What Colors Make Orange & How to Mix Different Shades

So, you want to know what colors make orange? Well, you are in the right place. This article also goes into and explains how to mix different shades.

Orange is symbolic of fun, happiness, energy, social, and general positivity. See the meaning of the color orange for more information.

What Two Colors Make Orange – RYB

We are now looking into the color theory of the RYB model. This is usually the first model that people learn about. If you ever did art in school, then this is what they taught you. There are also two other color models which you may not know about. However, we will go into them later.

On the subtractive RYB color model, orange is a secondary color. Orange is made by mixing red and yellow together in roughly equal amounts. Changing the balance of these colors will give a different variation of orange; I will go into this in more detail further down the page.

What Colors Make Orange – CMY

If you want to make orange using the CMY model, it takes a little bit more work. You need red and yellow to make orange. You have yellow because it’s also a primary color, so, you need to make red.

To make red on the CMY model you need to mix yellow and magenta. So, know you have your red, know you can mix it with the yellow that you already have to make orange.

How to Mix Different Shades

Making a lighter or darker shade is easy, it’s simply about adding either black or white. Adding white to orange will make a lighter tint, and adding black will make a darker shade. It’s easy to mix too much of each color, so, small amounts and gradual mixing is recommended.

You can also use different variations of red and yellow to make different brighter or weaker variations of orange. You may be surprised by how many shades of orange there actually are.

If you want a bright orange like tiger orange, you will need to mix a strong red with a strong yellow. If you want to make a weaker orange tint like coral, you are going to need weaker and paler primary colors to mix.

Mixing the Tertiary Colors

There are two tertiary colors next to orange on the color wheel. These colors are red-orange and yellow-orange.

Mixing red-orange: This simply includes adding more red into the mix. This can be done by what is described as mixing parts of color. So, it would be two parts red, and one part yellow, or twice as much red as yellow.

Mixing yellow-orange: This moves in the opposite direction towards yellow. It includes two parts yellow, one part red.