The first square on the top left will be the darkest value. I’m dividing the grid on my sheet in half vertically. That way, you are already familiar with the colors, but will be even better acquainted now with the mixtures. Start out by choosing primary colors or colors that you tend to use the most often. But you can turn the paper so that it’s vertical and shows a wider range of mixtures, too. On one sheet, I fit two combinations of two colors. Yellow: Cadmium Yellow Light and Gamboge Yellow.In the demonstration video, I’m using only primary colors. If you go the route with my grid template, you can use the washi tape to hold it in place while you sketch out the squares with a pencil.

The template is a PNG file so you can easily import it to your Cricut or Silhouette program and resize it to fit your watercolor paper.

Download my grid template and use a cutting machine or x-acto knife to cut out the squares.

But you can go a little smaller if you want. For reference, my squares are about 1″ wide.

You can use a ruler to manually draw your grid.

And without much stress and fuss, you’ll know which two colors to mix AND how much water to add in order to get to that color. So if you wanted a coral type color but you don’t have that exact color in your palette, then you can refer to your grid. So in my grid, you’ll get to not only mix colors, but also show the values range. And that’s what makes watercolors so special.

But it neglects to show you the values of the new mixed color. I’ve seen lots of color mixing charts where it literally only shows you the result of two colors mixed. And watercolors work best when you really understand the colors, how to mix them, and take advantage of its transparent nature. One of the reasons why watercolors are often frustrating is because we don’t really know our tools. Why Create a Watercolor Paint Swatch Grid? Washi tape or masking tape (if you’re using the grid download).The small commission helps run this blog and its activities. I will only post products that I have personally used and would recommend.

This means that if you purchase the item using my link, I receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. The best way to really know your paints and color mixing is to create a watercolor paint swatch grid! This post includes a very detailed video, so check it out.

Sketch icon grid template