Palette MasterHow to mix oil paint colors
Oil paint gives you time. It stays wet for days, so you can mix, adjust and blend on the canvas long after you start.
Why oil mixes differently
Oil paint is pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It barely changes color as it dries, so what you mix is close to what you get. The trade-off is time: most oil colors are touch dry in two to three days and take much longer to cure.
Pigments have very different tinting strengths in oil. A small amount of a strong blue or an earth color can overpower a large pile of a weaker one.
Ratios that work
Mix with a palette knife rather than a brush so the color is even and you do not waste paint. Add dark into light, not light into dark, because it takes far more white to lighten a dark mix than it takes dark to deepen a light one.
Keep the recipe parts in proportion when you scale up. If you need twice the paint, double every part.
How Palette Master handles oil
Choose oil and recipes are tuned for oil pigments, with the 2 to 3 day dry time shown on the Mix screen. Because oil hardly shifts as it dries, you can check your match with a photo right after mixing.