No, mixing green and red pigments does not inherently make brown. However, there are a few ways that combining green and red can result in a brownish color.
The Color Wheel
On the traditional RYB (red, yellow, blue) color wheel used by painters, green is a secondary color made by mixing blue and yellow, while red is a primary color. When you mix two secondary colors adjacent to each other on the color wheel, such as green and red, the resulting color is a tertiary made from the two primary colors NOT shared by the original secondary colors. Since green has yellow but no red, and red has no yellow, mixing them results in a brownish tertiary color containing the primaries red and blue.
However, this relies on idealized primary paint pigments. Real-world pigments have more complex interactions, and mixing highly saturated green and red paints tends to just darken both colors towards black rather than specifically making a clean brown.
Light Versus Pigment
It’s important to distinguish between color mixing with light and color mixing with pigments. While mixing green and red light makes yellow, mixing green and red pigments does not inherently make a brown pigment.
This is because pigment mixing is subtractive while light mixing is additive. Paint pigments absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect others, subtracting colors from white light to create a desired color. Mixing paints makes the reflected wavelengths more limited, darkening the color.
On the other hand, mixing colored light is additive. Combining green and red light beams adds their wavelengths together to produce yellow light. But pigments cannot physically emit light the way LCD screens do.
Color Psychology
There are psychological reasons why green and red mixed together may give an impression of brown even if the actual color is not objectively brown.
Firstly, brown is associated with mixing and blending, being a composite of the primary colors. So there is an instinctive expectation that mixing two very different colors like green and red “should” produce a muddy brownish composite.
Secondly, brown is associated with autumn and earthiness. Red and green are connected to Christmas in winter, so mixing them evokes autumnal brown hues in contrast to the bright primary colors. This is more of an impressionistic synaesthetic effect rather than real color theory.
Special Cases
While simply mixing green and red pigments does not automatically produce brown, there are some specific scenarios where the combination can create a brownish color:
- Mixing paints that already contain brown pigments like umber or sienna, which skew the color outcome.
- Starting with desaturated, earthy shades of green and red rather than bright hues.
- Blending the colors so thoroughly that they neutralize towards black/brown.
- Layering translucent glazes of green and red to make a composite brown.
- Having red light shine on a green surface, casting a brownish tint.
The Scientific Reason
The main scientific reason that mixing green and red pigments does not automatically produce brown has to do with the light absorption properties of the pigments.
Green pigment absorbs reddish light while reflecting greenish light. Red pigment does the opposite. When combined, the red parts of the spectrum are absorbed twice over while green still reflects back – darkening the color but not specifically making it brown.
For a true brown, you need a pigment that reflects both red and green light while absorbing other hues like blue and yellow selectively. Green and red pigments simply do not have these same light absorption characteristics as brown pigment.
Color Mixing Experiments
The best way to see these color mixing principles in action is to experiment with mixing paints or light yourself.
Try starting with a bright green and red paint pigment, mix them thoroughly, and observe the dark murky color this produces. Then try the same starting with earthy burnt sienna and olive green paints instead – this combination is much more likely to make an actual brown.
To visualize additive light mixing, you can try overlapping colored cellophane sheets or shining colored flashlights together. The retina of your eye acts as the color “mixing” surface.
These hands-on experiments help move color theory beyond abstraction and show the phenomena of color mixing in action. Keep a record of your mixes and their resulting colors!
Conclusion
While adjacent colors on the color wheel like green and red theoretically mix to form browns, this relies on idealized primary paint pigments. In reality, mixing highly saturated green and red paints usually just results in a darkened murky color rather than specifically brown.
This is because real pigments have complex light absorption properties. Green pigment mainly absorbs red while reflecting green, and vice versa with red pigment. When combined, they absorb more total light which darkens the color but does not produce the specific light reflection signature of brown pigments.
However, starting with earthy shades of green and red, adding brown pigments, or glazing and layering the colors can result in truly brownish mixes. The impressionistic association between green, red and brown also lends these color combinations an autumnal, blending effect.
So while green and red do not inherently make brown through simple mixing, with the right colors and techniques, intermediate browns can certainly be achieved.
