Orange and purple lights combined will probably produce a light pink color. It relies on how vivid the colors are, though. It makes reasonable that those lights would have red or pink hues since the mixture contains more red than any other color.
What Color Do Orange and Purple Make When Mixed?
Orange and purple are two colors that you wouldn’t normally think to mix together. Yet, they work surprisingly well when combined or placed in designs together.
So, what color do orange and purple make when mixed, and will that conclusion differ based on what medium you use? Let’s talk about the results when mixing colors using paint and lights.
What Color Do Orange and Purple Make in Paint?
On the RYB color wheel commonly used for painting, orange and purple are both secondary colors. Orange is made of yellow and red, while purple is made of blue and red. So, when mixing orange and purple, you will create a combination including all three primary colors. Normally, that result is brown, but since there is more red than yellow or blue, the result is slightly different.
Purple and orange mixed in paint create russet , which is brown with a red tint to it. It’s often seen as a fur color for animals, and it’s a unique color to use in artwork.
Understanding the RYB Color Model
The RYB color model is used for painting and other types of physical art creations. The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. Those three colors can be mixed in combinations to create the secondary colors, which are purple, orange, and green. If all three primary colors are mixed together in equal amounts, they’ll create a murky brown color.
This color model is a form of subtractive mixing. Subtractive color mixing occurs when colors are absorbed together to create a new color. That’s why swirling two paint colors together will give you a completely different hue.
Is There an Easier Way to Make Russet?
Most people find russet to be much more endearing than a traditional brown. So, there’s an easier way to create russet than mixing purple and orange. If you already have a tube of brown paint, mix red with brown to create a nice reddish-brown hue.
Yet, if you don’t have access to brown paint, you can mix all three primary colors together to create brown. Instead of mixing an equal amount of all the colors, add a little more red than blue or yellow. Then, you’ll get a nice russet brown. The more red you add, the warmer the color will turn out.
How to Mix Lighter and Darker Colors
Russet is a unique type of brown, but it might not be exactly what you’re looking for. So, here are some tips for how to create a lighter or darker version of the color.
Making Tints
Tints are lighter versions of a color. The best way to create a lighter russet color is to add white to the mixture. Since white is such a light color, you might need to use a lot of it to notice a difference.
Making Shades
On the other hand, shades are darker versions of colors. To get a shade of russet, you can add a touch of black into the mix. Black can easily overpower the other colors though, so be sure to only use it sparingly.
Russet Color Meaning
Russet
Hex: #80461B
RGB: 128, 70, 27
CMYK: 0, 45, 79, 50
Russet is a type of brown, which means it can share some of brown’s common meanings. Brown is a color of reliability, stability, and honesty. It’s meant to simplify, protect, and ground people.
Some of brown’s positive meanings include appreciation, support, and wisdom. However, it can sometimes be seen as a negative color, appearing boring, dull, or timid.
While russet can have all the meanings of brown, depending on the context, it also has some lesser-known meanings of its own. It’s commonly associated with autumn, which is a sign of change, growth, and wealth. Yet, some also see russet as a serious or sorrowful color. It all depends on how you intend to use it in your artwork and designs.
What Color Do Orange and Purple Make in Lights?
It’s very rare that you would ever mix orange and purple in lights since they’re both tertiary colors. Yet, they might create an interesting mix if you try it. In the color wheel for lights, orange is a mix of yellow and red, while purple is a mix of blue and magenta. Since the primary colors for lights are red, green, and blue (RGB), this mix doesn’t use all three primary colors as it does with paint.
Mixing orange and purple lights together will likely give you a light pink . However, it depends on how bright the colors are. Since there’s more red in the mixture than any other color, it makes sense that there would be red or pink hues in those lights.
You’ll get a similar result when mixing colors through ink and printing as the tertiary colors are the same on RGB and CMYK models.
Understanding the RGB Color Model
The RGB color model is used for lights and displays on electronic systems. The three primary colors are red, green, and blue instead of red, yellow, and blue. Those primary colors can be mixed in combinations to create RGB’s secondary colors, which are cyan, magenta, and yellow.
This color wheel is a form of additive color mixing, which is created through a combination of wavelengths. So, for mixing lights, the colors are layered on top of each other to create a new color.
While the CMYK color model is subtractive, it still shares colors with the RGB color model. It’s just the opposite way around, with the primary colors being cyan, magenta, and yellow and the secondary colors being red, green, and blue. A big difference between the two is that the primary colors in the RGB color wheel mix together to create white, while the ones in the CMYK color model mix to create black instead.
How Do You Mix Lights?
Lights can be mixed by layering one colored light on top of another. All colors can be created by adding the three primary colors together at different brightnesses.
All three colors mixed together at full brightness make white. However, removing one of the colors or lowering its brightness can create something entirely different. Orange is made by having red at full brightness, green at about half brightness, and no blue. Then, purple is made when red and blue are at full brightness, but green is only halfway.
Thus, mixing colors with light can create slightly different results, depending on how bright the colors are. Some lights already have a mixed color to them, but all colors can be made by simply using red, green, and blue lights. Experimenting with different light combinations is a great way to better understand the RGB color model.
Pink Color Meaning
Pink is commonly seen as a sign of compassion, love, and playfulness. It’s comforting, nurturing, and calming, which is why it’s often thought to be a feminine color or associated with mothers. However, anyone can benefit from this vibrant and uplifting color.
Some positive aspects of pink include kindness, warmth, and romance. It’s often associated with emotions, including ones like timid, immature, or unconfident. So, consider all these meanings before choosing to use pink in designs.
What Color Do Orange and Purple Make?
Orange and purple are secondary colors on the popular RYB color wheel. Red and yellow combine to form orange, while blue and red combine to form purple. As a result, when you mix purple and orange, all three primary hues will be present.
Russet is a brown color with a red undertone that is made in paint by combining purple and orange. It’s a distinctive color to employ in artwork and is frequently associated with animal fur.
Making Tints and Shades of Russet
Although russet is a distinct type of brown, it might not be what you’re searching for. To make a lighter or darker version of the hue, here are some instructions.
Creating Tints
Tints are softer variations of colors. White is the best color to add to the combination in order to achieve a lighter russet tint. You may need to apply a lot of white to see a difference because it is such a pale hue.
Creating Shades
Shades, on the other hand, are more intense variations of hues. You can incorporate a small amount of black into the mixture to achieve a shade of russet. However, black can easily overshadow the other colors, so use it cautiously.
What Color Do Light Orange and Purple Make?
Light orange and purple mixed together result in light reddish brown. Purple is a dark color and even if you lighten the orange, you shouldn’t expect it to give something lighter color like light pinkish red hue.
What Color Do Orange and Light Purple Make?
While mixing orange and light purple colors, the resultant color formed will be somewhat lighter brown color.
To make your desired base color brighter or darker, you can generate light and dark variations of these hues. Small additions of black or white can also be helpful in this regard.
Purple Plus Orange Equals…
When I do these color mixing experiments, I don’t cheat by looking up the answers online — I first do extensive test with my own art materials. You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I created the drawing below, smudging together purple plus orange… and found that there were at least NINE totally different shades resulting!
How would you describe the colors shown below? Dusty pink? Brownish red-magenta? Whoa! Unexpected.
Primary Color Science
To figure out what was happening and pinpoint exactly what color was resulting from purple and orange together, I backed up and did some color mixing math, creating the drawing below to illustrate the primary colors that make up each “ingredient” in this mix. Suddenly it all made sense…
Why Orange and Purple Make Reddish-Brown
Here’s the pigment math of what’s happening with this color combination, illustrated by my drawing, above, which breaks each primary color component apart, then shows how they add up. First, we see that purple is made up of red and blue. Meanwhile, orange is created by red plus yellow. Now the separated parts are clear: Red, red, blue, yellow.
Next, take the blue from the purple and the yellow from the orange, which creates green. Then combine that with the red from the orange, and we know that the answer to “what does red and green make?” is they make brown. Then you have one more red left over (from the purple), and you add that to the brown to make the final answer: Purple plus orange equals reddish-brown!
Can The Two Colors Make Black?
Why don’t the two colors form black? Because to get black in pigment mixing, you need equal parts of all three primary colors. As you can see from my illustration, there’s an overabundance of red in the mix, and the two are not complimentary colors or opposites (though they’re close — yellow is), so purple plus orange will always result in a color that’s in the brown family, not black.
Reddish-Brown is “Russet” Color
It turns out there’s a fancy name for the particular reddish-brown that purple and orange join forces to create: “Russet!” Yes that’s right — like Russet Potatoes, russet colored hair, Golden Russet Apples, and russet mites. It’s a really pretty color!
Think of the richest russet-hued soil, or dark auburn hair. Nature loves the color russet. But wait — russet is not the only color that results from this combination of orange and purple.
Making Dusty Pinks
As you can see from more than half of my experiments here for the art prompt, “What color do purple and orange make?” my pigment mixing resulted in another family of colors more clearly than the dark reddish-brown of russet: mostly I got dusty brownish pinks!
How does this differ from my answer to “What Do Yellow and Purple and Make?” The resulting pinks and browns from purple and orange together are more reddish than the ones from purple and yellow. Why? Remember that color math chart I drew earlier — the latter combination has one less chunk of red in the mix.
What Do Orange and Purple Make?
We’ve now solved the answer to what color orange and purple make when mixed together! They combine to form either russet — a rich reddish-brown — if they’re dark and saturated enough, or a wide range of dusty brownish pinks. Now go forth and make all these cute drawing ideas using that sweet color set! Enjoy…
The author and artist, Lillie Marshall, is a National Board Certified Teacher of English who has been a public school educator since 2003, and an experienced Reiki practitioner since 2018. All art on this site is original and hand-drawn by Lillie. She launched DrawingsOf.com Educational Cartoons in 2020, building upon the success of her other sites, AroundTheWorldL.com (established 2009), TeachingTraveling.com (founded 2010), and ReikiColors.com. Subscribe to Lillie’s monthly newsletter, and follow @WorldLillie on social media to stay connected!
