you could use a protractor and draw it on yourself. With the Cricut, I just created a six-piece pie shape and added rings within, eye-balling it as best as I could.
- I used the cardstock that I had already and picked the closest to a neutral gray that I had. You can use white or black or some version of a grey or brown. I don’t recommend using a colour because it’ll overpower the paint chips.
- Now you create the acrylic paint colour “chips.” I used my Cricut again to make the colour chips but you can do them by hand or just paint directly on the wheel, if you’re feeling brave.
- If you’re using a Cricut, I simply made a circle shape and rectangle shape and fused them together. Then I had the machine cut out a bunch of them. You could just do a circle shape but I wanted to be able to label the colours on the front.
- I painted the pure colour, straight from the tube, onto my paint chip.
- I didn’t include versions of the same paint colour from different acrylic paint manufacturers but you could if you wanted to, since sometimes the “same” colour might be a bit different.
- I chose to include all my pure blacks, but not any whites. I also included some of the metallics. It’s your choice as to whether you include those or not.
- Now is the fun but challenging part – plotting the paint chips on the wheel.
- I used a variety of sources to help plot out where colours should lay on this colour wheel. I used art books that have similar colour wheels, paint manufacturer website information, and my own knowledge. I also know that I’ll adjust some over time, as I get to know my colours even better. I’m not sold on where a few of the paints are plotted. I’ve moved a few already and will probably move more in the future.
- Plot each colour on the wheel in the hue colour it belongs to, and place it approximately on the ring that matches it’s chroma. You might not get it right the first time. Since I used a cork board and pins, I can move them whenever I want.
This colour wheel is a fantastic project to help you understand not only colour theory, but the tubes of paints you own. It also is a beautiful work of art on it’s own and worth hanging on any studio wall, both as a practical piece but for aesthetics too.
If you’re interested in learning more about colour mixing, check out my colour mixing tests where I compare different colours against each other.
Buy the supplies
Pick up the supplies for this project at your local store or on Amazon:
