You cannot directly make green by mixing complementary colors. Complementary colors, when mixed, tend to neutralize each other, resulting in a muddy brown or gray.
Understanding Complementary Colors and Color Mixing
-
Complementary Colors: These are pairs of colors located opposite each other on the color wheel (e.g., red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple).
-
Additive Color Mixing (Light): This involves mixing light, such as with computer screens. When you mix light, complementary colors create white light.
-
Subtractive Color Mixing (Pigments): This involves mixing pigments, such as paints or inks. When you mix pigments, complementary colors cancel each other out, producing a neutral color like gray, brown, or black, depending on the specific pigments and ratios used.
How to Actually Make Green
To make green, you need to mix blue and yellow. More specifically, primary cyan and primary yellow will result in a purer green.
- Blue + Yellow = Green
Why Complementary Colors Don't Make Green
When you mix a color with its complement, you're essentially mixing all three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) together (in varying proportions, depending on the complement). Mixing all three primary colors substractively leads to a muddied neutral tone, not a vibrant green. For example:
- Mixing red and green (complements) will produce brown. Red contains red pigment. Green contains blue and yellow pigments. Thus, mixing them will give you red, blue, and yellow all together.
In conclusion, mixing complementary colors will not produce green; instead, you need to mix blue and yellow.
