MIXING DYES - PAINTS - INKS

"SUBTRACTIVE" COLOR MIXING

There are two basic ways colors can be mixed to make other colors.
	1. One way is by combining color illumination or light. Mixing color light is called "additive" color mixing.
	2. The other way is by mixing together media such as paint, inks, dyes and other colorants. This is called "subtractive" color mixing.

Subtractive mixing takes place whenever any two or more colors of paint, marker, ink or dye are mixed together. The following information is about subtractive color mixing.

Color wheels made from various art media.

Oil Paint Acrylic Paint Drawing Ink

These wheels were created by using suitable sources of cyan, yellow and magenta paints and inks.

COLOR FILTERS

Subtractive mixing also takes place when one or more transparent color media are applied one over the other. An example of this is using colored filters together to produce a mixed color.

You can use a flashlight and filters to see how this works. Here is how magenta and yellow filters can make red light.

White light	Filters: Yellow + Magenta = Red

The white illumination is actually a mixture of colors. The yellow filter stops (subtracts) the blue light from the flashlight beam. The magenta filter stops (subtracts) the green, leaving only red light to reach the wall.

LIGHT PLUS SURFACE DETERMINES COLOR

Before going further, keep in mind that it is the spectrum colors that are already combined in "white light" that allows for the colors that will be either absorbed or reflected. How the colors react to the surface of an object determines the color of that object.  

SUN

EYE

This diagram shows what happens when we look at two blobs of paint. One blob is black. The other is white. The colors look different, because different amounts of the colors that form white light are absorbed (subtracted) out of it by the paint. We see only the light that is reflected. The color of the light that reaches our eyes determines what we see as the color of the object. The black paint subtracts all colors and no light is reflected. So it looks black. The white light does not subtract colors. It reflects all the colors. So it looks white. 

We think of color mixing as adding colors together. So why is the mixing of paints and inks called "subtractive" color mixing?

Paints, watercolors, markers, inks and other color media either absorb or reflect certain colors. Any color that is not absorbed from the light that shines on an object is reflected off the mixture. The color that is absorbed by the surface is said to be "subtracted" from the reflected light that we see.

Look at this diagram of how the blue color cyan mixes with the yellow color to form green. Keep in mind that the "white" sunlight is a mixture of colors.

So even though we add colors together when we mix paint, the newly formed colors are caused by subtracting out colors from the reflected light. That's why this is called "subtractive" color mixing.

The primary colors of paint, ink and dyes

What is meant by primary colors?

The term primary colors usually means:

1. The colors that are the minimum number of colors that can be mixed to make the greatest number of other colors.

2. In their purest form, the three "subtractive" primary colors themselves cannot be made by mixing other colors.

What are the subtractive primary colors?

Magenta and Yellow make Red		Yellow and Cyan make Green
Cyan and Magenta make Blue

The link between these two different types of primary colors has led to the inventions of color printing, color photography and color movies. This is based on a scientific approach to color mixing. It has resulted in the color we expect to see in books, magazines, movies and photos. On the other hand, such scientific boundaries need not affect the choice of colors that an artist may choose when creating a painting or when lighting a stage set. In such cases, additional colors or alternate colors may be used. Museums are filled with masterpieces wherein the artists mixed together many colors that may have been quite different than the colors mentioned above. However, no matter what the colors may be, the mixing together of color paint utilizes the subjective process of color mixing. The mixing of any color illumination utilizes the additive process of color mixing.

For more about the artistic use of color mixing, click on the topic, "Painting," on the index of topics on the top left of this page.

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