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Painting for Beginners: How To Mix A Beautiful Orange
To identify color temperature you’ll need to learn how to see and identify warm and cool colors. Some colors are easy to discern, but looking at so many colors in so many brands “color temperature” can get tricky. In the world of paint, each color has a warm and cool green, blue, red, yellow, earth color, and then the addition of black and white. Comparing a warm red to a cool red and then compare those to a third color, you should be able to see if it’s yellower, bluer, or in between the first two reds. Once you begin to “see” the differences it becomes easy to identify any color.
Here is a website to help you determine if your color bias is warm or cool.
https://gamblincolors.com/color-temperature-list/
How to mix orange that is highly saturated
Try making your own chart of vivid oranges using the tube colors you already have. Mix together warm yellows and warm reds, cool reds and warm yellows, warm reds and cool yellows.
Here is an example of how to mix orange in an organized way, and then refer back to the charts later. Notice, to make the most vivid orange you need to have a yellow and a red with the same bias. Increasing the amount of yellow in your mix will create a higher value and more luminescent orange. Remember that white is a cool color, so adding white to your orange will raise the value but eventually cool the orange.
How to Mix Orange – Laying out you palette.
Top row: Cadmium Red Med, Alizarin Crimson and Quinacridone Magenta.
Left column: Cadmium Yellow medium, and Hansa Yellow.
Some of these oranges are very close and very saturated. (acrylic)
These are some charts for how to mix orange done in water color. This website has a lot of useful information especially for watercolorists on paint mixing and how visual color works:
https://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color16.html
Examples: vivid orange
In this painting, I painted the orange flowers using Cadmium Orange and Cadmium Yellow Deep. Since they both have the same bias, this creates a vivid orange. If I had used a lemon yellow or cool yellow, the orange would have been duller, as these yellows have a green bias. Remember this when you want to know how to mix orange.
How to mix orange that is less saturated
Make your own chart of dull oranges. Dull oranges, also referred to as greyed or neutralized, occur when a color is mixed with its opposite color on the color wheel, and adding white or adding or a third primary color. To make dull orange, mix together two colors with a cool bias, or one with a cool bias and one with a warm bias. Start out lighter.
Usually it takes a very small amount of a dark color to significantly darken a light color, whereas it will take plenty of white or a light color to have much effect on a dark color. Save time and paint by always adding dark paint to light in small quantities, rather than vice versa. I have chosen Payne’s grey due to its blue bias which grays out oranges very nicely.
For how to paint oranges in different and fun ways, practice making a burnt orange, or other greyed oranges. Follow the process below but add the tiniest touch of blue once the orange looks good.
Put a line of yellow, a line of red, and a dot of blue on your palette in a triangle. With a clean brush, pull paint from the edges of those lines into the middle to create a mixture. (Use the edge of the lines instead of the middle so that you have plenty of clean paint to use as you mix. You don’t want to dirty an entire amount of paint on your first attempts.)
Test your mixture as you go by marking the edge of a paper and laying it next to your target: burnt orange. If your mixture is too red, add more yellow. Too yellow, add more red. Too brown, add more red and yellow. Remember use just the tiniest amount of blue, you can always add more. Try this with different variants of oranges. Remember the biases of the mixes to help you make note of the more vivid and dull oranges. Note, some greyed oranges will lean toward a greenish orange, while others mixes will go toward brown.
Top row: Cadmium Red Medium, Alizarin Crimson, Quinacridone Magenta.
Left column: Cadium Yellow Medium, Hansa Yellow, Titanium White.
Old Masters examples: vivid/ dull oranges
Color Temperature: Blue vs. Red
Blue and red are both bold, bright colors. But they are very different from each other! Blue is a color often associated with water. It creates a calm, tranquil atmosphere like the ocean waves or a trickling stream. In contrast, red is a rich, passionate color. It’s associated with fire and can evoke feelings of anger, passion, love, and power. When it comes to color temperature, blue is a cold color. But red is a warm color on the opposite end of the spectrum. So, these two colors are strong and intense in their own ways. As a result, it’s even more interesting to see what you get when you combine them.
Before we go any further, it’s important to understand how colors work. Blue and red are two of three primary colors, the third being yellow. You probably remember this from your art lessons in grade school. But what exactly are primary colors? Basically, primary colors are colors that you can mix to create other colors. However, the reverse isn’t true. You can’t make primary colors by mixing other colors together. It just won’t work. So that means you can’t make a true yellow, red, or blue by combining other pigments. When we mix two primary colors, we get a secondary color. And by mixing secondary colors, you’ll end up with tertiary colors. A simple way to understand primary, secondary, and tertiary colors is by looking at a color wheel. This tool is also helpful if you want to create a complementary color palette. You can create all the colors you see on the color wheel by combining the primary colors in a certain way. Knowing this gives you the potential to mix any color you can imagine – an essential tool for any artist! So, what do you get when you combine red and blue? Let’s find out!
Red and Blue Combined Makes What Color?
As red and blue are primary colors, you can’t make them by mixing other colors together. However, you can mix red and blue together! When you mix blue and red, you’ll get some sort of purple. The exact shade will depend on what type of blue and red you used. As there are loads of different shades of blue and red, there are a lot of possibilities. You can probably name lots of purple shades. For example, there’s violet, lilac, aubergine, fuchsia, and magenta. Check out my guide to 70+ names for purple here for more inspiration!
So, now you know the theory behind mixing colors, and you want to have a go for yourself. You can do this with any kind of paint, from watercolors to acrylics and gouache. The effect should be the same. I recommend choosing a medium you’re familiar with and use a lot. It’s best to start with equal amounts of red and blue paint. Then, when you mix them together, you’ll get a violet shade. This is a true purple color that’s exactly between red and blue on the color wheel. So, what happens if you don’t have an equal ratio of blue to red? If you add more blue paint, you’ll get a blue-violet color. This shade will fall on the cool side of the color wheel as blue has a cold temperature. It will also look brighter and have strong blue undertones. In contrast, if you add more red, you’ll get a very different result. You’ll end up with a rich, warm, earthy shade of purple. Thanks to the extra red pigment, it will have red undertones and can even look a little brown. The exact shade depends on what blue and red shades you start with. So, let’s look at a couple of examples.
Alizarin Crimson + Ultramarine Blue
This color combo mixes a rich red shade with a bright blue. However, Alizarin crimson already has blue undertones. So, when you combine these two colors, you’ll get a purple-gray color. It works well if you want a muted purple, but it might not be what you had in mind.
Alizarin Crimson + Cerulean Blue
You can try swapping ultramarine blue for cerulean blue if you want a richer purple color. This lighter shade is a much better color to combine with alizarin crimson. As a result, you’ll get a lovely, bright purple.
Permanent Rose + Ultramarine Blue
Another alternative is to use this light red, confusing called permanent rose. Mix it with ultramarine blue, and you’ll get a purple/violet color. There are so many different paint shades you can use. My best tip is to try them out for yourself and experiment with various combinations. Then, you’ll know what to expect when mixing colors for your artwork.
Mixing Blue + Red + White
Once you’ve created your purple shade, you can lighten it by adding white paint. Mix in a drop at a time until you get the desired result.
Mixing Blue + Red + Black
The same goes if you want to make your purple color darker. You can gradually add a little black paint to the mix. But be very careful that you don’t add too much – it’s easy to be too heavy-handed! And once you add too much black paint, it’s hard to go back and remove it again. A safer option than adding black is to mix in a little more dark blue paint. As it’s a darker shade, it will make your purple look darker too. But keep your color ratio in mind, so you don’t alter the shade too much.
Mixing Red and Blue Light
Most of this article refers to mixing red and blue pigments, as that’s what most artists need to know. But there’s a crucial difference between mixing pigments and mixing light. 
The essential thing to understand is that light uses an additive color system. That means when you combine all the primary colors, you end up with white. In contrast, when working with paint, you’ll get black if you mix all the colors. We refer to this as the subtractive color system. So, when you combine blue and red light, you get magenta. Although violet and magenta are similar, they are not exactly the same. That’s handy to know if you ever need to mix different light colors. 
So, now you have a good idea of what happens when you have a red-blue combination. You can mix these two primary colors to make all sorts of purple shades. When you mix red and blue pigment, you’ll get violet. Add some blue, and you’ll create a cooler blue-violet shade. But add more red, and you’ll get a warm red-violet color. As this is one of the most basic aspects of color mixing, it’s useful to know. It will help you become more confident in mixing paint and blending colors. Then, you can build on this knowledge by diving deeper into our color theory guides.
Reflect and Share
Talk about what children discovered in their color-mixing explorations. Have one or more of the ice cube trays containing the mixed-color water nearby so children can demonstrate their ideas.
On a different day, you might try the activity using blue and red food coloring.
Related Book
You may want to read children the book, Little Blue and Little Yellow, by Leo Lionni, a story about mixing the colors blue and yellow.
- Stand Alone
- Indoor
- 20 – 30 minutes
Related Game
Paint Splat
Next Activity
Peep and the Big Wide World ® is produced by WGBH and 9 Story Entertainment in association with TVOntario.
Major funding for PEEP and the Big Wide World is provided by the National Science Foundation.
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This PEEP and the Big Wide World material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1222607. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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© 2023 WGBH Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. Peep and the Big Wide World and the Peep characters and related indicia are trademarks of WGBH Educational Foundation. All third party trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Used with permission. “Peep,” “Quack,” “Chirp,” “Tom” and “Nellie” were originally created by Kai Pindal for the National Film Board of Canada productions The Peep Show, © National Film Board of Canada, 1962, and Peep and the Big Wide World, © National Film Board of Canada, 1988. Peep and the Big Wide World ® is produced by WGBH and 9 Story Entertainment in association with TVOntario. Major funding for Peep and the Big Wide World is provided by the National Science Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1222607. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
