Every manufactured paint is biased. If your goal is to achieve the brightest or vibrant colors by mixing your paints, having some knowledge of color bias is essential.
|
| Traditional Primary Colors |
Before the industrial revolution, primary colors included the traditional triad of red, yellow, and blue.
Color Relativity
Paint colors are relative to their surroundings. This means you must compare one color swatch to another because all colors are optically deceiving, depending on what is next to or around them.
 |
| Pigments in Red, Blue, and Yellow |
For example, pink is the color of Valentine's Day. We think of pink as a warm color. However, when pink is next to red, it appears cooler than red. These variations may seem insignificant, but they have a considerable impact when mixing secondary or tertiary colors.
|
| Traditional Primary Color Locations on the Color Wheel |
Most traditional paints in red, yellow, or blue lean toward the colors or hues on either side of them on the color wheel.
|
| Color Bias |
For example, depending on the chosen red paint color, it will lean towards one of the secondary colors, such as red-orange or red-violet. The same is true for blue. It will either be blue-green or blue-violet. And yellow, which would lean towards a green-yellow or orange-yellow.
|
| Making Mud |
You'll get good results mixing secondary or tertiary colors in most cases. However, if you mix a cool blue with a warm red to make purple or violet, you get a muddy, dull purple. If your intent is to mix a neutral or brown color, then it works great!
|
| Six Primary Colors (each as one warm and one cool) |
If your intent is to get vibrant secondary or tertiary colors, you must use a two primary color system, which includes, two colors for each primary (one warm and one cool).
Modern Colors
Since the Industrial Revolution, physicists who have studied the visible spectrum of light and color needed to create modern printers have found that the primary colors are extremely specific.
|
| Modern Primary Colors: Blue is Cyan (C), Red is Magenta (M), Yellow (Y) |
They include cyan for blue, magenta for red, and yellow (CMYK), in which K represents "Black." The magenta is pinkish-red, the cyan is cool, and the yellow is warm.
If you want vibrant secondary and tertiary colors, use paint colors that are closer to these specific colors. If you are interested in learning more, check out color systems.
| Sponsored by the Art Verve Academy. Enroll in studio art classes for adults in Tucson, Arizona, at ArtVerveAcademy.com. |
Updated January 1, 2026.
