🌈 Daniel Smith Watercolor Color Wheel

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🌈 Create Your Own Color Wheel Using Just Three Primary Colors

Understanding color theory is one thing—experiencing it firsthand is another. One of the best ways to learn how colors interact is by creating your own color wheel using just three primary watercolor paints.

This simple exercise teaches far more than how to arrange colors in a circle. It allows you to explore how pigments mix, how secondary and tertiary colors are formed, and how the unique characteristics of professional watercolor paints influence every mixture you create.

For watercolor artists, few brands are better suited to this exploration than Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor. Known for their exceptional pigment quality, transparency, and extensive range of single-pigment colors, Daniel Smith paints make it easy to see color theory in action.

Whether you're a beginner learning color relationships or an experienced painter refining your palette, creating a limited-palette color wheel is one of the most valuable exercises you can do.

Why Create Your Own Color Wheel?

While pre-printed color wheels can be useful references, creating your own offers a much deeper understanding of color mixing. As you mix each color yourself, you'll discover:

• How pigments influence one another

• Which mixtures appear bright and vibrant

• Which combinations become muted

• How warm and cool color biases affect results

• The full range of colors available from a limited palette

The finished wheel becomes a personalized reference chart based on the exact paints you use in your artwork.

Why Use Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors?

Daniel Smith is renowned among watercolor artists for its professional-quality pigments and extensive selection of single-pigment colors.

Benefits include:

• Excellent transparency

• High pigment concentration

• Superior lightfastness

• Predictable mixing behavior

• Wide selection of single-pigment paints

Because many Daniel Smith colors contain only one pigment, they are particularly useful for studying color theory and creating clean, vibrant mixtures.

Choosing Your Three Primary Colors

For this exercise, we'll use a modern primary palette consisting of three transparent, single-pigment Daniel Smith colors:

• Hansa Yellow Light (PY3)

• Quinacridone Rose (PV19)

• Phthalo Blue Green Shade (PB15)

These colors are often preferred over traditional red-yellow-blue combinations because they produce brighter, cleaner secondary colors. Together, they create a color wheel with a wide color gamut and beautifully saturated mixtures.

Materials You'll Need

• Watercolor paper (cold press, 140lb or 300lb)

• Pencil and eraser

• Compass or circular template

• Ruler

• Round Watercolor Paintbrush

• Water container

• Palette for mixing

• Paper towel

• Three primary colors

Optional:

• Waterproof pen for labeling

• Color swatch journal

Create the Color Wheel

Here are the instructions for how to create the color wheel:

Step 1: Draw the Color Wheel

Draw a large circle and divide it into twelve equal sections, similar to a clock face. These sections will contain:

• 3 primary colors

• 3 secondary colors

• 6 tertiary colors

Step 2: Paint the Primary Colors

Place your primary colors evenly around the wheel.

Traditionally:

• Yellow at the top

• Red at the lower right

• Blue at the lower left

These three colors form the foundation of every other mixture you'll create. Allow the paint to dry before moving on if you're working with watercolor.

Step 3: Mix the Secondary Colors

Next, mix equal amounts of neighboring primary colors.

• Yellow + Red = Orange

• Red + Blue = Violet

• Blue + Yellow = Green

Place each secondary color directly between the two primaries used to create it. You should now have six sections completed.

Step 4: Create the Tertiary Colors

The remaining six spaces are filled with tertiary colors. Mix each primary color with the neighboring secondary color.

Examples:

• Yellow + Orange = Yellow-Orange

• Orange + Red = Red-Orange

• Red + Violet = Red-Violet

• Violet + Blue = Blue-Violet

• Blue + Green = Blue-Green

• Green + Yellow = Yellow-Green

These colors create smooth transitions around the wheel and help reveal subtle shifts in hue.

Step 5: Adjust Color Ratios

Once your basic wheel is complete, experiment with the ratios of paint used in each mixture. Try:

• More yellow than orange

• More blue than green

• More red than violet

Small changes in pigment proportions often create surprisingly different results. This experimentation is where much of the learning happens.

What Your Color Wheel Can Teach You

As you examine your finished wheel, pay attention to:

• Which combinations appear vibrant and clean? These colors often share similar undertones and mix efficiently.

• Which mixtures appear dull or neutralized? This can reveal how pigments contain hidden color biases.

• Notice how colors become warmer or cooler as they move around the wheel.

Warm colors generally include:

• Yellows

• Oranges

• Reds

Cool colors generally include:

• Greens

• Blues

• Violets

Observing these transitions helps build confidence when selecting colors for future artwork.

Try Comparing Different Primary Sets

One of the most valuable exercises is creating multiple color wheels using different primary palettes. For example, try these colors from Daniel Smith:

Daniel Smith Pallet #1

• Hansa Yellow Light (PY3)

• Quinacridone Rose (PV19)

• Phthalo Blue Green Shade (PB15:3)

Daniel Smith Pallet #2

• Indian Yellow (PY110)

• Pyrrol Scarlet (PR255)

• French Ultramarine (PB29)

Although both wheels use three primaries, the resulting colors will look dramatically different. This comparison reveals how pigment selection influences your entire palette.

Beyond the Color Wheel

Once you've completed your wheel, consider using it as a starting point for further exploration. You might create:

• Complementary Color Studies

• Analogous Color Palettes

• Triadic Color Schemes

• Monochromatic Exercises

• Color Mixing Charts

Each exercise builds upon the knowledge gained from your original wheel.

🌈 Closing Thought

Creating a color wheel from only three primary colors is one of the simplest and most effective ways to understand color relationships. Every mixture teaches something new about harmony, contrast, balance, and pigment behavior. The more wheels you create and compare, the more intuitive your understanding of color becomes—and that knowledge will influence every creative project that follows.

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