Mixing paint colors is a common technique artists use to create new shades and tones. Many people wonder if you can mix all paint colors together to get white. The short answer is no, mixing all paint pigments won’t necessarily produce white. The resulting color depends on the specific pigments used and their properties. Keep reading to learn more about paint mixing and why combining all colors doesn’t always make white.
Primary Colors
The primary colors in painting are red, yellow and blue. These are the core pigments artists use to create all other colors. Mixing the primaries yields the secondary colors:
| Red + Yellow | = | Orange |
| Yellow + Blue | = | Green |
| Blue + Red | = | Purple |
Further mixing produces tertiary colors like red-violet and yellow-green. With various combinations, painters can create a wide spectrum. But mixing all the primaries does not automatically make white.
Why All Paints Mixed Don’t Make White
There are a few key reasons why combining all paint pigments won’t reliably produce white:
Pigment Types
Paint pigments come in two broad categories:
- Subtractive: Absorb some wavelengths of light and reflect others back to our eyes. Common in paints, dyes, inks.
- Additive: Emit specific wavelengths of colored light. Used in screens, digital projectors.
Mixing additive light colors (red, green, blue) makes white, but mixing subtractive pigments does not. Paint pigments selectively absorb and reflect different wavelengths, so together they can end up subtracting too much color and create gray or black rather than white.
Impurities
Even pure synthetic pigments contain some impurities that alter their reflective properties. These can shift the color away from an ideal reflectance to give an off-white or gray mixture.
Undertones
Many pigments also have warm, cool or muted undertones that affect their mixing. For instance, a warm yellow mixed with a cool blue will produce a dull green. The undertones subtract from each other.
Getting White From Paint Mixing
While combining all colors doesn’t intrinsically make white, painters can mix paint to achieve white or light tints using a few strategies:
- Mix colors with white or black paints to lighten or darken shades.
- Mix complementary colors (opposites on the color wheel) to neutralize hue and achieve grays or browns.
- Mix a transparent “tinting” color with an opaque white base for light tints.
- Use a palette knife to mix colors physically rather than optically for lighter mixtures.
With trial and error, artists learn to mix paints to reach desired hues, values and intensities for their work. Mastering color mixing takes practice but allows for great flexibility and color control compared to using straight from the tube paint alone.
Mixing Paints to Match a Color
Skilled painters don’t have to start from scratch every time they need a specific color. They can expertly mix paints on their palette to match colors they want to reproduce accurately. Here are some tips for mixing paint to match a color sample:
- Analyze the sample color – What are the primary hues? How light/dark? How intense?
- Select base pigments close to the desired hues.
- Slowly mix in other colors and white/black to match value and chroma.
- Use thinner layers of paint to see the blending optically.
- Compare mixed color and sample visually or use color picker tools.
- Adjust ratios and layers iteratively to fine-tune the match.
With practice, an artist can train their eye to translate any color they visualize into the needed pigment combinations. Matching a specific color by mixing paint helps develop color theory skills.
Color Mixing Activities for Learning
Trying out different painting techniques and pigment combinations helps develop strong color mixing abilities. Here are some helpful paint mixing activities:
- Match swatches: Reproduce printed color swatches by mixing paints.
- Mixing chart: Create a grid with varied color mixtures to see relationships.
- Neutralize colors: Mix complements to make browns, grays and blacks.
- Tint chart: Lighten hues incrementally with white to see value shifts.
- Hue wheel: Mix adjacent colors on a color wheel for blending practice.
Activities like these build experience with how paints interact and influence each other when mixed. This helps develop an intuition for achieving the colors you want.
Mixing Paint FAQs
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about mixing paints:
What happens when you mix all acrylic paint colors?
Mixing all acrylic paints will typically result in a dark brown or black color. The pigments combined subtract so much color that it creates a dark neutral shade.
What color does red and green make when mixed together?
Mixing red and green paint makes a brown color. Red and green are complementary colors opposite each other on the color wheel, so they neutralize each other’s hue when blended.
What color do you get when you mix all primary colors?
Mixing the primary colors red, yellow, and blue produces a dark brown or black depending on the exact pigments. The combination of primary paints essentially subtracts all the light wavelengths to give a dark neutral color.
What happens when you mix all oil paint colors?
Similar to acrylics, mixing all oil paint colors together will create a dark muted brown or black shade. The combined pigments subtract and absorb so much color light that the result is a nearly colorless dark neutral.
Should you mix paint colors on canvas?
It’s best to mix paint colors on a palette first, then apply the mixed paint to the canvas. Mixing directly on the canvas can create unwanted color variations in a single area. Palette mixing gives you better control of your colors.
Bottom Line on Mixing Paints to White
Mixing together all paint pigments does not inherently create white. Due to the subtractive qualities of paint pigments, combining them usually produces a dark color like black, brown or gray. To lighten colors, add white paint rather than relying on mixing alone. With practice analyzing colors and knowing paint interactions, you can learn to expertly mix paint to achieve any desired color.