While knowing what colors to mix in order to create new shades can be a powerful artistic tool, it may also feel intimidating since you may realize that you’re never going to create a brand new color. However, there are practically an infinite number of shades to explore and play with.
Color Mixing Guide: Learn What Colors Make Brown, Purple, Orange etc.
These days it’s easy to purchase a wide variety of colored paints, crayons, markers, and other art supplies, but no matter how many different colors these companies come up with, it’s impossible to cover them all. This is because there is a near infinite number of color shades that can be created by mixing colors.
A good example of this would be a computer monitor or television that boasts being able to display millions of different colors. While this may sound like some sort of marketing baloney, what it’s really referring to are all the shades that are available thanks to the way colors interact with one another.
Since traditional art supplies can limit how many colors are available to you if you’re just using what comes prepackaged, it’s good to know how to create your own colors by mixing them together. This will give you access to a wider variety of shades to use in your projects, and allow you to really exercise your creativity. With that said, let’s take a look at how to make some of the more common colors, and the shades that are derived from them.
What Colors Make Purple or Violet?
Purple has always been a special color. In ancient times it was incredibly difficult to produce, making it very rare. As a result, it became a color associated with royalty.
These days purple isn’t as hard to make. In fact, you can make it yourself by mixing red and blue. The ratio of each is up to you, but a 50/50 split will create a nice rich shade of purple. You can increase the red to make a more reddish purple and get a shade of magenta, or you can increase the blue to darken the shade. These are known as analogous colors since they are side by side on the color wheel.
Shades of purple tend to pair well with yellow, which is opposite on the color wheel. This is known as complimentary colors, and for good reason. The darker tones of the purple will make the brightness of the yellow pop, while the yellow makes the purple look deeper and richer by comparison.
What Colors Make Green?
Green is actually a primary color of the light spectrum, but when it comes to pigments, things are a little different. Making shades of green pigment is done by mixing yellow and blue. As you would imagine, making shades of yellow-green are done by increasing the ratio of yellow, and making shades of blue-green are done by increasing the ratio of blue.
One notable thing about the color green is that it’s one of the most common colors in nature thanks to the presence of chlorophyll in plants. This has made it a very popular shade when it comes to art as well.
Which colors combine to form other colors?
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Color Mixing and the Color Wheel
It’s easy to mix paints to make new colors. You can use the primary colors ( red , blue , and yellow ) plus black and white to get all of the colors of the r a i n b o w .
The Color Wheel :
The Color Wheel shows the relationships between the colors.
The three primary colors are red , yellow , and blue ; they are the only colors that cannot be made by mixing two other colors.
The three secondary colors are green, orange, and violet; they are each a mixture of two primary colors. Their hue is halfway between the two primary colors that were used to mix them. On the color wheel, the secondary colors are located between the colors they are made from.
The six tertiary colors ( red-orange , red-violet , yellow-green , yellow-orange , blue-green and blue-violet ) are made by mixing a primary color with an adjacent secondary color. On the color wheel, the tertiary colors are located between the primary and secondary colors they are made from.
Black, white and gray are not true colors (or hues). They are considered to be neutral, achromatic colors.
Value refers to how light or dark a color appears. To make a color lighter in value, white is added. A light color is called a tint of the original hue. For example, pink is a tint of red. To make a color darker in value, black is added. A dark color is called a shade of the original hue. Maroon is a shade of red.
Color Schemes (Color Harmonies):
Monochrome (meaning “one color”) color harmonies include only one color in different value (the lightness and darkness of a color) and intensity (the brightness or dullness of a color). An example of a monochrome color scheme could include any color mixed with white, gray, or black. For example, red, rose and pink (red mixed with white) are monochrome.
Adjacent colors (also called analogous colors) uses colors that neighbor each other on the color wheel. An example is a color scheme that includes various values and intensities of reds and oranges.
Colors opposite each other on the color wheel are called complementary colors . For example, violet and yellow are complementary colors. So are red and green, and blue and orange.
A single split complement uses a primary color plus colors on either side of its complement. An example is a color scheme that includes various values and intensities of greens, violet-reds and red-oranges.
A triad uses colors at the points of an equilateral triangle (three colors spaced equally on the color wheel). These are sometimes called balanced colors. An example of a triadic scheme could be red, blue, and yellow; green, orange, and purple, etc.
A double split complement (also called tetradic) uses two pairs of complements, one apart on the color wheel. An example is red, green, orange, and blue.
Warm Colors and Cool Colors :
The warm colors include reds, oranges, and yellows; the cool colors include blues, greens and violets. The neutral colors are black, white, and grays.
Color Wheel
Label the color wheel, labeling and coloring the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.
Answers
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Become a Color-Mixing Master
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Want to paint along? Here’s what you’ll need:
- Red, yellow and blue paint (I used acrylic)
- A palette knife for mixing
- A palette, for mixing colors
- Paper towels for cleaning off the palette knife between mixing colors
- Paintbrush, for applying color
- Work surface (I used canvas paper)
- Water, for cleaning brushes
Step 1: Start with primary colors.
Start simply: On your work surface, place a dab each of the pure primary colors (yellow, red and blue).
Step 2: Create secondary colors.
This step is broken down to three parts to show all of the ways which primary colors can be combined to form the secondary colors. In each part, you’ll create a 50-50 mixture
Add 50 percent yellow to each color.
Add 50 percent yellow to each of the primary colors and see what happens. Well, not much happens to yellow, because you’ve just combined it with more of itself. But something transformative happens to the other primary colors: With the addition of 50 percent yellow paint, red becomes orange and blue becomes green.
Add 50 percent blue to each color.
What happens when you add 50 percent blue to each color? Not much to the blue, but plenty happens to yellow and red. With the addition of blue paint, yellow becomes green and red becomes violet.
Add 50 percent red to each color.
Let’s round it out by adding 50 percent red to each primary color. Red remains the same; yellow becomes orange; blue becomes violet.
Now that you’ve combined all of the primary colors with each other, you’ve attained enough color variation to complete a rainbow!
With all the colors of the rainbow on your palette, you can adjust them slightly to create different color variants. For instance, you might create a mixture that has about 70 percent yellow and 30 percent blue for a more grassy, yellow green; you might make a mixture with slightly more red than blue for a rich red-wine tone.
Step 3: Combine primary colors with secondary colors for unique tones.
Once you’ve created the secondary colors, you can use them as new base colors to combine with primary colors, following the same combinations detailed in Step 2 (adding 50 percent each of yellow, red and blue). You’ll find that you get more unique and subtle tones by creating these mixtures. Here are some examples of the combinations you’ll see:
From here, you can play with the ratios of primary colors added to secondary colors to create endless color variations.
Step 4: Combine all of the primary colors to make brown.
Combine equal parts of each of the primary colors and mix. What do you get? Brown paint. Maybe not the most glamorous color, but an extremely useful one in painting. It is the start of creating skin tones, used to create shadows, and is vital for creating natural elements such as trees. It can also be used to darken mixed colors.
Step 5: Take your mixing to the next level with white paint.
Now, you’ve gotten a taste of the hundreds of colors that are within your reach using primary colors and nothing else. The only thing missing? A way to lighten colors. If you add white to the equation, you can create different tones of each of the colors, making your combinations seemingly limitless!
What about black paint?
Black paint, while useful in many ways, tends to make colors muddy when mixed. For a more natural-looking method of darkening a color, combine it with more of the dominant primary color used in mixing, or add brown paint (which you just learned how to mix in step 4!).
Have you ever experimented with mixing primary colors?
Become a Color-Mixing Master
How well do you really know your colors? Learn the difference between hues, tints, tones and shades with this FREE download! Get my free guid »
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7 Responses to “How You Can Make Millions of Colors With Just 3 Tubes of Paint”
- Heckman Kathleen October 19th, 2023 Thank you Reply
- Rob Knight September 23rd, 2022 This will be extremely helpful Reply
- Maria B Rugolo August 16th, 2022 The color guide is not available to download. Reply
- Steven Kelder March 11th, 2022 Very interesting! Reply
- Solomon January 23rd, 2022 This is beautiful Reply
- Michael Soto March 13th, 2021 Thanks this was very helpful ☺️ Reply
- Craig Lungren November 20th, 2020 I am glad to know … 1) Red and Yellow make Orange
2)Yellow and Blue make Green
3)Blue and Red make Purple
4) Red, Yellow and Blue make Brown … but are you serious Step 5 isn’t going to explain how to make White beginning with Red, Yellow and Blue paint? (What is said in Step 5 should be written in Step 7 – the final step) Step 6 should explain how to make Black beginning with Red, Yellow and Blue paint. Step 7 could say combine Black and White to make Grey. If you mix White with any of the colors, it creates a Tint of the color (example: Red and White make a tint of Red). If you mix Black with any of the colors, it creates a Shade of the color (example: Red and Black make a shade of Red). If you mix Grey with any of the colors, it creates a Tone of the color (example: Red and Grey make a tone of Red). Is someone going to update Step 5 – 7? Reply
