Artists need to know their colours. If you would like to be an artist you need to know all
about how colours are made by mixing colours together.

Colours are often displayed on a COLOUR WHEEL to show how they are related.

Secondary colours are the next set of colours after our PRIMARY colours. SECONDARY
colours are created when we mix equal parts of 2 Primary Colours.

The 3 Secondary Colours

In Art, the three SECONDARY COLOURS are:

ORANGE, GREEN & VIOLET

How are they made?

> ORANGE: Red + Yellow

> GREEN: Yellow + Blue

> VIOLET: Blue + Red

But what about Purple?

Sometimes people call the Secondary colour made by mixing RED & BLUE as PURPLE.
The colour Purple is actually what is called a tertiary colour (A colour created by mixing
a primary with a secondary colour.) Another name for purple is BLUE-VIOLET.

More Information

To further your colour knowledge, don’t forget to read our other blogs on primary,
tertiary and complementary colours. If you would like a print out of our colour wheel
posters, have a look on our website under RESOURCES > COLOUR WHEELS.
Here you will find printable colour wheels available in both English and U.S spelling.