Primary Colors in Art

What They Are and

How to Use Them Effectively

DAN SCOTT
 Introduction

Let’s discuss the primary colors as they relate to art, or more specifically, painting.
These are the first colors you’ll learn about in art. Even my 1-year-old daughter, Elora,
has been introduced to the primary colors through her children’s shows and at day-
care. Perhaps it’s because we’re introduced to the primary colors so early in life that
many of us take them for granted. But make no mistake, the primary colors are at the
heart of color theory and mixing. It’s essential that you truly understand what they
mean and how to use them effectively if you want to paint well.

I’ll cover:

• What Are the Primary Colors

• Primary Color Mixing
• Warm and Cool Primary Colors
• Fechin on the Primary Colors
• Primary Colors of Light

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 What AreThe
Primary Colors?

The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. These colors are, in theory, able to mix
all the other colors in the visible spectrum. They also cannot be created by mixing oth-
er colors. You’ll find them evenly spaced around the color wheel, forming a triangular
relationship.

In practice, however, color is not so simple. There are many different reds, yellows,
and blues available to us. Cadmium red, alizarin red, spectrum red, crimson red, etc.
Each color has a different position on the color wheel. Which of these colors are the
true primary colors? The answer would be the paints which represent the purest and
most saturated forms of red, yellow, and blue. Cadmium red, cadmium yellow, and
cobalt blue would be good picks. These are what I use as the primary colors on my
palette. They are vivid and relatively pure compared to other paints. But it’s worth
noting they are not perfect primary colors in that they do not hold up to the definition
of being able to mix all the other colors in the visible spectrum. You would struggle to
mix a good purple or a good green with these colors.

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A better representation of true primary colors would be yellow (say cadmium yellow
light), cyan, and magenta. With these colors, you would be able to mix a far wider
gamut of colors. The Handprint website has some detailed information on this if you
want to go deeper.

The reasons I still adopt red, yellow, and blue as the primary colors, despite their ob-
vious limitations for that role, are for simplicity and to be consistent with other art
education.

It’s important to remember that color theory is not a perfect science in art. There are
far too many variables for it to be treated like that. Our paints vary in terms of brand,
batch, age, condition, etc. Just look at the difference between cadmium yellow by Win-
sor and Newton and cadmium yellow by Art Spectrum:

The most important as-

pect of color is how you
use it in your work. It
doesn’t matter how you
got there. Sometimes, that
means simplifying the
theory into a more prac-
tical form. That’s what
color theory is in art. It’s
not always scientifically
correct, but it does the
trick.

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 Primary Color
Mixing

When you mix two primary colors together, you get a secondary color. Red and
yellow = orange. Yellow and blue = green. Red and blue = purple. Here you can see
the shortcomings of cadmium red, cadmium yellow, and cobalt blue as primary colors.
They do well with orange, but not so much with green and purple. The best I could do
for purple was a dull, cool red.

+ =

+ =

+ =

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When you mix all three primary colors together, you get some variation of gray
or mud.

+ + =

When you add white to a primary color, it gets

lighter in value. It also gets cooler in tempera- + =
ture and weaker in saturation.

When you add black to a primary color, it gets

darker in value. It also gets weaker in satura- + =
tion.

When you add gray to a primary color, it gets

weaker in saturation. It will also get lighter or + =
darker in the direction of the gray.

When you mix a primary color with its com-

plementary color, you make the color weaker + =
in saturation. It will also get lighter or darker in
the direction of the complementary. In the right
proportions, mixing two complementary colors
should create gray.

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 Warm and Cool
Primary Colors

In painting, there are warm and cool variations of the primary colors. These defini-
tions rely on the positioning of the color on the color wheel. A primary color that leans
towards a warm color is considered warm and one that leans towards a cool color is
considered cool. And keep in mind, I am using the term “primary color” loosely. Below
are some examples:

Manganese blue – cool (leans towards yellow on the color wheel)

Ultramarine blue – warm (leans towards red on the color wheel)
Cadmium yellow deep – warm (leans towards red on the color wheel)
Cadmium lemon – cool (leans towards blue on the color wheel)
Cadmium scarlet – warm (leans towards yellow on the color wheel)
Alizarin crimson – cool (leans towards blue on the color wheel)

This is important knowledge for mixing vivid secondary colors (orange, green, and
purple). To mix vivid secondary colors, you must combine primary colors that lean
towards each other on the color wheel and do not contain traces of a third primary.
Remember, when you mix all three primary colors together, you get mud.

In the image here, the two blues from top to bot-

tom are cobalt blue and manganese blue. The
yellows from left to right are cadmium yellow
in Winsor and Newton, cadmium yellow in Art
Spectrum, and cadmium yellow light. I refer-
ence the brands of the first two yellow paints as
they appear to differ considerably in tempera-
ture; the Winsor and Newton yellow is much
warmer. Notice how the cobalt blue produces
dull greens. The most vivid pairing was manganese blue with cadmium yellow light,
though the image did a poor job at capturing this. Cadmium yellow in Art Spectrum
with manganese blue was a close second. (I did this experiment previously using more
blues and yellows. You can read about that here.)

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 Fechin on the
Primary Colors
Nicolai Fechin, a true artist’s artist, had some wise words on the primary colors:

“As a matter of fact an artist has to deal with only three basic
colors: red, blue, yellow (all the rest are combinations of these
fundamental colors). Everyone knows this, but few pay atten-
tion to the fact. Thus the first step for the artist to learn to see
these primary colors and to distinguish them separately one
from the other.” (Source)

“To avoid murky results, it is necessary to learn how to use the

three basic colors and to apply them, layer upon layer, in such a
way that the underlying color shows through the next applica-
tion. For instance, one can use blue paint, apply over it some red
in such a manner that the blue and the red are seen simultane-
ously and thus produce the impression of a violet vibration. If,
in the same careful manner, one puts upon his first combination
a yellow color, a complete harmonization is reached – the colors
are not mixed, but built one upon the other, retaining the full
intensity of their vibrations.” (Source)

Nicolai Fechin, Pouring, 1914

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 Primary Colors
of Light

The primary colors of light are different from that of our paints. They are red, blue,
and green. This is a complex area and requires a separate post. I’ll let you know once
it is published.