About Color

To understand color, it's helpful to unlearn these ideas:
There are only 3 primary colors,
Red, yellow, blue = best / most important primaries,
The 3 primaries cannot be mixed by other colors.
The 3 primaries can mix all other colors.

Those ideas are not true.

When observing the paintings on this site, take in the colors you are seeing and acknowledge that words associated with these colors have loaded meanings and cultural associations.

Colors are born in our minds as an interpretation of light.

Visible Light Spectrum

The range of colors between violet and red are not visible wavelengths. They are created when our brains average long and short wavelengths and medium wavelengths are not present.

Mixing colors with beams of light

Mixing colors with paint / pigment

Primary colors can be defined as an initial set of colors used to mix a wide range of other colors. Multiple sets of primary colors exist.

Colors like red and blue can be mixed with other colors.

We name colors with the terms "light" when made lighter and "dark" when made darker. It makes sense to be consistent with pink and red.

PINK
+
WHITE
=
LIGHT PINK

PINK
+
YELLOW
=
RED

RED
+
WHITE
=
LIGHT RED

There are many ways to mix neutrals.
One misconception is that red and blue mix violet, but pink gives a better violet.

four stacked bar gradients showing different blues / cyans and reds / oranges

Color and Temperature

Our minds have made links between the visible light waves we perceive and the temperatures we feel. Our perception and association of warm and cool with reds and blues is psychological. For example, "cool" light has a higher measured temperature (K) than "warm" light.

Using the terms "warm" and "cool" when referring to colors is arbitrary.

Our interpretation of light is relative.