Paint Color Conversion/ Substitution For Different Brands!

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I get a lot of requests about converting or substituting brands of paints to other brands. Most of the tutorials on this blog utilize the Liquitex BASICS brand of paints and some other brands of student grade acrylic paints.

A common question I get is what if I want to use craft paint but the tutorial calls for the tube paint? Can I convert colors? The short answer is yes you can! If you are okay with it not being a 100% match.

Also, is it okay to mix acrylic paint brands in a painting? Yes it is absolutely okay! I am all about using whatever materials you have on hand. If that means you use a tube of craft paint for one color, a tube of Liquitex BASICS for another – that is fine!

It is important to know that paint brands won’t convert 100% exact match because of the way the paints are mixed in those tubes for that brand. However, you can get a close impression of that color (or a substitution).

See Also…

• Recommended Acrylic Painting Supplies
• Recommended Brushes

What many people do is take the color chart (like the one pictured below) that I provide on my tutorials and try to find a close color to it. That is fine and works often! For example: “Dioxazine Purple” can be any shade of that purple you may have on hand whether that be a craft paint of purple or a tube paint labeled with a similar but different name.

However, if you need a more detailed way to convert colors, this post will be helpful for that.

Converting to Craft Paints

Common craft paint brands include: Apple Barrel by Plaid, DecoArt Americana & Craftsmart Paints. When I try to match colors from these paints, I like to use their online color swatch charts. Although the colors on the screen may not match the actual color, it is still super helpful when trying to match another paint color.

Links to Some Color Swatch Charts:

• Apple Barrel Plaid Craft Paint Chart
• DecoArt Americana Color Chart
• Other DecoArt Colors
• CraftSmart (there doesn’t seem to be a chart for this but you can go on the Michaels website to see their colors)
• Liquitex BASICS Colors

Substitution Charts

(Remember these are NOT 100% exact conversions but are more like a substitution)

Liquitex BASICS to Apple Barrel Craft (18 piece set on Amazon)

• Titanium White – White
• Cadmium Yellow Light Hue – Yellow Flame
• Cadmium Yellow Medium – Bright Yellow
• Medium Magenta – Bright magenta
• Light Portrait Pink – Fuchsia + White
• Cadmium Orange Hue – Jack O Lantern
• Cadmium Red Medium – Flag Red
• Dioxazine Purple – Purple Iris (much lighter)
• Light Blue Permanent – Parrot Blue
• Bright Aqua Green – Bimini Blue
• Cerulean Blue Hue – Bright Blue
• Phthalo Blue – Too Blue
• Light Green Permanent – New Shamrock
• Dark Green Permanent or Hooker’s Green Hue – Holly Branch
• Burnt Umber – Nutmeg Brown
• Raw Umber – Melted Chocolate
• Neutral Gray Value 5 – Pewter Gray
• Mars Black – Black

Note: these are just the conversion to the 18 piece set that you can get on Amazon. Apple Barrel has a HUGE color selection. If you need to convert different colors, I recommend looking at their online chart.

Liquitex BASICS to Craftsmart (24 piece on Michael’s)

Craftsmart is an economical brand of acrylic craft paint you can find at Michaels.

• Titanium White – White
• Unbleached Titanium – Vanilla
• Quinacridone Magenta – Pink Blast or Bright Pink
• Cadmium Red Medium Hue – Red
• Deep Violet + Red Oxide – Burgundy
• Light Pink (used to be called light portrait pink) – Coral
• Cadmium Orange Hue – Orange
• Cadmium Red Light Hue or Vivid Red Orange – Dark Orange
• Cadmium Yellow Light Hue – Light Yellow
• Brilliant Yellow Green – Lime Green
• Light Green Permanent – Apple Tart
• Light Blue Permanent – Pale Blue
• Bright Aqua Green – Ocean Breeze
• Cerulean Blue or Brilliant Blue – Island Blue
• Phthalo Blue or Ultramarine Blue – Bright Blue
• Prussian Blue – Navy
• Dioxazine Purple – Violet
• Prism Violet – Purple
• Burnt Umber – Brown
• Neutral Gray Value 5 – Grey
• Mars Black – Black

Liquitex BASICS to Artist’s Loft

Artist loft is another brand of paint you can get at Michael’s. Many times these tubes are a few dollars cheaper than the BASICS & many use the same color names as the BASICS. I find the quality of this paint to be not as great as the Liquitex but I do love using their big tube of Titanium White because that color gets used up a lot.

• Bright Aqua Green – Aqua Green
• Cadmium Yellow Medium – Bright Yellow
• Phthalo Blue – Phthalo Blue
• Medium Magenta – Light Magenta
• Quinacridone Magenta – Deep Magenta
• Burnt Umber – Burnt Umber
• Cerulean Blue Hue – Cerulean Blue
• Cadmium Red Medium – Crimson
• Dark Green Permanent – Deep Green
• Cadmium Yellow Deep – Deep Yellow
• Alizarin Crimson Hue – Deep Red
• Hooker’s Green – Sap Green
• Brilliant Yellow Green – Green Yellow
• Neutral Gray Value 5 – Grey
• Light Green Permanent – Light Green
• Ivory Black – Ivory Black
• Cadmium Yellow Light Hue – Lemon Yellow
• Light Blue Permanent – Light Blue
• Light Blue Violet – Light Violet
• Light Portrait Pink – Portrait Pink
• Mars Black – Mars Black
• Cadmium Orange Hue – Orange
• Unbleached Titanium – Unbleached Titanium
• Primary Blue – Brilliant Blue
• Phthalo Green – Phthalo Green
• Turquoise – Turquoise
• Light Green Permanent – Emerald Green or Light Green
• Cerulean Blue – Cerulean Blue
• Ultramarine Blue – Ultramarine Blue
• Yellow Oxide – Yellow Ochre
• Dioxazine Purple – Violet
• Cadmium Orange Hue – Orange
• Naples Yellow – Naples Yellow

Liquitex BASICS to DecoArt Americana Premium (tube paint not the bottles)

I LOVE these DecoArt tube paints! They are not the same as the DecoArt Americana bottle paint, they are marketed as artist tube paint. They are sometimes hard to find but I’ve seen them at Michael’s, Amazon and Joann. Many of their colors are labeled very similar to the Liquitex BASICS paints.

• Cadmium Red Medium – Cadmium Red Medium Hue
• Cadmium Orange Hue – Cadmium Orange Hue
• Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue – Cadmium Yellow Hue
• Unbleached Titanium – Titan Buff
• Quinacridone Magenta – Quinacridone Magenta
• Medium Magenta – Primary Magenta
• Primary Red – Quinacridone Red
• Raw Umber – Raw Umber
• Burnt Umber – Burnt Umber
• Burnt Sienna – Burnt Sienna
• Raw Sienna – Raw Sienna
• Primary Yellow – Primary Yellow
• Light Olive Green – Green Gold
• Hookers Green Permanent – Phthalo Green Yellow or Sap Green
• Light Green Permanent – Yellow Green Light
• Phthalo Blue – Phthalo Blue
• Bright Aqua Green – Cobalt Turquoise Hue
• Phthalo Green + Bright Aqua Green or Turquoise – Phthalo Turquoise
• Prussian Blue – Prussian Blue
• Ultramarine Blue – Ultramarine Blue
• Cerulean Blue Hue – Cerulean Blue
• Dioxazine Purple – Dioxazine Purple
• Mars Black – Carbon Black
• Titanium White – Titanium White
• Pyrrole Red – Pyrrole Red
• Deep Violet – Quinacridone Violet
• Alizarin Crimson Hue – Vermillion Hue
• Deep Green Permanent – Viridian Green Hue

Liquitex BASICS to Essentials Royal & Langnickel

These tube paints by Royal & Langnickel are very similar to the Liquitex Basics and almost all of them are labeled the same way. I think I’ve only seen the tubes sold at Joann but it looks like you can get them on Amazon too.

• Bright Aqua Green – Aqua
• Brilliant Purple – Bright Purple
• Brilliant Yellow Green – Yellow Green
• Burnt Sienna – Burnt Sienna
• Burnt Umber – Burnt Umber
• Light Green Permanent – Cadmium Green
• Cadmium Orange Hue – Cadmium Orange
• Cadmium Red Medium Hue – Cadmium Red
• Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue – Cadmium Yellow
• Cerulean Blue – Cerulean Blue
• Cobalt Blue Hue – Cobalt Blue
• Ultramarine Blue – Dark Ultramarine Blue
• Hooker’s Green Hue – Hooker’s Green
• Cadmium Yellow Light Hue – Lemon Yellow
• Light Blue Permanent – Light Blue
• Medium Magenta – Magenta
• Mars Black – Mars Black
• Naples Yellow – Naples Yellow
• Napthol Crimson – Napthaline Carmine
• Quinacridone Magenta – Primary Magenta
• Primary Yellow – Primary Yellow
• Phthalo Blue – Phthalo Blue
• Raw Sienna – Raw Sienna
• Raw Umber – Raw Umber
• Pyrrole Red – Scarlet Lake
• Titanium White – Titanium White
• Red Oxide – Venetian Red
• Dioxazine Purple – Violet
• Yellow Ochre – Yellow Ochre

Links To Other Online Paint Charts

There are a few more charts I’ve searched on google and was able to find conversion for other brands. If I find anymore I will also link them below:

• DecoArt Color Conversion Charts
• Delta Ceramcoat to DecoArt Americana
• This chart has Golden Acrylics, Winsor & Newton and a few other brand conversions

Other Paint Brands Not Listed

It would be very challenging to provide a chart to every acrylic paint (and craft paint) brand that exists out there! Many times the paint that comes in the tubes are labeled with the same color name so that makes it easy.

Other times, especially with the craft paints, we get fun names like “bubble gum pink” and “mistletoe green”. That makes it a little hard to match which “bubble gum pink” goes with “medium magenta”.

I would recommend googling the brand name and the words “conversion chart” or “color chart” to see if there is anything. Otherwise you will just have to use your best judgment to match the color swatches. Remember art & painting is supposed to be fun and relaxing so try not to stress too much about matching the colors up perfectly!

Thanks for reading and hope you found these substitution charts helpful!

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