Short answer: red and blue make purple. Mix them in roughly equal amounts for a classic purple, add more blue for violet, and add white for lavender. The secret to a bright purple, though, is choosing the right red and blue. Some combinations make a clean, vivid purple; others turn muddy and brownish.
The basic mix
| Mix | Result |
|---|---|
| Red + blue (equal) | Medium purple |
| More blue than red | Violet, blue-purple |
| More red than blue | Red-purple, closer to magenta or plum |
| Purple + white | Lavender, lilac |
| Purple + a touch of black | Deep purple, eggplant |
Why your purple looks muddy
Most reds lean slightly toward orange (warm reds), and most blues lean slightly toward green (some blues) or toward purple (others). If your red contains a bit of yellow and your blue contains a bit of yellow too, you've accidentally mixed in all three primaries, and that makes brown.
For the brightest purple:
- Choose a cool red that leans toward pink or purple, such as crimson, alizarin or magenta.
- Choose a blue that leans toward purple, such as ultramarine.
- Avoid orange-leaning reds (like cadmium red or vermilion) and green-leaning blues (like phthalo or cerulean) if you want a clean purple.
Magenta + ultramarine is one of the cleanest purple mixes. In printing, magenta + cyan makes blue-violet, and the CMYK system uses magenta and cyan to build purples.
How to mix popular purple shades
- Violet: blue + a little red. Violet sits between blue and purple on the color wheel.
- Lavender: purple + lots of white, with a tiny bit more blue.
- Lilac: purple + white + a touch of pink.
- Plum: purple + a little red + a little black or brown.
- Eggplant: purple + black, or purple + a little dark brown.
- Magenta-purple: more red (ideally magenta) than blue.
- Grape: purple with slightly more blue, darkened with a very small amount of black.
- Mauve: purple + white + a touch of gray or brown.
Add white and black in small amounts; both change the color fast.
Purple with crayons, markers and colored pencils
- Colored pencils: layer a pinkish red lightly, then a blue on top. Light pressure and two or three layers work better than pressing hard once. More in how to color with colored pencils.
- Crayons: layer pink or red under blue. Crayons don't blend as well as paint, so if you have a purple crayon, use it as the base and layer red or blue to shift the shade.
- Markers: alcohol markers blend; layer a light pink and then blue while the first layer is still slightly wet. See our guide to the best markers for coloring.
Purple in light vs paint
On a screen, purple-like colors come from mixing red and blue light. In paint and crayons, you're mixing pigments, so the rules above apply. That's why a purple on your monitor might look brighter than anything you can mix with paint.
Where purple fits on the color wheel
Purple is a secondary color in the traditional red-yellow-blue color wheel: it sits between red and blue, and opposite yellow. That makes yellow its complementary color. Put purple next to yellow and both look brighter. Mix them together and you'll get a soft brown, which is one of the ways to make brown.
Try it
Purples look great on mandala coloring pages, where you can shade from violet in the center to lavender at the edges, and on our princess coloring pages for gowns and castles.
