Hey there, fellow art enthusiast! Following our colorful exploration of “What Do Yellow and Purple Make?”, we’re diving into another fascinating color combination: red and green. Get ready for a hands-on journey to discover the answer to the question: what color do you get when you mix red and green?
We’ll explore this through various artistic techniques, adding a crucial piece to our ever-expanding color mixing chart. The results might just surprise you and definitely enrich your creative drawings!
The Predominant Result: Red and Green Make Brown
As illustrated above, the most common outcome when you mix red and green pigments together is brown. In the digital example, I used Procreate on my iPad, combining red and green with the “Airbrush” tool and then swirling them using the “Smudge” tool. (Hope you enjoy the easy, cute drawings adding a bit of fun to each color!)
The truly captivating aspect is how these two vibrant, bright colors merge to create such a dark and muted shade. The resulting brown is so deep it almost blends into the black background! Let’s continue our color experiments and fuel your future creative drawings with this knowledge.
Beyond Brown: Exploring Color Nuances
Remembering our exploration into “What Does Purple and Green Make?”, we know that color mixing isn’t always straightforward. There can be multiple outcomes. So, I wanted to investigate if red and green could produce more than just brown.
As you can see in the illustrations below, using different techniques – “Marker” brush with finger smudging for intense mixing and “Acrylic” paintbrush with smudging – the answer is more complex than simply “brown.” Similar to our findings in “What Does Purple and Orange Make?”, seemingly simple color questions can have diverse answers.
A Spectrum of Brown Shades
Indeed, mixing green and red produces a wide array of brown shades. This expands the answer beyond a single color, encompassing options like khaki, tan, nude, skin tones, chocolate, and mud. (This could inspire a great art prompts idea: illustrate the diverse shades of brown using different mediums!)
Using a lighter red, like pink, results in a tan or light brown, reinforcing that green and pink make lighter browns. Furthermore, certain red and green combinations can even create a deep, dark brown so intense it approaches black!
Complimentary Colors and the Secret to Black!
Surprisingly, while brown is the usual result, the right shades of red and green can actually produce black! Black is created by mixing all three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue (as shown above). Green, being a secondary color, is composed of yellow and blue. Therefore, combining red and green effectively incorporates all primary colors.
In color theory, complementary colors, like red and green, have the potential to create black when mixed. Achieving true black depends on precise pigmentation balance of the primary colors within the red and green shades. To delve deeper into creating neutral colors like black, gray, brown, and tan, explore my post on what colors make brown.
See the experiment below: layering “Marker” brush strokes of green and red initially produced black. Smudging it (at the heart’s bottom) reduced the saturation or color intensity, revealing brown.
The Color Mixing Conclusion: Red and Green Unveiled
So, there you have it! Red and green primarily make brown – ranging from light to dark depending on the specific shades. They can also create black under intense saturation and with the right color hues. I hope this exploration of color mixing and art inspiration has been enlightening. Feel free to suggest which color combination you’d like me to investigate next!
Curious for more? Explore “What do Orange and Green Make?”
Lillie Marshall
Author and artist Lillie Marshall is a National Board Certified Teacher of English with extensive experience in public education since 2003, and a Reiki practitioner since 2018. All artwork on this site is original, hand-drawn by Lillie. She founded DrawingsOf.com Educational Cartoons in 2020, expanding on her successful platforms, AroundTheWorldL.com (established 2009), TeachingTraveling.com (founded 2010), and ReikiColors.com. Subscribe to Lillie’s monthly newsletter and follow @WorldLillie on social media to stay connected!
