Color Mixing Guide: What Every Color Combination Makes

In paint mixing, blue and yellow make green, red and yellow make orange, and red and blue make purple. These are the three secondary colors, each made by combining two of the primary colors — red, yellow, and blue. Add white to lighten a color and black to darken it.

If you've ever stood in front of a paint set wondering what two colors make when you combine them, this guide has you covered. Below you'll find the primary and secondary colors, how to mix browns and grays, how to make any color lighter or darker, and a full chart of common combinations — all based on paint and pigment mixing, the kind you do with paints, markers, dyes, and icing.

Want to try combinations instantly? Use the color mixer to pick any two colors and see the result.

The three primary colors

In traditional paint mixing, the primary colors are the three you can't create by mixing others:

• Red
• Yellow
• Blue

Every other color on the paint wheel comes from combining these three (plus white and black to adjust lightness).

The three secondary colors

Mix two primary colors in roughly equal amounts and you get a secondary color:

Mix this	…and this	To make
Red	Yellow	Orange
Blue	Yellow	Green
Red	Blue	Purple (violet)

These are the answers to the most-asked color questions: blue and yellow make green, red and yellow make orange, and red and blue make purple.

Tertiary colors

Mix a primary with the secondary next to it on the color wheel and you get a tertiary color — the in-between shades:

• Red + orange → red-orange
• Yellow + orange → yellow-orange (amber)
• Yellow + green → yellow-green (chartreuse)
• Blue + green → blue-green (teal)
• Blue + purple → blue-purple (indigo)
• Red + purple → red-purple (magenta)

Together, the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors make up the classic 12-part color wheel.

How to make brown

Brown doesn't have a single recipe — it's what you get when you mix complementary colors (opposites on the color wheel) or all three primaries together:

• Green + red → brown
• Blue + orange → brown
• Purple + yellow → brown
• Red + yellow + blue → brown

The exact shade depends on the ratio. More red leans warm and reddish-brown; more blue leans cooler and darker. If your mix looks muddy, that's brown forming — add a little of one color to steer it warmer or cooler.

How to make a color lighter or darker

You don't need a new color to change brightness — just white or black:

• Add white to make a tint (lighter). Red + white makes pink; blue + white makes light blue; green + white makes a soft mint.
• Add black to make a shade (darker). Red + black makes maroon; blue + black makes navy; green + black makes a deep forest green.
• Add gray to make a tone (muted). Mixing in gray softens a color without changing its lightness as sharply.

A little black goes a long way — add it in tiny amounts, because it darkens fast.

Full color mixing chart

A quick reference for common combinations:

Combination	Result
Red + Yellow	Orange
Blue + Yellow	Green
Red + Blue	Purple
Blue + Green	Teal (blue-green)
Yellow + Green	Yellow-green
Red + White	Pink
Blue + White	Light blue
Black + White	Gray
Red + Black	Maroon
Blue + Black	Navy
Green + Red	Brown
Blue + Orange	Brown
Purple + Yellow	Brown
Orange + White	Peach
Purple + White	Lavender

Paint mixing vs. mixing light

Here's the part that trips people up. There are two different kinds of color mixing, and they give different results:

• Subtractive mixing (paint, ink, dye). Pigments work by absorbing some light and reflecting the rest. Combining them removes more light, so mixes get darker. This is why blue and yellow paint make green, and why mixing lots of colors heads toward brown or black. The primaries here are red, yellow, and blue.
• Additive mixing (light, screens). Colored light works the opposite way — adding light makes things brighter. The primaries are red, green, and blue (RGB). With light, red + green makes yellow, and all three together make white.

So when someone says "red and green make brown," they're thinking paint; when a screen shows "red and green make yellow," that's light. This guide — and the color mixer tool — use the paint model, since that's what most people mean by mixing colors. If you're curious about screen colors, that's also why your phone is interesting to read about alongside topics like mood ring color meanings, where temperature, not pigment, drives the color.

Tips for mixing colors that don't turn muddy

• Start light and add the darker color gradually. It's easy to darken a mix and hard to lighten it.
• Mix only two or three colors at a time. The more colors you combine, the closer you get to brown or gray.
• Keep complementary colors apart unless you want brown — red next to green, or blue next to orange, will neutralize each other.
• Clean your brush between colors so you don't drag unwanted pigment into the next mix.

Frequently asked questions

What two colors make green?

Blue and yellow make green. Adding more yellow gives a brighter, lime green; adding more blue gives a deeper, forest green.

What colors make purple?

Red and blue make purple. For a brighter violet, use a cooler red (one that leans slightly pink) and a blue without too much yellow in it.

What two colors make black?

You can't make a true black from primaries alone, but mixing the three primaries (red, yellow, and blue) or two complementary colors in heavy amounts gets you very close to a deep, near-black brown.

Why does mixing too many colors make brown or gray?

Each pigment absorbs some light. The more colors you combine, the more light is absorbed overall, so the mix gets darker and less saturated — heading toward brown, then gray, then nearly black.

Try it yourself

The fastest way to learn color mixing is to play with it. Pick any two colors in the color mixer and watch the result update instantly — or grab a random starting shade with the random color generator and see what it pairs with.