This topic would make a great article.

If you want to paint a pale colour, there are several ways. These colours are used to highlight areas of the picture or those where the lighting is most intense. Read more?

1. This allows you to apply a thin paint layer and still see the white surface of your painting. You can do this as long you’re painting a white surface. Most of the time, yes.

2. The colour can be made paler by adding white. This is called tinting. Unless you want to use red. If you mix white with red, you will end up with pink. This probably isn’t what you intended. That was the main concern of my question.

Red highlights for

To get the effect of Point 1 when painting on a not-white surface, paint the highlight area in white. Then let it dry. Finally paint over with a thin coating of red. The same technique can be used with any colour.

When adding highlights, let your paint dry first before applying a thin white layer to the highlighted area. Mix the paints very wet if you wish to see some of your red. If you apply too much white, it will look like chalk.

The alternative is to add more layers of paint in the darkest areas. Add extra layers of paint to make the color richer. This richer color will increase the effect of the highlight in the area.

You can also try this effect on an extra piece of paper. It is only necessary to paint the highlighted area once, and then add more layers for a deeper colour.

The results will improve if you also add shades of shadow red.

You will need to consider what color you want the shadow of. This could become a violet by adding some purple. To make your colour more neutral, you can add some of the complimentary color (for red this would be green).