How to get khaki color: what colors to mix and in what proportions?

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Khaki is a light shade of tan, but usually khaki includes a whole range of different tones, from greenish to dusty earthy, combined under the concept of "camouflage color" or camouflage. This color has often been used by armies around the world for military uniforms, including camouflage. The word for color appeared in the middle of the 19th century thanks to the units of the British Indian Army. They used the Hindi word "khaki" referring to the color of their uniform. Light brown uniforms were preferred because they didn't show dirt, but the main reason why all colonial units of the British Army eventually wore khakis was because the shade made great camouflage. In Western fashion, this is the standard color for casual dresses and casual trousers. The military uniform itself is also often referred to as khaki.

Origin of khaki paint

The word "khaki" is a borrowing from Hindustani, where it came from Persian. It denotes the color of the soil, a yellowish-earthy shade. The word "khaki" was first used as the name of a color in 1848. The designation of gray-brown with this word appeared in English thanks to the British Indian Army. Initially, the border troops were dressed in their native costume, which consisted of a dressing gown and white pajama trousers made from coarse homemade cotton, as well as a cotton turban. But this ensemble was too inappropriate for the hot climate and very conspicuous. Details of local recruits' clothing were too bright and poorly ventilated.

Then, as an alternative, they were offered a material dyed with a greyish-yellow paint made from mulberries. Clothing dyed light brown helped blend in with the environment. Before getting the khaki-colored paint, the stems and inflorescences of the mulberry tree were collected, and then an extract was made from them. It is believed that this dye was previously used by Afghan tribes for camouflage. The khaki fabric dyed in this way was usually linen or cotton. The cooler and more pleasant khaki camouflage uniform proved its superiority and was eventually adopted as active service summer wear by all regiments of the region - British and Indian. In 1902, the khaki uniform became the official service dress of the British Continental Forces.

Neutral khaki in fine art

Khaki is very popular in the fine arts and is actively used by artists. It is a bit like raw umber, which is needed for underpainting or to muffle bright colors, and also as a base tone for skin, writing tree trunks, earth. Hue is valued for its relative neutrality. The question of what colors to mix to get a khaki color often worries aspiring artists. When you look at the color wheel, the right shades are opposite each other. Complementary colors are blue and orange, red and green, yellow and purple. Mixing any of these pairs will help create base browns that are slightly different from each other.

Using oil or acrylic paints, getting this color scheme is quite simple. But it can be problematic to achieve a certain shade of khaki. Most often, a mixture of brown and green is used to obtain this complex color. After obtaining a tone close to the desired one, a black or yellow tint is added. If you add black or white, you can lighten or darken the paint. Which colors to mix to get khaki depends on the desired result. But mixing the base colors, it is impossible to create the desired shade at once. Therefore, before you get a khaki color, you should mix the paints in the same way as for brown. Then you will have to add other shades to the resulting color scheme to make it darker orlighter.

How to get khaki color when mixing paints

One of the easiest ways to create a base brown is to mix all the base colors together. This means that you are using a palette knife to mix the blue, yellow and red together. Another option for getting khaki is to mix raw umber and titanium white. In this case, the result will be close to a pale French gray, a warm green-gray. As an example, consider the Venetian plaster walls in khaki.

The first method is more often used - carefully mix all the primary colors. You can make the subtlest transitions of neutral shades from a mixture of basic ones. If you use a color wheel, you need to take complementary colors that are located one opposite the other. Since khaki has a yellowish tint, green-yellow, for example, cadmium yellow paint, is the central component in the mixture. Using it, you can get the desired color by adding cool red tones, warm bluish, warm white, titanium white, ultramarine blue.

Which acrylics to mix for a khaki

The question of how to get khaki color and mixing what shades will help to get closer to solving this problem, we have already considered. Now let's try to create the desired shade using acrylic paints as an example. For work, we need the paints themselves of several basic colors: red, yellow andblue as well as white. For our purpose, cadmium red, cadmium yellow medium, sky blue and titanium white are suitable. But you don't have to use these exact shades, try using a classic version of each base color and opaque white paint.

We also prepare additional tools:

• brush;
• water to clean the brush;
• work surface for testing mixtures;
• color mixing palette;
• palette knife;
• paper towels to clean with a palette knife between mixing.

How to mix acrylics for brown

Before getting the khaki color from the colors of the base palette, we place on it approximately the same size drops of red, yellow and blue, leaving a large amount of space between each of them. Add white, then combine equal parts of each of the base colors. Mix them together with a palette knife. In the process, you will get a rich brown color from a cloudy mixture. Depending on the base shades used, results may vary slightly.

Getting khaki from brown

After you have mixed the base brown color, add some white color. First enter a small amount, less than the other colors you added to make brown. If you immediately add the same amount, you can lighten it too much. Now you have a basic, rather soft brown. Decide for yourself if it's close enough to the khaki you'd like to use forhis picture. It often happens in painting that you need a more specific version of a color that will fit your vision. The resulting hue can be refined by adding more or less of any of the primary colors or white paint to it in order to change it to suit your needs.

Using blue and orange to create khakis

An alternative way to get khaki is to mix blue and orange. The resulting shade can be slightly changed by adding other colors. For example, to create a warmer tone, add red to the mixture. To create a darker one - purple or green. Add tertiary colors for a more subtle color change.

How to change the resulting shade of khaki

If you don't get the shade you want, follow these simple steps to change your khaki color. You can use them to change the shade according to your needs. Before you get a khaki color that is close to the shade of coffee with milk, you can add white paint. Add a little at a time until you reach your desired tone. Using one of the primary colors can also help create the right color, from soft to rich. Adding red or yellow will make the khaki color warmer and lighter, while the blue shade will be cooler. To make it even warmer, experiment with adding red or yellow paint. You need to do this little by little. If you want to get a very light shade of khaki, the easiest way is to take a lot of light paint and a small amountthe base brown you mixed earlier. Adding dark to light is easier than the other way around. You can increase or decrease the saturation and make the khaki color brighter by adding more of the base brown to the mixture. You can make it more muted by adding gray paint.

Getting a cool or dark shade of khaki

If the mixture gets too warm, you can add blue dye to cool it down. One way to get khaki wood tones for winter trees, dark hair or fur is to experiment with adding blue paint to the base mix. If it gets too bluish, you can add a little more red and yellow. Next, we'll look at how to get a darker khaki color, for example, for twilight scenes or dark trees. For this, you should not use black paint, as it can create cloudy tones. A khaki color that is dark but still bright can be achieved by adding a dark blue, such as ultramarine, to the mix.

Use CMYK model

Find exactly the shade of khaki that you need, you can also use the CMYK color model. CMYK is an abbreviation for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Find the brown you want. Image editors can calculate the exact percentages of magenta, yellow, cyan, and black needed for that color and then blend them accordingly. Please note that magenta, yellow, and cyan are more accurate primary colors, but they are not currently a standard for mixing paints.time.