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Colour Mixing

Art · Year 1–Year 6

Mix red, yellow and blue, make tints and shades, and mix to match a colour.

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About the colour mixing

Drag a paint pot onto the jar and it pours in, or tap it if you would rather not lean across the board. The paint in the jar changes colour, the level rises with every drop, and the board says what the mixture is now called. Tap Empty to start again.

The shelf has the eight paints a classroom tray has: the three primaries, the three secondaries they make, and white and black. A drop of green is a drop of yellow and a drop of blue, so green and red is all three primaries and comes out brown, and green and yellow is two yellows to one blue, which is yellow-green. That is what happens at the table.

There are two boards. Free mix answers “what does this make”. Match puts a colour in a second jar beside yours and asks the harder question an art lesson actually sets: how do I make that? Nothing on the board names it, so a class has to look at the colour, work out what is in it, and get the proportions right. The equals sign appears when the two jars really are the same paint, and never before.

It mixes like PAINT, not like a screen, and that is the thing to know about it. A computer averages colours the way light behaves, where yellow and blue make grey and red and green make yellow. Paint does the opposite: it takes light away. So this works on the red, yellow and blue wheel that is on the wall in every primary classroom, and yellow and blue make green.

The amounts matter, so the board says so. Two drops of red and one of yellow is not orange, it is red-orange, which is the colour halfway between them on the wheel. A tool that rounded it to orange would be teaching that the proportions do not count, and mixing to match a colour is most of what a primary art lesson is doing.

White and black are the other half of it. Adding white makes a TINT and adding black makes a SHADE, and neither one changes what colour it is: light orange is still orange. That is why the name keeps the colour and says what was done to it.

All three primaries together make brown, which is what every class tries within about a minute, and white with black makes grey.

How to use it on your whiteboard

  1. 1Drag a paint pot onto the jar, or tap it, to pour a drop in.
  2. 2Add a second colour and see what it makes.
  3. 3Ask the class to predict before you tap, then tap.
  4. 4Add two drops of one and one of the other, and see the name change.
  5. 5Add white for a tint, or black for a shade, and ask if it is still the same colour.
  6. 6Tap Empty to start a new mixture, or Undo to take the last drop out.
  7. 7Pour the green pot and then a drop of red, and ask why it went brown.
  8. 8Turn Secondary off to put orange, green and purple away, for the lesson where making them is the point.
  9. 9Press Match for a colour in the other jar, and ask the class what is in it before anybody pours.
  10. 10Press New for another colour to match. They get harder: the later ones need a tint or a shade at the right strength.

Questions

Why does yellow and blue make green here?
Because that is what paint does. Mixing light works the other way round, which is what a screen does and why a computer averaging yellow and blue gives grey. This tool is modelled on the red, yellow and blue wheel a primary class uses, so the board agrees with the paint on the table.
What is the difference between a tint and a shade?
A tint is a colour with white added and a shade is the same colour with black added. Neither one makes a different colour: light blue and dark blue are both blue, which is the point.
Why is two red and one yellow not just orange?
Because the amounts matter. Equal drops land halfway between the two colours, which is orange; twice as much red lands a third of the way, which is red-orange. Matching a colour by changing the proportions is most of what an art lesson is doing.
Can I take the secondary colours off?
Yes. Turn Secondary off and the shelf is the three primaries with white and black, which is the board for the lesson where making green is the whole point. It travels in a shared link, so a setup can go in a lesson plan.
Why is there no green pot on the matching board?
Because half the colours to match are green, orange and purple, and a pot of green is not a shortcut on that board, it is the answer already poured. The matching shelf is the five paints to mix from, and the board says so. The free board has all eight.
How does matching a colour work?
Press Match and a colour appears in a second jar beside yours, with no name on it. Mix in your own jar until the two are the same and an equals sign appears between them. What is compared is the colour, so a class who used two drops of each rather than one has still matched it, and the jar is never marked wrong: two jars side by side say it better than a cross would.
Can the class mix more than two colours?
Yes, up to eight drops. All three primaries together make brown however it is stirred, which is worth letting a class discover rather than telling them.