Step into the science of color. Experiment with subtractive paint mixing in an interactive beaker, test additive RGB light spotlights in a dark room, and master primary and secondary colors through fun puzzles.
Tap red, yellow, blue, white, or black to add a drop and watch the mix.
Pigments absorb light. Two primaries make orange, green, or purple. Add white for pink, sky blue, or pale yellow. Add black for maroon, navy, olive, or gray. All three primaries make brown.
Pick two screen colors and blend them. This mixes RGB hex values. It is not the same as mixing paint in the beaker.
Color A
Color B
Result hex
#95639D
R 149 G 99 B 157
Subtractive pigments, additive light beams, color wheels, and fun science tips.
Paints use subtractive mixing because pigments absorb light wavelengths; mixing all three paints makes dark brown or black. Screens use additive mixing by emitting red, green, and blue light; mixing all three lights produces white light.
In art and elementary science, Red, Yellow, and Blue are the three primary paint colors. They cannot be created by mixing other paints together.
When you mix equal parts of two primaries: Red + Yellow = Orange, Yellow + Blue = Green, and Blue + Red = Purple.
White lightens a color (a tint): red plus white is pink, blue plus white is sky blue, yellow plus white is pale yellow. Black darkens a color (a shade): red plus black is maroon, blue plus black is navy, yellow plus black is olive. White plus black is gray. Mixing all three primaries still makes brown.
Computer screens, phones, and stage lighting use Red, Green, and Blue light. Overlapping Red + Green creates Yellow light, Green + Blue creates Cyan, and Red + Blue creates Magenta.
Try turning on all three spotlights in light mode to see white light appear in the center of the dark stage.
Understanding color mixing helps in painting, digital art, photography, printing, and understanding how human eyes perceive light.
The beaker teaches paint recipes with a few named tubes. Under that, Mix any hex lets you pick two colors by picker or hex code and slide between them. The computer averages the red, green, and blue numbers. Red plus green hex does not make yellow paint. It makes a muddy olive on screen. That difference is the point of the lab.
Next labs in this group. Everything runs in your browser.
It is a free interactive color science laboratory designed for beginners to explore paint pigment mixing and additive RGB light beams.
Paint absorbs light (subtractive), so adding more colors makes the mixture darker. Light beams emit energy (additive), so adding more light beams makes the overlap brighter.
In traditional art and elementary school science, the three primary pigment colors are Red, Yellow, and Blue.
The three primary colors of light are Red, Green, and Blue (RGB), which are used in computer screens and televisions.
Those mixes use white or black with a primary paint, not two primaries. Red plus white makes pink. Blue plus white makes sky blue. Yellow plus white makes pale yellow. Blue plus black makes navy. Red plus black makes maroon. Yellow plus black makes olive. White plus black makes gray. Orange, green, and purple still come from two primaries. Mixing all three primaries still makes brown. Practice Recipes keeps asking for orange, green, and purple so the primary lesson stays first.
Mixing Red and Green light beams creates bright Yellow light, which is different from mixing red and green paint.
Practice mode offers three self-paced challenges: mixing paint recipes, switching light spotlights, and classifying colors as primary or secondary.
Your attempts and correct scores are saved locally in your browser with no login or account required.
This tool focuses on core RYB pigment and RGB light concepts. Advanced CYMK offset printing physics, LAB color spaces, and hex code math are excluded for clarity.
Hex codes describe light on a screen. The mixer averages the red, green, and blue numbers of Color A and Color B. Paint in the beaker subtracts light, so red plus yellow becomes orange, and too many paints become brown. Screen hex mix can make colors paint cannot, and it can also make muddy results that do not match a paint recipe. Use Learn mixing for named paint and light lessons. Use Mix any hex when you want any two codes and a result you can copy.
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