Orange is a secondary color that is made by mixing two primary colors together. Primary colors are colors that cannot be created by mixing other colors together. The three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. When it comes to mixing colors to make orange, there are two possible combinations of primary colors that will create this bright, warm shade.
Mixing Red and Yellow Makes Orange
The most common way to make the color orange is by mixing the primary colors red and yellow together. When these two primary colors are blended, they produce the vibrant secondary color orange.
Red and yellow are positioned opposite each other on the color wheel. Colors that are opposite each other are called complementary colors. When complementary colors are combined, they neutralize each other and create a whole new color.
Red has a vivid, intense hue that stimulates excitement and energy. Yellow is cheerful and optimistic. When bright red and sunny yellow are mixed, they make a color that encompasses the lively spirit of both. This is why orange has come to represent enthusiasm, creativity, and joy.
The amount of red versus yellow used when mixing the two primary colors affects the orange’s hue and brightness. Equal parts red and yellow will produce a pure orange halfway between the two parent colors. Adding more yellow shifts the orange toward a brighter, citrus yellow-orange. Increasing the red makes a more reddish, coppery orange.
How Red and Yellow Blend to Make Orange
On a technical level, red and yellow combine to make orange through the process of additive color mixing. With additive color mixing, light waves of different colors are added together, and the cumulative effect is that the human eye perceives a new color.
Red light has wavelengths around 700nm, yellow light has wavelengths around 570nm, and orange light has wavelengths around 610nm. When red and yellow wavelengths are emitted together in equal intensity, the light is perceived as orange to our eyes and brains. The diagram below shows how the combination of red and yellow light waves produce light in the orange wavelength range.
| Color | Wavelength |
| Red | ~700nm |
| Yellow | ~570nm |
| Orange | ~610nm |
This mixing of light waves in different wavelength ranges to produce different colors is the reason orange appears when red and yellow pigments are blended. Paints, dyes, and inks contain pigments that reflect or transmit specific light wavelengths. When yellow pigments that reflect yellow wavelengths around 570nm are combined with red pigments reflecting 700nm light, the result is pigments that reflect orange light of approximately 610nm wavelength.
So in summary, on both the level of light waves and pigment particles, combining red and yellow makes orange through the merging of their complementary wavelengths and light reflection properties.
The RGB Color Model
The way red and yellow primary colors mix to form orange is easiest to visualize using the RGB or red, green, blue additive color model. This model represents colors by specifying levels of the red, green, and blue light wavelengths.
In the RGB color space, pure red is defined as RGB(255, 0, 0) meaning full red intensity, no green, and no blue. Yellow is RGB(255, 255, 0) – full red and full green, no blue. When you mix those, the equal amounts of full red intensity blend with half red and half green intensity to make orange, defined as RGB(255, 165, 0) – full red, partial green, and no blue.
| Color | RGB Values |
| Red | RGB(255, 0, 0) |
| Yellow | RGB(255, 255, 0) |
| Orange | RGB(255, 165, 0) |
Using color sliders in image editing or design software makes it easy to see the transition from red to yellow to orange by steadily decreasing the blue and increasing the green levels. The changing RGB values demonstrate clearly how orange arises between red and yellow through the proportional mixing of their complementary light wavelengths.
Proportions of Red and Yellow Needed
The exact ratio of red to yellow required to produce a perfect orange depends on the saturation and brightness of the two starting primary colors.
With pure, fully saturated red and yellow pigments, mixing about two parts yellow with one part red will usually create a standard vibrant orange. Slightly modifying the ratio by using two parts red and one part yellow shifts the tone toward red-orange, while two yellow parts to one red part makes more yellow-orange.
When working with paints, varying the amounts of red and yellow primer used is an easy way to explore the range of orange tones available through different combinations. Using red and yellow food coloring to dye frosting or cake batter is another fun application for visually grasping how to vary orange’s hue and vibrancy.
With light, be it computer monitor RGB values or theater lighting gels, equal intensities of saturated red and yellow are needed to blend fully into pure orange. Increasing either the red or yellow makes the orange take on those hues while reducing saturation towards pastel orange tones.
So in any medium, the essential factors are using vivid, saturated primary red and yellow colors and then adjusting the proportions until the desired orange is formed. A 1:1 to 2:1 ratio of yellow to red usually works as a starting point and can be modified as needed.
Shades of Orange from Red and Yellow
By tweaking the red and yellow amounts, a whole spectrum of striking orange tones can be created. Here are some common shades of orange produced by mixing different proportions of red and yellow:
| Orange Variety | Red Parts | Yellow Parts |
| Red-Orange | 2 | 1 |
| Orange | 1 | 1 |
| Yellow-Orange | 1 | 2 |
| Peach | 1 | 5 |
Red-orange leans toward a more scarlet, reddish appearance from having extra red pigment or light. Yellow-orange is brighter and more citrusy with higher amounts of yellow. Peach is heavy on the yellow with a touch of red added in, creating a soft pastel orange.
With paints and other pigments, the texture and application method also influence the final color. Thinner layers result in paler, translucent oranges while heavy thick coats appear more saturated. Building up many layers and blending produces a luminous depth and sophistication to the orange.
So in summary, the proportion of red to yellow determines the orange’s exact qualities, and the mixing technique and medium used also play a role. With this knowledge, an endless variety of energetic and uplifting orange tones can be handcrafted using just the two primary colors red and yellow.
Optical Versus Pigment Mixtures
An important distinction to understand when discussing color mixing is the difference between optical and pigment mixtures. Optical mixing refers to blending colors of light, like stage lighting or TV screens. Pigment mixing involves physically combining colorants like paints, dyes, or inks.
While both methods create orange through some ratio of red and yellow, optical light mixing is additive, whereas pigment mixing is subtractive. Additive refers to light wavelengths being added together to create new hues. Subtractive means that pigments selectively absorb and reflect different wavelengths, producing colors by subtracting wavelengths from white light.
For example, with light, combining 700nm red waves and 570nm yellow waves directly yields 610nm orange light through addition. But pigment molecules work by absorbing non-orange wavelengths and reflecting the 610nm-630nm orange range we want to see. This subtractive absorption/reflection process indirectly creates the same orange color perceptually, despite being molecularly different from optical light mixing.
This distinction between direct additive light mixing and indirect subtractive pigment mixing is important to understand why the same principles create orange from red and yellow in arts, crafts, photography, and many other fields. The interactions of light waves and material pigments may be happening through different mechanisms, but the observable result of blending red and yellow to create orange remains the same.
True Versus Computer Pigment Mixtures
One more nuance of pigment mixing is appreciating the difference between mixing real paints or dyes versus digital colors. When working with physical paints, inks, frostings, fabrics, cosmetics, and other tangible color media, the red and yellow pigment molecules genuinely blend and bond to synthesize new orange pigment particles and colorant structures.
Digitally, red and yellow are represented as RGB light values which mix additively. But computer color picking tools that display mixed pigment colors are only mathematical models approximating the actual subtractive pigment blending process visually. The RGB light coming from the screen pixels has not literally combined pigments to make physical orange colorant compounds the way real wet chemistry does. The digitally displayed color only appears perceptually similar to our eyes.
So while computer color mixers are extremely useful for modeling potential real pigment mixtures, the colors on screen are not true physical blended pigments like paints or dyes would be. Factors like pigment texture, saturation, gloss, and opacity that affect real pigment color appearance cannot be perfectly simulated on a monitor. Real-world testing is still the only way to see the actual hue that wet red and yellow pigments will combine into.
Mixing Paint, Light, and Pixels
To summarize digital versus real pigment mixtures:
– On-screen color mixing is additive RGB light blending
– Real paint and dye mixing is subtractive pigment blending
– Color picking tools mimic real mixing through calibrated RGB approximations
So mixing red and yellow…
– Digitally combines 700nm and 570nm light waves into 610nm orange RGB pixels
– Physically blends red and yellow pigment particles into orange through absorption/reflection
– Can be previewed on screen, but real-world paint mixing is needed to see the true resulting orange pigment color
In both cases, combining red and yellow makes orange. But appreciating how computer color mixing only models real-world pigment blending helps explain the translation between mixing colors of light versus matter.
Using Primary and Secondary Colors
Stepping back, the relationship between primary and secondary colors helps explain why red and yellow mix into orange.
Primary colors are defined as colors that cannot be created by mixing other shades but are instead the building blocks for generating all other hues. The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue.
Secondary colors are formed by blending two primary colors. Red and yellow make orange. Yellow and blue make green. Blue and red make purple.
Tertiary colors are then created by mixing a primary color with a secondary color adjacent to it on the color wheel. Red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-purple, and red-purple are examples of tertiary colors.
This formal logic of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors structures the color wheel systematically and helps illustrate color relationships based on hue ancestry – i.e., parental primary colors combining to form secondary offspring colors.
So red and yellow making orange is founded on their roles as primary colors. Orange is a secondary color definitively known to arise from some mixture of its two parent primaries. Having this color genealogy mapped out brings clarity to why combining red and yellow pigments or light creates orange as the ensuing secondary color.
Remembering Color Mixing Rules
The childhood mnemonic tool of ROY G BIV helps reinforce which colors are the primaries and secondaries. Each letter stands for a color:
– R = Red
– O = Orange
– Y = Yellow
– G = Green
– B = Blue
– I = Indigo
– V = Violet
So Red, Yellow and Blue are identified as the primaries. Orange, Green and Violet/Purple are called out as the secondaries derived from mixing those primaries.
This simple phrase links the primary and secondary colors in proper pairing order. Memorizing it provides a shortcut to recalling crucial color relationships and predicting mixing outcomes like red and yellow creating orange.
Other handy ways to remember primary-secondary color combinations are:
– Red + Yellow = “Or”ange
– Yellow + Blue = “Gr”een
– Blue + Red = “Pur”ple
These short word associations directly connect the core primary + primary = secondary color mixing codes to easily remember and accurately reproduce them. Rote memorization of the essential color combinations removes the guesswork and reliance on intuition when mixing colors.
Remembering Complementary Colors
Memorizing complementary color pairs through mnemonics is also useful for mixing. Complementary colors are those opposite each other on the color wheel. When blended, they cancel out hue and vibrancy to produce neutral grayish tones.
But mixing complements off balance keeps noticeable color. A pinch of the complement shades the main hue towards a more complex tone. This helps create rich secondary colors and tertiary shades.
Useful memory devices for complementary pairs:
– Red versus Green (Christmas colors)
– Yellow versus Purple (primary versus secondary)
– Blue versus Orange (cool versus warm)
So keeping red’s complement green, yellow’s complement purple, and blue’s complement orange in mind helps when judiciously adding small amounts of the opposite color to enhance mixing versatility. A touch of the complement provides nuance while large doses mute the original color.
Exceptions to Primary and Secondary Color Rules
While the primary color mixing rules provide invaluable guidance, some exceptions do exist:
– Darkened hues may mix differently – deep maroon and lemon yellow could make brown
– Desaturated tints may not create expected secondaries – pale pink and cream won’t blend into a vivid orange
– Impure pigments with pre-blended hues can skew results – a yellow tinged with green won’t make a clean orange when mixed with red
– Textured surfaces and application techniques add further variables – thick impasto orange paint won’t look the same as a flat orange dye, though both use a red + yellow mix
So while the fundamental mixing principles remain reliable anchors, the influences of tone, saturation, substrate, texture, and specific paint chemistry can all impact real-world color blending. Often some testing is needed to pin down proportions and account for these potential deviations from pure color theory. Experimentation and experience eventually provide an intuitive feel for compensating when mixing colors.
Caveats When Mixing Pigments
A few other important caveats when physically blending pigments:
– Oil paints take time to fully set before the final color is established
– Watercolor and ink appear lighter when wet and darken as they dry
– Mixing colorant mediums together, like thinned paint into ink, can create unpredictable viscosity and flow traits
– Not all pigments are compatible in vehicles like encaustics or resins, separating or clumping instead of blending smoothly
– Metallics, iridescents, fluorescents, and other special pigments follow modified mixing logic
– Colors can shift over time with exposure to sunlight, moisture, oxygen, and other environmental factors
So again, while the core primary-secondary color relationships provide an invaluable foundation, real-world pigment mixing involves a matrix of additional variables that can require nuance and experience to master fully. But memorizing and practicing the essential color combinations remains a vital starting point on the path towards color mastery.
Color Mixing in Printing
In four-color process printing – combining CMYK inks to reproduce full-spectrum color images – red and yellow are mixed through magenta and yellow inks. Cyan represents blue, magenta aligns with red, and yellow the same.
By overlaying a pattern of halftone dots composed of different concentrations of cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks, all colors can be optically simulated through precise combinations of the four process colors.
For orange, this involves layering halftone dot patterns rich in magenta and yellow. More yellow makes orange shimmer with vibrant tropical warmth. Boosting magenta brings an earthier, spicier red-orange flavor.
In this subtractive ink mixing environment, the same color theory relationships exist, just embodied in the printing primaries of cyan, magenta and yellow rather than pure red, yellow and blue light. The venn diagram below shows the alignments:
| Cyan | Magenta | Yellow | |
| Light Primaries | Blue | Red | Yellow |
| Print Primaries | Cyan | Magenta | Yellow |
So while the colors themselves differ between pure light RGB mixing and physical CMYK ink blending, the same essential logic of overprinting combinations of the primary colors still enables full spectrum reproduction of all hues through layering the available primaries at strategic ratios.
Pigment Mixing in Art
Mastering color mixing opens up vast creative potential in painting and visual arts. Brighter, more nuanced hues make paintings pop. Mixing lets artists tweak colors precisely and craft new shades that capture mood and lighting perfectly. Making colors from primaries saves money compared to buying pre-mixed paints. And the blending process itself can make color application more dynamic and textural.
Some mixing techniques painters employ:
– Mixing on the canvas – directly blending wet paint together layers
