Simple and crisp, white is the colorless color that makes a statement by saying so little. There’s debate over white’s status as an actual color. That’s because it’s not technically on the color spectrum. White is what our eyes perceive when all of the wavelengths are being reflected. In contrast, we see black when there is very little light to reflect.
What Colors Make White? How to Make White (Updated 2023)
In this article, we’re going to discuss what colors make white and how to make white paint.
A landscape covered in freshly fallen snow. A blank page, waiting for inspiration to strike. Your computer screen when you’re typing a document.
What do these things have in common? The color white.
When talking about colors, white is something of an anomaly. Usually, it’s depicted as negative space; the area that needs colors or designs put upon it.
Nonetheless, white can be a powerful tool for both the artist and the designer. White is the most common color that starts with “W”.
But what colors make white? How can you create the color white from scratch? Today we’re going to look into this hue and see if we can’t unlock its secrets.
Color Theory: White
One thing to understand about the fundamental nature of color is saturation. The more saturated a color is, the deeper and richer it is.
You can also mix colors to create new shades, which is how we wind up with such a vibrant display of different hues.
How to Mix Colors Together
There are two methods by which you can do this. First, there is additive mixing, which is when you combine two shades of light together.
Since each light is building on the other, it can produce a brighter color.
Second, there is subtractive mixing. This is what most people are familiar with, as it’s the process of combining paints or other colored substances to make another hue.
This is the most common form of color mixing, but it is somewhat limited, particularly when it comes to making white.
Achromatic Colors
Both black and white are sometimes seen as being outside of the color wheel.
Since they are usually a form of shading (making another color brighter or darker), they don’t exist in the same way as other hues.
As such, they are called achromatic. They don’t have any saturation or hue: they are simply a shade.
Gray is another example of achromatic, although it’s not as easy to classify as both black and white.
Overall, when trying to understand how to make white, it’s essential that you realize that there are limitations to the color itself, which can make it challenging to create from scratch.
White in Design
As we mentioned, this shade is usually employed as negative space. A blank sheet of paper, an unpainted wall, or an empty document on the computer is all perfect examples of where white is the background that needs to be filled in.
Nonetheless, the color white does have some incredible psychological connotations. Typically, it is seen as being pure and clean.
An unsullied canvas that is both inviting and calming. Understanding how white affects our senses and our perceptions means that you can utilize it much more effectively in your designs.
White is also much more radiant than other colors. Even hues like yellow or bright green are dark in comparison to pure white, which is why it can seem like it’s a beacon of light in your design.
However, because of its heavy connotation with negative space, you have to be careful when employing sections of white in your projects.
If there is a part of your piece that is pure white, some may think that something is missing, or that that section is blank.
As such, it’s imperative that you create it in such a way as to illustrate that it’s supposed to be there.
The other thing about white is that there are different shades of it. You can have a slightly darker tinge, which can create a more dynamic mood, particularly when coupled with other colors.
Nonetheless, you can also mask the shading by pairing the white with something dark and bold.
Overall, white is an excellent way to add luster and shine to your project, provided that you know how to implement it effectively.
What Colors Make White?
The interesting thing to know about white is that adding red , green and blue light together will give you white light. However, this technique does not work when trying to make white paint. In fact, no combination of other colors will make white paint. That’s because any paint color you try to work with will absorb at least one particular wavelength.
Many people incorrectly assume that mixing every color of the rainbow together (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) will produce white. However, this will actually create gray. Next, let’s cover how white paint is actually made.
How Is White Paint Made?
You may be wondering how paint manufacturers produce white paint when it is a seemingly impossible task. The answer is that they use a white pigment. The formula for white paint includes some type of medium like acrylic or alkyd resin mixed with a white pigment. Generally, paint manufacturers will use a pigment like lead carbonate, zinc oxide, calcium carbonate, calcium hydroxide or mineral powders.
Making white paint is a delicate process that requires careful chemistry. What’s more, the process of creating white paint can actually be rather dangerous if proper precautions aren’t taken to avoid exposure to potentially toxic pigment choices.
Mixing Different Shades of White
While concocting white paint at home is off the table for most artists, they can still use their creativity to create custom white shades. That’s because you can add hints and accents to any white paint that you purchase. Here’s a look at the combinations for some common shades of white:
Pale Almond: White + Raw Sienna
Off White: White + Brown/Black
Beige: White + Brown
Ivory: White + Yellow + Blue
Eggshell: White + Yellow + Light Brown
Light Honey: White + Yellow + Dark Brown
There are some best practices to follow to ensure that your white doesn’t become saturated by the colors you’re adding. You always want to add the new colors to your white instead of adding white to the new colors. Always start by dabbing in less than you think you need to arrive at the shade of white you’re attempting to make. Overpowering colors like brown and black will quickly alter pure white. Of course, the good thing about working with white is that you can always simply add more white to “undo” what you’ve done.
In situations where you’re mixing three colors to get to a shade of white, patience is essential. For instance, using white , yellow and blue to make ivory paint is a very delicate process. You often don’t need more than a pinprick of blue if you’re just making a small batch of paint to use on one element of your canvas. Again, the goal is to simply add “dabs” to your white base until you begin to see the shade that you’re aiming for appear in your palette.
When creating colors in the beige family using white, you have a lot of freedom to work with. The general formula for beige is always going to be white and brown . However, you will be able to make your beige as light or dark as you’d like based on the amount of brown you choose to swirl into your white paint. In fact, you can even create several shades of beige to layer together using the same white and brown tubes of paint for every single shade.
Start Small
The fastest way to end up with too much paint is to go too dark too fast, because you’ll end up needing to add twice as much white paint back into the mix in order to lighten the hue back up again. That’s why I like to start with one cup of white paint and then slowly add in the mix of other colors. You’ll quickly find out which colors are working and which ones aren’t. Once you’ve got a small ratio that works, you can bump it up to a bigger mix
Pro Tip – Avoid Black: When zeroing in on the final off-white color, it can often be the right hue, just not the right shade. If a color is too bright, often the urge is to add black. In reality, using darker colors like Van Dyke Brown, Raw Umber or Paynes Grey are better choices. They have a magical quality to darken a hue without “graying out” the color the way black can.
When teaching color mixing, I like to have my students mix with Rosco Scenic Paints rather than house paint because the colors are pure, they stay bright and they don’t “fight each other” the way that premixed house paint colors often do.
Off-whites can be broken down the easiest by figuring out what the original color was before without the white to lighten it. Beiges are the trickiest because they are usually a mix of earth tones, usually ranging from Raw Sienna & Raw Umber to Burnt Umber & Burnt Sienna (and who knows what else!!), that are mixed into the white. This is why I think it’s important to…
Learn Your Way Around The Earth Tone Color Wheel
We are all familiar with the traditional Rainbow Color Wheel with Red, Yellow and Blue as the primaries and the center filled in with black. In reality, however, if you were to mix ROYGBIV together, you would not get black – you would get a big muddy brown mess. That’s because when you mix complementary colors together, you are “canceling” out the original color to create a muddy, more neutral shade of the two colors. I teach my students how the Rosco earth tones originate from clay earth pigments, such as umber, ochre and sienna, and that they’re the “pretty versions” of those muddy mixes.
Because this is often a new concept/ addition to my student’s color vocabulary, I made a chart on muslin that compares the Rosco Supersaturated earth tones to the Off Broadway earth tones – each mixed with water and mixed with white – to better see how the colors work. This chart, just like the traditional color wheel, shows how some of the earth tone colors are warmer while some are cooler, and really helps when deciding what color to start an off-white mix with.
Pro Tip – Let It Down: Because Rosco’s Scenic Paints are so rich in pigment, they are often thicker than normal house paint and often do not disperse as well when mixing. This is especially true when it comes to their Supersaturated paint concentrate, which is designed to be let down with water. I rarely use Off Broadway or Iddings straight out of the can when mixing either. I prefer to dilute the paint at least 1:1 with water. This makes the paint more fluid and mix faster. I also find I have more control over how it mixes and I’m able to avoid that dreaded “oops moment” when I realize I’ve added too much color and I now need to add a gallon of white into the mix to lighten it up again.
Five Off-White Recipes For You To Mix Up
Mixing color takes patience and lots of practice. To get you started, I have included some color mixtures to create some of the more popular off-white and beige colors often needed in scenic painting. Use these “recipes” as a starting point, and then adjust as-needed. I begin with white house paint and all of the colors referenced are Rosco Off Broadway scenic paints:
Butter
4 parts white + 1 part of an equal 50/50 mix of Yellow Ochre and Golden Yellow
A soft, creamy yellow. I use this color as a base tone for faux wood techniques or as a highlight color in foliage.
Almond
4 parts white + 1 part Raw Sienna
A very useful, warm off-white/beige. This is perhaps the off-white I use most. I use it as a base tone for sand & light colored ground treatments, as a background/aging color for old white signs and as my go-to “off-white” when the design doesn’t specify what kind of off-white is needed.
Khaki
4 parts white + 1 part Raw Umber + 1 part Raw Sienna
A darker beige. I use it as base tone for stone, brick grout (and cargo pants).
Cement
4 parts white + 1 part Raw Umber
A more useful grey than mixing black & white. This is the formula I use to start all of my mixes for cement surfaces, whether they’re actually textured or faux finished.
Greige (A Grey Beige)
4 parts white + 1 part Raw Umber + 1 part Paynes Grey
In my opinion, this is the perfect grey because it works on stage as both a warm and cool grey (depending on how it’s lit). I use it to paint all sorts of grey things, including stone and metal work like steel panels, pipes and posts.
Don’t forget to test-test-test your mixes before you commit to making a large batch. Remember that paint will almost always dry slightly darker, so keep your wet-mixes a little lighter than what you want the final outcome to be.
Pro Tip – Beware Of Metamerism: Metamerism is a phenomenon that occurs when colors change when viewed in different light sources. The cooler/greener lighting produced by the fluorescent fixtures that are often found in scene shops are famous for sucking the life out of all colors – especially beiges! You will find that your color mixes can really shift once you get them out on stage with the warm, full-spectrum incandescents. If at all possible, try to have the lighting in your mixing area as close as possible to the lighting set up of the performance area.
Mixing paint can be an intimidating technique to learn. As with any technique, you learn it with years of practice. Hopefully, the Pro-Tips and recipes above have helped alleviate some of your color-mixing fear and inspires you to mix up your own off-whites, greys – and any other color your scenery needs!
