How to Draw a Color Wheel (Or Just Print This One Out)
I love color wheels so much, and judging by all the cool color wheel merch out there, everyone else does, too. Not only are they essential learning tools for artists and students, they are gloriously beautiful.
With this post, I will show you how to make a 6-color color wheel that you can then fill in with paint, marker, colored pencil, etc. If you don’t feel like drawing one, you can scroll to the bottom of the post where I have a link for you to print one out.
This post includes affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosure policy here.
Drawing a Color Wheel
To draw a color wheel, the first thing you will want to do is trace around a plate or bowl. Or pull out your favorite compass and create a circle on paper. I suggest using the appropriate paper for the medium you are using. In this case, I printed my color wheel on card stock, which worked fine for my needs.
If you want to test your colors on a specific paper, you’ll have to experiment with printing it. I was able to print onto Legion Stonehenge on my HP without it jamming, and that is pretty thick paper at 250 gsm. I’ve tried watercolor paper with my printer, and it promptly rejected it.
If you are using my color wheel printable, most printers take card stock, and some will take thicker paper like watercolor paper. If your printer has a rear paper feeder, you’re more likely to have luck with watercolor paper as it doesn’t need to wind around inside of the printer.
Drawing the Lines
You can eyeball the lines for your color wheel if you are not overly concerned about perfectly even pie pieces. This can give a fun, loose look to your color wheel. If you do want the same size wedges, here is how to measure them around your circle. Coincidentally, this is probably the point that many of you will opt to print out my free color wheel. L and O and L
After your lines are drawn, it is time to paint! Whee! Or color! Whoo! Here are my finished color wheels for you to be inspired by:
The very basic color wheel is 6 colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. If you want to get a little fancy and make an 8-color color wheel, you can add in a couple more colors to give the color wheel a little bit more nuance.
Tips For Painting Printables
- If you try to print on watercolor paper, most people seem to have the best luck with hand-feeding the paper. Or some printers will actually have a paper feeder in the back of the printer for thicker paper.
- Set your paper settings to thick paper (if you can) and highest quality.
- The best printer to use if you will be painting is a laser printer – inkjet prints can smudge.
- If you are stubborn like I am and print with your inkjet printer, try to paint just inside the printed lines to minimize smearing. Actually, I find that sometimes my print smear and sometimes they don’t when I paint them. Mysterious.
- You can have Staples or other office supply stores make inkjet prints for you!
Paint Colors for a Color Wheel
If you are using acrylic paints for your color wheel, these are the colors I recommend for your primary colors:
Liquitex Basics – great for beginners, students, kids
Liquitex or Golden Heavy Body Acrylics – what the pros use. Better quality, more pigment, lovely and buttery. I am using:
Here is how you paint the colors in the wheel:
- Squeeze out a bit of red, blue, and yellow on your palette, with space between the paint colors.
- Paint one color in every other pie wedge.
On the palette, mix equal amounts of each color and paint it in between the 2 colors you’ve mixed. For instance:
- Mix blue and red to a purple and paint it in between the blue and red wedges.
- Mix blue and yellow to a green and paint it in between the blue and yellow wedges.
- Mix red and yellow to an orange and paint it in between the red and yellow wedges.
To get the extra 2 colors for the 8-piece wheel, turquoise and violet, you will mix green with blue and then purple with red. Now you have 2 tertiary colors.
I love this video of C. Brooke Ring as she mixes acrylic colors and makes a beautiful freehand color wheel (while holding her wee baby!) She shows how deep you can go if you systematically mix colors from primaries on in.
If you are using colored pencils or other pre-mixed art supplies, feel free to choose the colors that best approximate the paint colors shown. You can visually color mix with colored pencils by layering, so I might have to do a post on that in the future.
Whether you are creating a color wheel to practice mixing colors, to become more familiar with color theory, or just because you think they are pretty, this is a great introduction. If you want to go beyond the 6 or 8-color color wheels, and get fancier with your color wheels, I sell a very cool variety pack of color wheels to print out and play around with in my shop.
Print Your Free Color Wheel
Click on the image below to print a pdf of the 6-wedge color wheel:
