What Colours Make ___? Interactive Mixer
Pick a target colour like brown, purple or pink, and see which two paint colours combine to make it, with an adjustable mixing ratio.
How to Use This Tool
Choose a target colour from the dropdown, such as brown, purple or pink, and the tool loads the two ingredient colours traditionally used to mix it, plus a default ratio. Adjust the slider to fine-tune the exact shade, or swap in your own colours to experiment.
How the Mixing Works
This tool uses a red-yellow-blue (RYB) subtractive mixing model, the same approach traditionally taught for paint mixing, rather than the red-green-blue (RGB) model used for on-screen light. This is the same digital paint-mixing engine used in our Paint Colour Mixer.
The Ten Recipes
Orange (red + yellow), green (yellow + blue) and purple (red + blue) are the three classic secondary colours. Brown comes from mixing complementary colours, such as red and green, or from combining all three primaries. Pink, peach, maroon and navy are tints and shades made by adding white or black to a base colour. Grey comes from black and white, or from balanced complementary colours. Turquoise sits between blue and green.
A Note on Real Paint
These recipes reflect widely taught, traditional colour-mixing conventions. Actual results with real paint depend on the specific pigments, brand, opacity and how thickly the paint is applied, so treat this as an educational starting point rather than an exact prediction.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does this tool do?
It shows which two paint colours to mix, and in roughly what ratio, to create a target colour such as brown, purple, pink or navy, then previews the result digitally.
Which colours can I look up?
Ten common targets are included: orange, green, purple, brown, pink, grey, maroon, navy, peach and turquoise.
What colour model does this tool use?
It uses a red-yellow-blue (RYB) subtractive mixing model, the traditional approach taught for paint mixing, the same engine used in our Paint Colour Mixer.
Can I adjust the ratio?
Yes, use the slider to shift the mix between the two ingredient colours and see the result update live.
Can I use my own colours instead of the suggested recipe?
Yes, both ingredient colour pickers can be changed manually to experiment with your own starting colours.
Will this match my actual paint exactly?
Not exactly. This is a digital approximation. Real paint mixing depends on the specific pigments, brand, opacity and how thickly the paint is applied.
Why does brown come from red and green?
Red and green are complementary colours (opposite each other on the colour wheel), and mixing complementary colours together produces a muted brown or grey-brown tone.
Is this tool free to use?
Yes, this tool is completely free to use with no sign-up required.
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