Here is a comparison of a range of warm (or orange-biased) reds and mid reds. Now I'd like to look a little more at reds in general and show some comparisons. With those 3 reds I can intermix with yellows and blues to make a huge range of oranges, mid reds and purples.

I generally like to have a warm red (or orange red), a crimson AND a rose red for mixing purples. All the colours in your palette need to work together, so if you make a choice about one colour, it dictates other choices to a large degree.

If you choose to have an orange in your palette you may choose a mid red to spread your colours over the spectrum further. The warm red will mix to make wonderful bright oranges. So how do you choose your reds? Generally, one warm and one cool red are useful in the palette, though some like to have a mid 'fire engine' red as well. So the reds I choose depend on how many colours I have and how much each individual colour has to do in the palette. My four reds in a 20 colour palette would be Pyrrol Crimson and Quinacridone Rose instead of Carmine, along with Transparent Pyrrol Orange and Indian red. If I had three reds in a palette of 15 or 16 colours, I would add Indian Red, and I would switch the warm red to Transparent Pyrrol Orange, though Pyrrol Scarlet is a wonderful colour, and is my recommended warm red option. The Pyrrol Scarlet could mix with a blue to create an indian red hue. If I had two reds in a larger palette of perhaps 12 colours I would use Pyrrol Scarlet as a warm and Carmine as a cool. I have added all these red swatches, and more, to my website here. In a limited palette of up to 7 colours I would choose Carmine, by Daniel Smith, as it will mix to make oranges and purples.īut I like to have a few different reds in my palette. I have previously written about choosing a primary red - one that can stand alone in a primary triad of red, yellow and blue.

Daniel smith mixing chart