What Color Do You Get When You mix Red And Blue? Color Facts For Kids

Aashita Dhingra
Oct 06, 2023 By Aashita Dhingra
Originally Published on Oct 11, 2021
Splash of blue and red paint
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Age: 3-18
Read time: 9.8 Min

We are all so lucky that the world we live in is so much more than just black and white.  

Living on this beautiful blue planet and witnessing so many colors around us rather than just black and white is such a delight. Can you imagine what our world would be without colors?

Do you know that you can magically create color pigments for example, when you mix red and blue or orange or create green or create purple color pigment even if you just have red, yellow, and blue color pigments with you? Find more about the colors red and blue in the article below.

Colors are surely a blessing for us.

Adding color pigments can make anything beautiful. Colors add beauty to our life, to our thoughts, and to the world in which we live.

The blue skies, the black clouds, the colorful flower pigments with colorful butterflies hovering on them, all of these add meaning to the whole world, make it more beautiful, almost perfect. There are so many different shades of color that we get to see around us.

We are surrounded by millions of different shades of colors, so much that even our eyes have a limit to the amount and number of colors we can actually get. By mixing red and blue you get dark magenta.

Yellow light is composed of a mixture of green light and red. Our vision might be restricted but these shades of the colors are not!

Depending on the situation and scenario, colors are known to produce positive or negative effects on us. Since colors are basically results of the light, which is reflected by the object that we see, and since light is energy, colors do have these effects.

Don't believe it? Ever observed why our brain gets so relaxed and we get calm when staring at the blue sky or the greenery.

You can try it for yourself.

So to conclude, choose the color of the house, your dress, your car, or even your smartphones wisely, for you never know which color might be a lucky charm for you! After you are done reading about the mixing of colors red and blue, do check other fun facts on what color is aubergine and what color is copper?

What are primary colors?

Did you know, yellow color pigment can absorb all colors other than red and green. Look around you, aren't you stunned by the number of different colors your eyes can witness?

The color of every flower, dress, or building, different colors of leaves on a single tree, aren't they all contrasting? What do we get when combining them? The three primary colors are red, blue, and yellow.

Since the world has so many different colors and so many different shades of it, one might wonder how many exact numbers of different colors are there in the world? Are all of these colors different from each other? Or do they have at least something in common? We will find the sign and answers of everything. 

The answer to that question is simply - yes!

All the colors in the entire world, each and every single different shade, do have something in common! All of these colors and their different shades are made by combining the primary colors.

They form a color wheel which helps to check before mixing colors. So in other words every color you ever witnessed or will witness can be achieved when you combine a primary color with another primary color.

That simply put in words defines primary color as the color which is related but cannot be created by mixing any other colors, but to the opposite, all the other colors are created of one or a combination of different primary colors.

Subtractive color mixing predicts the spectral power distribution of light after it passes through successive layers. Mixing blue and red colors will result in purple or violet, which is a secondary color.

Every color, whether it be the color of a wildflower by the roadside, or the color of the different flowers in the bouquet, all the different shades of leaves on a single tree, the beautiful nebula by the telescope or simple fireworks, every color, every shade in them, made up of combinations of these primary colors.

So, how many of these colors are there?

How many primary colors are there?

Tin can of color paint blue & red.

Did you know by mixing primary colors red, yellow, and blue, you can create all types of secondary and tertiary colors? But you cannot create primary colors by mixing other colors together.

So we finally know that all the different colors and the different shades that we see are basically combinations of different primary colors. Every single color in this universe is just made by combining one or more primary color pigments.

Now that we know that every colorful thing that we ever saw or will ever see, or any color we ever witnessed in our life, actually consists of primary colors.

You must be curious to know what the exact numbers of the primary colors are since they are associated with each and every color in the whole Universe (except for black and white, of course).

They form a color wheel which helps to check before mixing colors. They also help to work as paint colors.

Well, the numbers might shock you. Even though primary colors have a huge impact on this whole colorful world that we witness. When you mix two warm colors together, the result will be a warm color.

There could have been thousands of them, and we wouldn't complain since they are the creator of all the different shades of all the different colors that light up our world instead of making it darker. But shockingly, the whole world is painted by the different combinations and shades of just three primary colors.

Yes, you heard that right! There are only three primary colors that combine to make all the different colors.

These three primary colors basically make our whole world colorful. All the different colors you see consist of either of these three. Black, cyan, magenta, and yellow are the four popular colors that are used in commercial printing.

Combining red and blue together makes purple. Similarly, combining red and blue together in the visible light spectrum creates a magenta color. So what are the colors made by mixing them called, and which color do you get by mixing either of them?

What are secondary colors?

We have already seen that primary colors can be mixed to make every other color you can see, witness, or imagine. By the way, fun fact! You cannot imagine a new color that doesn't already exist! Good luck with that.

Mixing primary colors would give us a new color, and that is commonly known as a secondary color. These form a color wheel which helps to check before mixing. They also help to work as paint colors. What do we get by combining them?

So, basically, the colors that are made by mixing any of the two primary colors are known as secondary colors. Secondary colors are also three in numbers. By mixing two primary colors each, you can make a total of three secondary colors, namely orange, green, and purple.

These colors can be derived by mixing equal amounts of two primary colors. These secondary colors you have ever seen or will ever see are made of primary colors (red, yellow, and blue).

The different shades of orange, green, and purple colors are made by changing the amount of one color while mixing with the other, giving it a different texture. For example, green and blue light shades mix, the result will be cyan. Likewise, when you mix red, blue light, and green the result will be white light.

Remember the colors we talked about that you can magically create with the primary colors you have. It's time to find out how!

Mixing Red And Blue Colors

Since we have already learned so much about the basics of the primary colors and also talked about how secondary colors are made out of primary colors themselves. It's time we actually witness the reality of it.

Do mixing primary colors like mixing red and blue really make secondary colors? Let's find out what we get after a red and blue mix.

You may take some watercolor or poster colors as you like. What happens when you mix red and blue together and mix them firmly on the color plate?

The mixing of the red and the blue color gives us violet or purple. The shades of the color can further be changes by mixing more blue or red colors accordingly as per the requirement. That is exactly how you get different shades of violet!

It doesn't end here, you can also mix an equal amount of red and yellow, which will give you the color orange! While mixing blue and yellow, we get green.

And as before you can change the different shades of green by adding more blue or more yellow to it. All the different shades of green leaves on a single tree are an illustration of a combination of green and yellow.

We hope now you really understand how the whole world is made of just primary colors (red, blue, and yellow). Apart from primary and secondary colors, there are also tertiary colors.

What do you get when you mix all the RGB colors?

We already witnessed making new colors using the primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) and also, giving those secondary colors different shades as well. But, in the world of television, computers, and mobile phones basically use different primary colors.

Since the screen doesn't reflect the light but emits it, that's why they use RGB colors (red, green, blue) as their primary colors.

The RGB color stands for red, green, and blue. Red, green, and blue are the basic primary colors for our T.V., laptop, or smartphones.

Every electronic device with a screen uses the same combination of primary colors. Yellow would be a secondary color for them. Well, believe it or not, your television screen makes yellow by combining the shades of red and green.

The White Color Of Sunlight

The sun, which is our only star and the caretaker of our solar system, blesses us every day with heat and light. The sun’s light is the constant source of light on our planet that doesn’t let our planet go dark.

It is all due to this sun’s light, that we are able to witness such a beautiful world around us. It isn't that colorful, rather dark during the nighttime when the sun is not around, is it?

The sun appears to be of a darker shade like red at the time of sunrise and sunset and appears yellow when viewed during daytime. It is the same with the sun’s light. Though the sun’s light appears to be yellow is actually a white light!

The white light of the sun actually consists of a mixture of seven different colors, usually denoted as V.I.B.G.Y.O.R. It consists of violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. All these colors, when mixed together, form this white light!

Thus, white light is a combination of these seven colors. Newton was the first person to discover this fact.

You can also observe it at home with the help of a prism. When the prism is held in sunlight the color of the white light break into seven different colors. The same effect can be witnessed by making Newton's disk using these seven colors artificially at home.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for what color do you get when you mix red and blue, then why not take a look at what color does green and red make, or what color does pink and blue make?

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Written by Aashita Dhingra

Bachelors in Business Administration

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Aashita DhingraBachelors in Business Administration

Based in Lucknow, India, Aashita is a skilled content creator with experience crafting study guides for high school-aged kids. Her education includes a degree in Business Administration from St. Mary's Convent Inter College, which she leverages to bring a unique perspective to her work. Aashita's passion for writing and education is evident in her ability to craft engaging content.

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