Mixing recipe
How to mix burgundy
Target
#7A3340
Recipe mixes to #813A48
Burgundy is a dark wine red, and it is almost entirely Alizarin Crimson. One part of white in eleven lifts the crimson out of its near-black masstone and brings up the red. Two tubes, both in a common box.
The recipe
Step by step
Build the pile from the biggest, lightest component and work toward the strongest tinter. Check the pile against each swatch before moving on.
- Start with 1 part Titanium Whitepile #F6F6F4
- Add 11 parts Alizarin Crimsonpile #813A48Strong tinter. Add it in knife-tip doses and mix fully before adding more.
Another route
Alizarin with Yellow Ochre, two to one, is a slightly browner burgundy about a point further off, nearer the color of old leather than wine. Use it for burgundy in warm light or anywhere the wine red reads too cold.
What goes wrong
Alizarin Crimson is transparent and looks black in a pile, so judge it in a thin smear or against white paper. The white is the whole control here: a second part turns burgundy to a dusty rose. Add it a knife-tip at a time. If the result looks too purple, which Alizarin can, a speck of Cadmium Red warms it. Alizarin Crimson (flagged by the mixing guide as moving a pile hard for its share) is the paint to be careful with here: it goes in last, a knife-tip at a time, and a little too much cannot be mixed back out.
Related colors
Results vary with brand, lighting and medium. Acrylic dries a touch darker than it looks wet. Treat this as a mixing aid, not a lab instrument: it tells you which tubes to reach for and roughly in what proportion. Fine-tune the last stretch by eye.