Colors: Primary, Secondary & Tertiary

Here is a brief discussion of color as it pertains to oil painting.

Primary Colors

Red, yellow and blue are primary colors. They cannot be gotten by mixing other colors. However, they can be mixed to create other colors. See the charts below.

Secondary Colors

Orange, green and violet are created by mixing primary colors. If you are mixing orange, and you use equal parts of yellow and red, you will get a medium orange. If your orange has more yellow in it, then it is a yellow orange. If it has more red in it, then it is a red orange. Yellow orange and red orange are tertiary colors.

Tertiary Colors

The tertiary colors are versions of secondary colors created by adding more of one of the two primary colors in that secondary color. Tertiary colors are: red orange, yellow orange, yellow green, blue green, blue violet and red violet. See below:

Warm & Cool Primaries

Primaries come in different color temperatures. For instance the color swatches below are all primary colors, but there is a warm version of each and a cool version of each. The cool primaries shown below are cerulean blue, alizarin crimson and lemon yellow. The warm primaries shown are French ultramarine blue, cadmium red light and cadmium yellow medium. When you combine these 6 primaries with white, the color combinations are endless and exciting!

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