So blue and red are the dominant wavelengths that combine to create purple. This means that the shade of purple you’ll end up with totally depends on the red and blue colors you start out with. If you want a warmer shade of purple, use a warmer shade of red as your base. Warm reds have orange or yellow undertones. If you want a cooler purple, start with a cooler shade of blue.
What pigments should be mixed to create purple
A few days ago I decided to do a color mixing exercise, and I was very surprised to find that I could’t mix an actual purple. Using winsor and newton artist’s grade Prussian and cobalt blues and and cadmium red and cad red deep, all I could make was a rusty brown and a black. Is this typical for mixing purples? Would using different blues or reds help me out? And the most difficult question, why does it work this way?
Thanks in advance for any help or insights you all might be able to give
Nate
P.S. Perhaps I should mention that I am rather new to oil painting, thanks again
September 6, 2011 at 10:54 am #1152095
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A few days ago I decided to do a color mixing exercise, and I was very surprised to find that I could’t mix an actual purple. Using winsor and newton artist’s grade Prussian and cobalt blues and and cadmium red and cad red deep, all I could make was a rusty brown and a black. Is this typical for mixing purples? Would using different blues or reds help me out? And the most difficult question, why does it work this way?
Thanks in advance for any help or insights you all might be able to give
Nate
P.S. Perhaps I should mention that I am rather new to oil painting, thanks again
Yes, this is quite common. When I was a little kid in first grade, I was given several pots of that water-based, tempera paint to create a painting. I was so disappointed when I mixed the blue and red and got the exact same color that you must have experienced, and the only solutions I was given was to “practice more”, and “use less blue”. Well, little did I know that I could have mixed blue and red for the rest of my life, and gotten the same exact thing every time. It is a little known fact that the mixing of two secondary colors does not produce a pure version of the color between the two, but only a very impure, low, chroma, “dirty” version. Blue is a secondary color, just as are Red, and Green. The primary colors fall exactly between these colors on a color wheel when properly placed, and those primary colors are Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. I have found that the closest colors to Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow in oil paint are Grumbacher Thalo Blue (PB15) for Cyan, Winsor & Newton Permanent Rose 502 (PV19) for Magenta, or Grumbacher Thalo Red Rose (also PV19), and Winsor & Newton Transparent Yellow 653 (PY128) for Yellow. The answer to your problem is that, since each secondary color (Red, Green, or Blue) is already a mixture of two primary colors, when you attempt to mix it with another secondary color, you automatically add the third primary color in the form of the two primary colors of which the other secondary color is composed. Any time you mix three primary colors together, the result is a very dirty, brownish, black, and ……that is to be expected. To create a tertiary color such as you are trying to make, try mixing a secondary color (Red, Green, or Blue) with its nearest, adjacent primary color (Cyan, Magenta, or Yellow). In other words, try mixing Blue with Magenta, to create Purple, rather than mixing Blue with Red–a choice that is nearly always doomed to producing disappointing purples. Try mixing French Ultramarine Blue with W & N Permanent Rose 502, and I can nearly guarantee that you will create the sort of “Purple” that you desire. Realize that these are both transparent colors, and that the addition of white to your mix is usually necessary to achieve a bright, brilliant, high-chroma color. The alternative, of course, is to buy a “Purple” in the form of Dioxazine Purple or some such similar choice. However, to be able to precisely control the actual hue of the Purple, I find it incredibly easy to vary the ratios of the Fr. Ultramarine Blue and Permanent Rose to achieve those subtle differences. So, summing up: To achieve a relatively pure tertiary color (such as Orange, Blue-Green, Purple, etc.), mix a secondary with its nearest adjacent primary, rather than mixing two secondary colors together. I think you’ll find that it will work every time, and quite successfully.:) If you try this, and it doesn’t work for you, please let me know. If you try it, and you find that it does work, I’d like you to please inform me of that, as well.:D
How To Make Purple: A Quick Primer
Mixing blue and red together makes purple. The amount of blue and red that you add to your mixture will determine the exact shade of purple you produce. More red will create a redder purple, and more blue will create a bluer purple.
Blue and red are essential to creating purple, but you can mix in other colors to create different shades of purple. Adding white, yellow, or gray to your mixture of blue and red will give you a lighter purple. Incorporating black into your blue and red mixture will give you a darker shade of purple.
In general, purple refers to any color with a hue that is between red and blue. But getting the perfect shade of purple is a little more complicated than simply mixing these two colors. This is where the science of color comes in! Understanding the science behind making purple will help you make purple all on your own.
We’ll cover the basics of the science behind making purple next!
What Is Purple? The Science Behind the Color
What two colors make purple? Mixing red and blue together makes purple, but getting the right shade of purple isn’t quite that simple.
To answer the question, “What colors make purple,” you need a basic understanding of color. Color comes from light, so we need to start by looking at how light works.
Understanding light can be complicated–I mean, that’s why we have physics. But luckily, the color-making geniuses at Crayola explain how light creates visible color like this:
When light shines on an object some colors bounce off the object and others are absorbed by it. Our eyes only see the colors that are bounced off or reflected.
The sun’s rays contain all the colors of the rainbow mixed together. This mixture is known as white light. When white light strikes a white crayon or marker barrel, it appears white to us because it absorbs no color and reflects all color equally. A black crayon or marker cap absorbs all colors equally and reflects none, so it looks black to us. While artists consider black a color, scientists do not because black is the absence of all color.
In simpler terms, objects have certain physical properties that cause them to absorb certain types of light, or electromagnetic waves. The light waves that aren’t absorbed are reflected, which creates the color you see with your eyes!
And what about black and white? An object will appear white when it reflects all colors. This is because white contains all wavelengths of light and is made of all colors of the rainbow. The light from the sun is an example of white light! Then there’s black. Black objects absorb all color because they reflect no light back.
Most of the time, an object will reflect some color. So when an object appears as green or red to you, it’s because of the wavelength of light that’s bouncing off of the object.
At this point, you’ve probably guessed that light comes in lots of different wavelengths. A wavelength is the distance between two crests of a wave of light. You can visualize how a wavelength of light behaves by thinking about how water hits the shore at the beach. Waves sometimes hit the shore low and far apart. At other times, waves come in higher and closer together. Now, if you wanted to measure the length of the waves at the beach, you’d start at the highest point, or crest, of one wave, then measure to the crest of the next wave. The distance from crest to crest is what we call the wavelength of the ocean on the beach.
Waves of light are a lot like waves of water–except light waves are a lot smaller and closer together. When light bounces off an object, our eyes measure the wavelengths and translate them into different colors.
The entire scope of possible wavelengths of light is called the “spectrum.” If you look below, you can see how the spectrum of light converts to the spectrum of color:
The length of a wave of light is measured in nanometers (nm). Longer wavelengths translate to colors that appear “warmer,” and shorter wavelengths create colors that look “cooler.”
If you look at the image above again, you’ll also notice that only a very small portion of the spectrum of light is visible to our eyes. We’re only able to see the wavelengths between about 400 and 800 nanometers. That may seem like a lot, but the spectrum of light extends far beyond that range in either direction. There is a lot of light on the available spectrum that we can’t see!
The segment of the electromagnetic spectrum that humans can see without help from technology is called the “ visible light spectrum .”
Red, a primary component of purple, is approximately 700 nanometers in wavelength. Red is one of the longer wavelengths that our eyes can see. The distance from crest to crest is only a little bit thicker than the membrane of a soap bubble .
But purple is also made of blue. Blue has wavelengths around 475 nanometers, making it one of the shortest wavelengths visible to our eyes.
So what colors make purple? Purple is a combination of red light and blue light. An object that we perceive as purple has a makeup that causes it to absorb all wavelengths of light except those that fall around 700 nanometers and 475 nanometers in length. The object reflects those exact wavelengths mixed together, which gives the impression that the object is purple.
PSA: Purple and Violet Aren’t the Same
Purple is sometimes confused with violet. But purple and violet are different colors. Here is the difference between purple and violet: violet refers to the color of a single wavelength, but purple comes from a combination of wavelengths.
Violet is considered a spectral color . Like blue and red, violet is created through a single wavelength of light which falls on the visible spectrum between 380 and 450 nanometers. Purple is not a spectral color. Instead, purple becomes visible to our eyes when the wavelengths of the spectral colors red and blue are mixed together and reflected by an object.
In the painter’s color wheel, purple and violet are placed next to each other between red and blue. But purple is closer to red on the color wheel, and violet is closer to blue.
Mixing purple might feel like magic–but it’s not! You can make the perfect shade of purple by using additive or subtractive mixing techniques.
What pigments should be mixed to create purple
I ended up getting some PR122 from Amazon and it arrived today and I can mix the purples I need with this and ultramarine. They are much more vivid than with crimson so I will keep it in reserve. By the way, it seems what W&N call violet is actually what you would expect the M in CMYK to be. PV19 is redder.
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October 16, 2022 at 8:43 am #1488627
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It even makes a really nice lilac with phthalo. Interesting pigment!
October 16, 2022 at 4:10 pm #1488703
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I was going to recommend PR122, which some manufacturers call Quinacridone Magenta, plus PB29, Ultramarine Blue. But you figured it out already!
–David
October 17, 2022 at 12:22 am #1488722
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Thanks, yes, PR122 does the job nicely.
October 17, 2022 at 12:56 pm #1488786
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For a colorist palette, PR122 might be considered an essential color. Glad it gives you the mixes you like. Also try mixing it with various greens to see what kinds of greys & blacks it makes.
October 18, 2022 at 12:22 am #1488825
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Thanks Patrick. I can see it essential in that it allows me to mix colours I couldn’t otherwise. In practice though, as someone who mainly paints people and animals, it seems unlikely I’ll need it much. It must be really handy for certain flowers though. I’m sure the 60ml tube will last me some time!
October 21, 2022 at 3:31 pm #1489229
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You may want to try PR122 with Pthalo blue red shade for darker purples than you’ll get with Ultramarine blue.
November 3, 2022 at 1:01 am #1490646
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Oh heck……just go out and buy a tube of Dioxazine Purple. Then, to get the color really precise, mix into that, either Thalo Blue (PB15), to swing it toward the “Blue” side, or Thalo Red Rose (PV19). to skew it toward the Magenta side. The Dioxazine Purple will be more “pure”, in terms of “grayness” than almost anything you can mix with two other paints. But, you may need to sacrifice this pureness to achieve the exact hue that you wish to achieve. Hence, the need to mix another color with it.
wfmartin. My Blog “Creative Realism”.
https://williamfmartin.blogspot.com
November 3, 2022 at 1:25 am #1490648
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just go out and buy a tube of Dioxazine Purple.
I would’ve done but PV23 is not as lightfast as PR122 and PB29. PR122 and PB29 mixes are easily pure enough for my needs.
November 5, 2022 at 3:45 am #1490853
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Agreed. PV23 is not very lightfast. I avoid it.
November 13, 2022 at 12:42 pm #1491796
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I like Quinacridone Purple PV55 very much as a basic purple, the pigment have two variants, a more magenta one and a blue one.
kind regards Macarona
Stay calm, you can not protect all people from mistakes they make. They should also be allowed to learn from mistakes and gain experience.
Especially financial mistakes.:angel: Keep calm, you can not prevent that there are not only reasonable suggestions from people. Specifically on the subject: only try and how long. Important topic: Please Save the Internet, that we can still share a lot of knowledge. # No articles 11 and 13.
November 16, 2022 at 10:56 am #1492119
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I have side question. I want to create a purple that represents the indigo of light, that is, the I in ROYGBIV. It is certainly not the woad indigo that is much more green. What do you suggest? This is in gouache.
