Before we start combining paint, here’s a little background. My name is Lillie, and I am a teacher and artist who adores doing hands-on pigment mixing experiments, and sharing the results with you — from the simple, “Blue and yellow make what color?” to the more complex, “Red and green make what color?”
Brown and Purple Mixed! What Color Does Brown and Purple Make (Updated 2023)
Whether you’re eyeing to create something spectacular on the canvas or experimenting with your make-up, you are sure to encounter the need for the colors brown and purple.
Given their unique visual characteristics that evoke feelings of elegance and sophistication, it is not hard to think of ways to take advantage of these colors.
However, have you ever wondered what color you will get when you mix these two pigments together? Will the result become darker or turn into a much brighter hue? In what ways can this mixing process help with your art?
In this article, we will help you discover what color you can come up with when you blend these two pigments together and how, specifically, this can help you improve your craft.
Color Theory: Your Ultimate Guide to Mixing Colors
Before we dive into discussing what results when you mix brown and purple, it’s important to first lay down the basics of “Color Theory.”
In the visual arts, color theory refers to both the science and art of using color. Put simply, the color theory provides a set of rules and principles that will help you choose the right color combination to evoke the right feelings from your spectators.
Whether it be for your art piece, web design, daily get-ups, or even a simple presentation, the color wheel allows you to relay your message using colors while understanding the proper way to replicate your desired pigment.
Generally, there are two basic categories of color theory that are important to note. They include the color wheel and color harmony.
To help you understand each principle, here is a brief guide that summarizes each of them.
Color Wheel
You may already be familiar with the color wheel. You likely learned about this Color Theory concept in kindergarten. As you may remember, it refers to a logically arranged sequence of pure hues around a circle.
Under such an arrangement, colors are divided into three categories: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
In the traditional color theory, the primary colors, which consist of red, yellow, and blue, are those that can’t be reproduced by simply mixing other colors together. Coming from the word “primary,” they are the base from which all other pigments are made.
Meanwhile, secondary colors are those created when you mix two primary colors together. They are composed of the colors green (blue + yellow), orange (yellow + red), and purple (red + blue).
Lastly, tertiary colors are those that are derived by mixing a primary and a secondary color together. They usually come in two-word names, such as red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet.
Mixing Purple
Before we address what purple and brown make, let’s back up and review some previous, related purple-mixing experiments. This will help us make an educated guess about what will happen next. First, we know that purple and yellow make the color mauve (a dusty, brown-purple) or brown.
Next, we know that the answer to “What color do purple and orange make?” ranges from brown, to russet (red-brown), to brownish-pink. Finally, we know that red and purple make the color magenta: a vibrant reddish purple. From this, I’m starting to deduce that brown plus purple will produce some sort of brownish, purplish pink. But first, let’s back up even further and do some color math.
What Makes Brown and Purple?
We know already that the secondary color, Purple = Red + Blue. We also know that the answer to what colors make brown (in the RYB color model) is all three primary colors mushed together: Red, Yellow, and Blue. Therefore, the equation becomes: Purple + Brown = Red + Blue + Red + Blue + Yellow = Purple + Purple + Yellow.
Interesting! From this, we suddenly realize that the overwhelming thrust of this mix will actually be purple! Just with a little yellow mixed in to make it slighly more brownish and dark. (We had a similar revelation in our “Brown and green make what color?” experiment.) Let’s now at last turn to my paints to see if this theory holds water. Behold my illustration below…
How to Make Plum Color
Wow! It turns out that when you mix together purple and brown, you get the deep, slightly brownish shade of purple called plum! I’m so excited and surprised by this — I really expected much more of a brown result. Instead, here is a luscious fruit tone! (Just like our “What color do pink and yellow make?” discussion, this result makes me hungry.)
Note that while plum is similar to maroon color made by what red and black make, it has far more blue in it. It’s probably closest to what purple and black make — a rich, deep shade called midnight purple — but it’s more dusty and neutral because of the addition of the yellow from the brown.
In my drawing below, I’m playing around more with this mix, layering markers and then swirling them together in spots with an airbrush to desaturate them a bit and make the resulting shade easier to see. In this latter illustration, you can see that purple plus brown can also yield a very dark, almost black color, as well as a browner or blacker purple, and a dusty dark mauve. It just depends what your input colors and ratios are.
Purple and Brown Make What Color?
Color me shocked: It turns out that the correct response to: “Purple and brown make what color? is… plum! I never realized that how to make a plum color involved brown. Yum! See my experiment about what red and brown make for a musical twist on this theme.
Naturally, this mix can also produce more brownish, grayish, blackish purples, depending on ratio inputs, but overall, the color math of Red + Blue + Red + Blue + Yellow yields a far more purple result than anything else. What else would you like me to illustrate and explain? Do share!
Want more? Check out the weird double definition of tertiary colors, and the answer to the question, “Brown and yellow make what color?”
The author and artist, Lillie Marshall, is a National Board Certified Teacher of English who has been a public school educator since 2003, and an experienced Reiki practitioner since 2018. All art on this site is original and hand-drawn by Lillie. She launched DrawingsOf.com Educational Cartoons in 2020, building upon the success of her other sites, AroundTheWorldL.com (established 2009), TeachingTraveling.com (founded 2010), and ReikiColors.com. Subscribe to Lillie’s monthly newsletter, and follow @WorldLillie on social media to stay connected!
What Color Do Brown and Purple Make in Lights?
There is no way to mix brown and purple lights because lights can’t be brown. If you look at the visible light spectrum and the RGB color model, you notice that there’s no brown on either one.
RGB is the additive color model used for mixing colored lights and digital displays. The primary colors are red, green, and blue, while the secondary colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. Unlike RYB, the more colors that are added together, the lighter the mixture gets. Thus, if you combine the three primary colors in this color model, you’ll get white instead of brown.
So, light can’t be the color brown, but we can still see brown objects. Why is this?
Why Does Brown Not Exist in Lights?
The reason you never see lights as brown is that brown lights can’t exist naturally. There are no wavelengths that represent the color brown, and none can combine to create it.
So, we can perceive the color brown because it’s a color that exists due to context, not wavelengths. Our eyes do a lot to see colors, but they don’t always work alone. They also rely on our brains to apply context for some colors. Brains can alter the colors we look at in some scenarios, which is why we can see darker colors like brown, black, and gray.
When you see something brown on a digital screen, it’s really dark orange. The colors around it can make it appear differently. Orange on a black background just looks orange, but orange on a white background can look brown. So, to trick our brains into thinking orange is brown, it needs to be surrounded by things that are brighter than it.
There are lots of colors we can see that don’t exist naturally in lights. Yet, the way our brains perceive them can help us see them. That’s how we can see such a wide range of colors in the world around us. However, even though we can see darker colors like brown, we’ll never be able to mix brown with other colors in lights.
How Do Our Eyes Perceive Colors?
Even though our eyes rely on our brain when seeing colors, our eyes still do a lot of work. When light shines on an object, certain wavelengths get absorbed into objects while others reflect off them. Each type of wavelength is a color, and the colors that bounce off objects are what we see those items as.
When you look at the visible light spectrum, the colors are red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet in that order. Red has the longest wavelengths, while violet has the shortest. So, the wavelengths get progressively shorter as they go from red to violet on the spectrum.
For example, let’s say you’re looking at a red apple. In that scenario, all the wavelengths would get absorbed into the fruit except for the longest ones, which represent red. The red wavelengths are reflected toward us, and that’s why the apple appears red to us.
In our eyes, we also have cells called “photosensors” that help us interpret the colors. Cone cells are used to help us see colors in bright lights, while rod cells are more sensitive and can only see colors in dim lights. Together, cones and rods help us see all the colors around us, no matter the lighting.
Does Brown Exist in CMYK?
Even though CMYK seems similar to RGB, brown exists in CMYK. CMYK is a form of subtractive color mixing that’s used for printing. The primary colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow, while the secondary colors are red, green, and blue, making it the opposite of the color model for lights.
In CMYK, it’s much easier to make dark colors than it is in RGB. The primary colors of CMYK create black, so brown is a possibility. An easy way to make brown ink is by mixing black, yellow, and red. If you mix brown ink with purple, you’ll get a plum or dark brown color just like you would with paints.
Designing with Purple and Brown
Brown and purple might not be one of the first color combinations you picture, but the two colors actually go very well together. Dark purple can go well with light browns, such as tan, coffee, or beige. You might see the two colors used together in room designs, outfits, and paintings.
If you want to make the design more interesting, you should consider adding more colors. White, gray, blue, or yellow are just a few colors that could go well with the pair. If you don’t want to use brown and purple together, there are plenty of ways to design with them separately.
Brown is neutral, so it goes well with nearly every color. Colorful hues like fuchsia, mint, yellow, and blue could go well with brown, along with other neutral pigments like white, black, or gray. Purple is often used with blue, pink, red, or yellow. Yellow is on the opposite side of purple on the color wheel, so it can help it stand out more in posters and advertisements.
The Color Brown Is Difficult to Mix With
Even though brown isn’t the easiest color to mix with, it can have some unique results. In paints, it often makes the color look muddy, but with purple, it might make a pleasant plum color. Yet, when it comes to mixing in lights, brown can’t be mixed at all.
There are so many color combinations out there, and each one has a unique result. So, try combining lots of different colors to help you find the best hues to design with.
