The popularity of teal has increase in recent years as people tend to look for artwork with relaxing properties and the light tones of teal tend to go well with a more relaxing piece of artwork. With the spike in the popularity for the color teal, we have noticed more and more people reaching out with various questions about the color with the main one being how to make teal paint at home.
Thankfully, making your own teal is not as difficult as some people presume as you are potentially able to mix other paint colors in your collection to make teal as well as add a teal pigment to suitable paint mediums for your needs. This coupled with the fact that there are multiple colors that are already very close to teal that you may have in your paint collection make teal a much easier option to make yourself than some of the other colors we see people asking for.
Depending on exactly what you need and the colors available in your current paint collection, most of our readers should be able to make a teal by mixing paints. If you do want to take the pigment route then it usually ends up costing more than a decent tube of teal paint for small quantities of paint. If you do need large amounts of teal paint then adding a teal pigment to a suitable medium usually does end up working out to be considerably cheaper in the long run.
Is Teal Blue Or Green?
We often see people reaching out to ask if the color teal is a blue based color or a green based color and we can definitely see why. Unlike some of the other colors that we see people asking out about where the base components of the color are made up of specific ratios, teal tends to be a fifty-fifty mix of blue and green with no other colors being added to it.
Due to this, you could argue that teal is both a blue based and green based color due to it being made up of equal parts of both colors. Different paint brands do usually have their own pigment charts that can result in a slight hue towards either green or blue though pushing teal closer to that parent color but this can go either way and is usually down to the specific paint brand.
Depending on what you are actually planning on doing with your teal paint, this can be an advantage or a disadvantage. It is an advantage in the sense that teal tends to be very easy to mix with colors that the majority of people usually carry in their paint palette collection. On the flipside of this though, it can be a disadvantage as it can limit the versatility of teal as you are not able to mix it with many other colors during use but this tends not to be a real problem for most people.
What Colors Do You Mix To Make Teal?
You are able to mix blue and green to make teal and due to the majority of artists usually having both green and blue paint in their paint collection, this makes teal a very easy color to mix yourself at home. We would highly recommend that you go with a regular blue such as cobalt blue and a regular green such as sap green when looking to mix paints to make teal.
Although you are technically able to make teal by mixing lighter or darker greens and blues with each other, this adds an additional dimension to the mixing process and usually required white or black paint to be added in small amounts to adjust accordingly. This is why we always recommend a regular blue and green that is not a light or dark variant as it makes the whole process much quicker and easier.
When it comes to the mixing ratios, if you are going with a regular blue and green then a fifty-fifty split is the perfect place to start with one part blue to one part green. If you are using a light or dark green or blue then this throws this ratio off considerably so you will have to play around and see what you are able to get with the colors that you have available to you. If you only have light or dark blues and greens in your current collection then just getting a tube of teal paint may be a better option for most people.
What Colors Are Close To Teal!
Due to teal essentially being a mixture of the very common combination of blue and green, there are a number of very similar colors that are close to teal that you may already have in your paint collection. Although they may not be the perfect one for one swap with teal, you may be able to add a little more blue or green to any of these alternatives that you already have to have an easier job of making your own teal paint.
Although phthalo turquoise is definitely the most common color that it close to teal, it is not the closest match and there are some less common options below that may be a better fit for you. That said though, phthalo turquoise does tend to be one of the more common options with a greater number of artists already having it in their collection than the following teal alternatives.
Although the brand that you go with will come into play due to each brand usually having their own pigment chart, brilliant blue, bright aqua green, and deep turquoise do tend to be some of the better colors that are close to teal. That said though, they are nowhere near as popular as phthalo turquoise so we doubt that many of our readers will already have them in their paint collection.
Making Your Own Teal Pigment!
There are a number of different options to making your own teal pigment from scratch if you wish as you can take the base reagents for most blue and green paint pigments and mix them together in a ratio of around fifty-fifty. Making your own teal pigment for your paints from scratch tends to be more time and effort than it is worth though so a large number of people tend to just go with a pre-made teal pigment option.
In our opinion, a standard teal pigment powder is usually the best option for most people wanting to take the pigment route due to it being cheap, easy to use, and readily available online and in arts and crafts stores. The majority of people who make their own paints from scratch with a pigment still use a pigment powder product and we doubt that this will change anytime soon.
Although there are teal pigment sticks on the market that you are able to use, the additional step of breaking down the stick to the correct consistency tends to put some people off. On top of this, most teal pigment sticks are more expensive than a teal pigment powder pushing more people towards going with a pre-made powder at the correct consistency that is ready to go as soon as you get it.
How To Make Teal Oil Paint!
Making your own teal paint by adding pigment to a medium is definitely one of the easiest options and it is very beginner-friendly. The process is as simple as adding small amounts of teal pigment powder in stages to a good oil paint medium such as linseed oil and mixing them together between each stage of pigment. You then just repeated the process over and over until you are happy with the color and are good to go with your paint.
If you are new to mixing your own pigments with your oil paint mediums then each medium does tend to have its own unique properties. We go over the more popular mediums and their advantages and disadvantages in our ultimate guide to oil paint mediums that may be worth reading. We also have an article going over using linseed oil for oil painting too that may be worth a quick read due to linseed oil being the most commonly used oil medium out there.
Although making your own teal oil paint by mixing some teal pigment with any of the suitable oil paint mediums is very easy and beginner-friendly, if you do only need small amounts of paint then a tube of teal oil paint will probably be much cheaper. If you do need large quantities for paint though then over the long run, taking the pigment route does tend to be much cheaper than picking up tubes of paint.
How To Make Teal Acrylic Paint!
Making your own teal acrylic paint is pretty straight forward and although it is a little more difficult that making oil paints, it is still very beginner-friendly. We recommend that you use clear gesso acrylic as your medium of choice as it does tend to be easier to get a good teal color quickly than if you choose to use white gesso. That said though, if you do already have some white gesso in your home then you are able to use it but it will need more pigment and take longer to get a color that you are happy with.
Simply add your teal pigment powder to your gesso in small amounts and then mix everything together but be sure to push your mixing tool to the bottom of your container to pull fresh gesso up if you are making a large amount. Gesso is thicker than other mediums so pigment powder can just form on the top and only mix with the top half of the gesso so you have to force it up from the bottom of your container.
If you are into your acrylic painting then there is a good chance that you already have a decent amount of gesso anyway making this route more cost-effective than the oil and watercolor options. If you don’t already have some gesso to use though, the prices of some teal acrylic paint may end up working out to be much cheaper than making your own with pigment and gesso.
How To Make Teal Watercolor Paint!
If you are more of an intermediate-level painter and have made your own paints at home before then you could try to make your own teal watercolor paint but this does tend to be a little more difficult than making oil and acrylic paints. This is due to the majority of people using gum Arabic as their medium and it being a pain to maintain its consistency for long periods of time.
That said though, you can try mixing your teal pigment powder with some gum Arabic to see how it goes but we would recommend that you try to use the paint as fast as possible due to it quickly turning. The process is very similar and you just add your pigment to your gum Arabic in small amounts so you have as much control over the color as possible as it makes the process a total pain if you have to add colors to lighten the paint if you make it too dark.
We know that there are some other suitable mediums for watercolor paint that you could try but these tend to be expensive and still have some issues with them. If you are a beginner or are looking for a quick, easy, and more consistent teal watercolor paint then just purchasing a decent tube of teal watercolor will usually be the better option.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over how to make teal paint at home to an end. We hope that you have found the article helpful and that we have been able to help you make your own teal paint either by mixing other colors in your paint collection or by adding some teal pigment to a paint medium. The easiest option will always be to just purchase a tube of teal paint followed closely by mixing colors that you already have but not everyone will carry a suitable blue and green in their current paint collection.
