The colour yellow is an eye-catching colour that’s useful for creating highlights and contrasts in a painting. It’s perfect for capturing vibrant flowers or adding warmth and atmosphere to a landscape.
Yellow is a primary colour, which means it can't be created by mixing other colours.
However, there are many easy ways to make different shades of yellow, from a zingy lemon yellow to an earthy yellow ochre.
Make sure you check out our complete guide to colour mixing here on Gathered to learn how to make all the colours of the rainbow!
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How to make yellow paint for your artwork
How to make lemon yellow
To make this pale and zingy yellow, take your base yellow and add white and green in tiny increments until you have your desired shade.
How to make yellow-orange
This warm shade of yellow is also known as amber. To make yellow-orange, simply add red in small increments to your base yellow until you have your desired shade.
How to make yellow-ochre
To make this earthy shade of yellow, first add a dot of red to your base yellow, then a tiny amount of blue.
Take care not to add too much blue as this will make the colour brown.
How to make yellow for your next artwork
Yellow is a primary colour that comes in 'warm' and 'cool' tones. A warm yellow means it has a hint of red in the shade. A cool yellow means it has a hint of blue or green in the shade.
Have fun adding warm or cool colours to your base yellow to see the variety of yellow shades you can make.
How to make orange for your paint palette
Enjoy making yellow and want to try another colour? Learn how to make orange with our simple guide!
