What Color Do Purple and Green Make?

In this article, we’re going to answer the question… “What color do purple and green make?”

If you’re an artist, then part of your job is to experiment with different colors and designs to see what happens. Without this vital aspect of your creative process, you won’t be able to expand your horizons and discover new things that can help make your designs even better.

One of the purest forms of experimentation is mixing different colors together. Whether it’s paint, watercolor, or some other art form, color mixing is a fantastic way to increase your overall color palette and improve your work.

Today, we’re going to be asking the question “what color do green and purple make?” These are two hues that are usually not mixed, which is why it can be so fascinating to see what happens when they are. Not only are we going to discuss what occurs, but we’ll also see how it relates to color and design in general.

Primary vs. Secondary Colors

Before we get into the actual mixing, we first want to understand as much about these two colors as possible. For that, we’re going to be looking at the color wheel.

This is a method by which we can arrange all of the different hues and shades into an organized shape. The color wheel allows us to understand the relationship between each hue and how they can interact with each other.

At its core, the color wheel is comprised of both primary and secondary colors. The former are hues that exist naturally and can’t be broken down. Secondary colors, however, are a result of two tones mixed together. As such, you can reduce them to their individual components to see how they are made.

In this case, green is a primary color while purple is a secondary one. Thus, we want to break down the color purple to see what elements are contained within.

As you may know, purple is a mixture of red and blue. Along with green and yellow, these are other examples of primary colors. So, right away we know that mixing green and purple is essentially creating a new shade from all three colors.

When you mix a primary and a secondary color together, it’s called a tertiary color. Depending on the mixture, tertiary colors can be either robust and brilliant or dark and muddy. As we will see, mixing green and purple together will create something on the darker side of the wheel.

What Color Do Purple and Green Make?

Now that we have a good foundation on colors, let’s try to answer the question, what color do purple and green make?

When it comes to answering this question, there are a few other variables that we have to determine. First of all, we want to understand the brightness and brilliance of each color involved.

As we mentioned above, purple is a mixture of red and blue. However, there are numerous shades from which we can choose, meaning that our purple can either be bold and bright or it can be dark and foreboding.

Our green can also be a wide range of shades. On the one side, it can be almost neon in its brilliance, and on the other, it can remind us of a dark emerald or a pine tree in the dead of winter.

Thus, when mixing purple and green together, the results can either be a form of brown or they can be a muddy gray color.

Overall, brown and gray are created when you mix primary colors together, so that makes sense. Because we are using three of the four primary hues, it’s obvious that the result would be on that spectrum.

The other thing to consider is the amount of each color you use. If we add more green to the mix, then our results will seem like more of a greenish gray. However, if we go heavy on the purple, then brown starts to come out more.

Beyond that, we also need to pay attention to the amounts of blue and red in our purple. If the shade is bluer, then we are going to get a darker, duller color in the end. However, if red is dominant, then our final result can be brighter and more welcoming.

Color and Design

Now that we know what color purple and green make, what can we do with them? As an artist and designer, it’s imperative that you understand what you can achieve will all of the colors on the wheel.

In this instance, because we’re looking at something that is more neutral, we can utilize it as a means of enhancing other, brighter color elements. Also, since it’s more of an earthy, muted tone, we can use it as a base, which can make it seem like negative space.

Conclusion

Overall, when it comes to mixing green and purple together, the result is going to be hard to define. Unlike other tertiary colors that can be easy to classify, our shade is harder to put into a box. As such, we have to care about how to use it so that it will be effective in our project.

What kind of designs and images comes to your mind when you see purple and green mixed? How would you make it work for your next piece?

Hope you found this article about what color purple and green make helpful. Cheers!