What Colors Make Pink - Easy Mixing Shades (2024)

Learn what colors make pink to save yourself from the hassles of pausing your painting session and maximizing the paints in your arsenal. This knowledge and skill will also help you create a pink color of different shades, temperatures, depths, and values.

So let's get started and learn what to use to make pink hues that will allow you to paint common elements, dimensions, highlights, emotions, and advocacies that it symbolizes, like compassion, innocence, and breast cancer awareness.

Table of Contents

What Colors Make Pink - Easy Mixing Shades (1)

What Colors Make Pink: The Basics

Most, if not all, are already fully aware that the two colors we can use to make pink paint are red and white.

RED + WHITE = PINK

However, there are different shades of red to pick from, which will affect the temperature, shade, and value of the resulting pink color. Likewise, there are two types of white paint that you can use to turn your red paint into pink, which will affect the resulting depth of the pink paint.

Types of Red to Make Pink

Your base acrylic paint, when mixing colors to create pink, is red paint. You can choose from the following:

Warm Reds
Cool Reds

Adding Warm Reds

Warm reds are those with a more orange tint, so the resulting pink color will lean more toward this shade and have a warm temperature. Examples include peach, coral, salmon, strawberry,

Now, if you're wondering what red paints have a warm temperature, here are the most common ones I use to make warm shades of pink:

Cadmium red
Coquelicot red
Scarlet red
Venetian red
Vermilion red

Adding Cool Reds

What if you want to make ballet slipper pink, crepe pink, hot pink, and other cooler shades of pink? You should use cooler shades of red. These red paints have a blue tint, so the resulting pink color almost resembles a purple color.

Here are some of my top choices when making a cool pink shade of acrylic paint:

Types of White to Make Pink

While white might seem like a standard color, the trained eye will notice the differences, such as vibrancy or opacity. That said, here are two of your white paint choices when looking for one to combine your red paints with:

Titanium White
Zinc White

Titanium White

Developed in the 20th Century, titanium white is an opaque, cool color with great tinting qualities. When combining it with warm reds, you'll end with a dull pink shade.

But if you want to add some vibrancy, you can add a tiny amount of yellow color to the blend.

Zinc White

This white shade is a bit older than titanium white, as it was introduced in the 19th Century. It's translucent and has the ability to maintain the red color's integrity and saturation.

Once you blend it with any red paint, you will have translucent pink, such as neon pink.

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How to Make Pink With White and Red Paints

Now that you have an idea of what colors make pink, it's to learn how to make different shades of pink.

What You'll Need

White and red paints
Mixing palette
Palette knife
Paintbrush
White sheet of paper

What You Need to Do

To create the best pink shade for your artwork, here are the steps that you need to follow:

Decide whether you need to make warm or cool and opaque or translucent pinks.
Once decided, choose the red and white paints you need from your color palette.
In your mixing palette, add drops or a huge dollop of red paint.
Right next to it, place a smaller drop or dollop of your white paint.
Using your palette knife, transfer a tiny amount of white paint toward the red paint.
Blend the two colors.
Once well-blended, dip your paintbrush into the paint. Brush it onto your white sheet of paper and check if you have the right shade of pink.
If not, repeat steps 5 to 7 until you already have the pink color you're aiming for.

If you're unsure what specific pink color you should use, consider experimenting with the red and white colors listed above.

For instance, mix a small amount of cadmium red and titanium white and cadmium red and zinc white. Then, brush the resulting mixtures onto a clean sheet of white paper. Do the same for the other reds.

While this experimentation seems to be a waste of resources and time, it actually will save you from more waste. Once you already see the resulting colors for each combination, you can easily pick the white and red you will use for every element you need to paint with pink.

Can You Make Pink Without Red and White?

The good news is, yes, you definitely can! Just be careful of the ratios you use to avoid creating a different color, and wasting your time, effort, and resources.

What Colors Make Pink Without White?

When you have run out of any white paint in your arsenal, you can mix your light yellow paint with your red paint. This color combination will create vibrant, light pink shades like coral and peach pink paint.

If you need warm yellow paint, I highly suggest using cadmium yellow. Meanwhile, opt for lemon yellow paint if you need a cool color.

What Colors Make Pink Without Red?

The closest color to red and pink itself is magenta, so you can add white to it to create vibrant pink shades.

To create pink using magenta and white, follow these steps:

In your mixing palette, add drops or a huge dollop of magenta paint.
Right next to it, place a smaller drop or dollop of your white paint.
Using your palette knife, transfer a tiny amount of white paint toward the magenta paint.
Blend the two colors.
Once well-blended, dip your paintbrush into the paint. Brush it onto your white sheet of paper and check if you have the right shade of pink.
If not, repeat steps 3 to 5 until you already have the pink color you're aiming for.

If you can't achieve the pink shade you need or want, try gradually adding a bit of yellow to your magenta to create a shade of red that you want and need. Then, add white paint to it until you have the shade of pink that you need.

What Colors Make Pink Lighter?

What if you don't need to make any shades of pink but only want to make the dark pink remaining in your set lighter? Or the pink you created is too dark for the element you need to paint? Perhaps what you need are pastel pinks.

Here is how to make an existing pink paint lighter:

Add White or Cadmium Light Yellow

You can simply lighten the pink paint by adding more white or cadmium light yellow.

Add White and Cadmium Light Yellow

Here's what you need to do to lighten your pink using a blend of these two colors:

In your mixing palette, place a dollop or drop of white paint.
Right next to it, place a smaller drop or dollop of yellow paint.
Using your palette knife, slowly transfer a tiny amount of yellow paint to your white paint.
Mix them.
Once well-blended, dip your paintbrush into the paint. Brush it onto your white sheet of paper and check if you have the right shade of white. The color you're looking for is white with a tint of light yellow.
If the white paint still doesn't have a visible light yellow tint, repeat steps 3 to 5 until you already have the color that you're aiming for. Just be careful not to add too much yellow, as you might end up with yellow paint.
Once you have white paint with a light yellow tint, mix one part of it with two parts of your pink paint and then blend.

What Colors Make Pink Darker?

Now, what if you have or have made baby pink, blush pink, or any light shades of pink, but what you need is dark pink? Here is how to make pink darker:

Add Red or Magenta

For this, simply add more red or magenta to the pink or your mixture of red (magenta) and white, depending on how dark you want your pink paint should be.

Add Burnt Umber

Adding this paint color to your pink will produce a muted, dusty pink shade. To ensure you achieve this shade, here's what you need to do:

In your mixing palette, place a dollop or drop of pink paint.
Right next to it, place a smaller drop or dollop of burnt umber paint.
Using your palette knife, slowly transfer a tiny amount of burnt umber paint to your pink paint.
Mix them.
Once well-blended, dip your paintbrush into the paint. Brush it onto your white sheet of paper and check if you have the right shade of dark pink.
If not, repeat steps 3 to 5 until you already have the dark pink color you're aiming for. Just be careful not to add too much burnt umber, as you might end up with a different color.

Add Phtalo Green and Red

If you want a muted, rich dark pink that you can use to paint a shadow or add a dimension, use a blend of these two colors. Here's what you need to do to darken pink with this color blend:

In your mixing palette, place a dollop or drop of phtalo green paint and the same amount of red paint.
Using your palette knife, slowly mix them. You should have a dark bluish color.
Once well-blended, place a dollop or drop of pink paint right next to the bluish paint.
Using your palette knife, slowly transfer a tiny amount of the bluish paint to your pink paint.
Mix them.
Once well-blended, dip your paintbrush into the paint. Brush it onto your white sheet of paper and check if you have the right shade of dark pink.
If not, repeat steps 4 to 5 until you already have the dark pink color you're aiming for. Just be careful not to add too much bluish paint, as you might end up with a different color.

What Colors Make Pink Cooler?

As mentioned, you must use cool reds to make cool pinks. However, what if you want to turn the warm pink paint in your arsenal into cool pink? Maybe you only have warm red or magenta, so what you were able to make is warm pink.

Don't worry; you can add a third color to the mix!

So, what colors make pink cooler? Of course, other cool colors, including:

Blue: Bright or vibrant cool pink
Blue-green: Bright or vibrant cool pink
Blue-violet: Bright to muted cool pink
Purple: Muted cool pink
Black: Muted cool pink

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How to Make Pink Cooler

To change the warm temperature of your pink paint, here's what you need to do:

In your mixing palette, place a huge dollop or drop of pink paint.
Right next to it, place a smaller drop or dollop of any cool colors (paint #2) above.
Using your palette knife, slowly transfer a tiny amount of paint #2 to your pink paint.
Mix them.
Once well-blended, dip your paintbrush into the paint. Brush it onto your white sheet of paper and check if you have the right temperature of pink.
If not, repeat steps 3 to 5 until you already have the color that you're aiming for. Just be careful not to add too much secondary color, as you might end up with a different color.

What Colors Make Pink Warmer?

Pink is warm in itself, but what if you want to make it look warmer? Maybe you created cool pink, or the shades in your set are cool pink.

Here are the colors that you can add to the pink paint to make it warm or add warmth to it:

Red-orange: Muted warm pink
Yellow-orange: Bright warm pink
Green-yellow: Muted warm pink

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How to Make Pink Warmer

The steps you need to take to make the pink paint warm or warmer are the same as how you change the temperature to cool. You just have to choose from the choices above for what colors make pink warmer.

Using Different Shades of Pink in Your Paintings

While most include pink in their lists of feminine colors, it's actually one of the most versatile colors that can help you create several great elements for your artwork. It can go with yellow, orange, red, black, and other neutral colors.

So, start learning by heart what colors make pink and how to change its temperature, value, and more.