If you like painting or crafts, knowing the primary colors and their nature is an essential element to be able to work with paintings. Since we were little, when we played and tried with colors, we realized that depending on which colors we mixed, one color or another would appear. Do you know why that happens?
We have heard about primary colors many times, but why are they called that? What are they and what can we do with them? These are some of the doubts that may have arisen when they mention this group of tones, and at OneHOWTO we will answer them all. Discover what are the primary colors, the criteria we use to distinguish them and their different uses.
Why primary colors?
The primary colors are known by that name because they are the tones that they cannot be obtained mixing no other color. They are the simplest and do not come from any mixture of colors, as are all the others.
In turn, primary colors are “the parents” of other tones and it is thanks to their mixture that many other colors can be created, known as secondary, tertiary and complementary colors, as they are mixed.
Primary colors in RGB light
First of all, so that you do not make any mistakes, you should know that there are two groups of primary colors, two different classifications depending on what we take into account when classifying them. If we look at the shades that our eye sees from the light, the primary colors are red, green and blue.
The explanation is that humans have three types of light-sensitive cells, the so-called eye cones, which allow us to capture through the light waves emitted by primary colors red, green and blue, all the rest of the color gamut. Although it is known that it is not exactly the combination of red, green and blue that generates this effect, it is these three tones that make it possible to stimulate light-sensitive cells independently.
In this way, red, green and blue have been defined as the primary colors in light, known as RGB by their English names (red, green, blue). It is not that light is formed only by these 3 colors, it is that our eye is only capable of detecting, in the first instance, these two colors.
Primary colors in CMY pigment
Now, surely that when you have asked yourself what are the primary colors you were not referring to the three basic colors that our eye is capable of capturing, but to the primary pigments, those that we use in paints, colors and prints.
When it comes to prints, dyes and pigments, we speak of another group of primary colors that, united in equal parts, give origin to dark colors like grayscale and black. It’s all about the shades cyan, magenta and yellow, CMY for its acronym in English (cyan, magenta, yellow). Cyan is the name of light blue, magenta is a dark pink similar to lilac, together with yellow they make up the three primary colors through which we can get all the other colors.
Printers, for example, only use these 3 colors, but by mixing them in different parts and mixing the mixtures they manage to obtain the full color gamut.
RYB, the primary colors in the traditional model
Surely this is the one that you have been taught in school, as it is the traditional model that has been present until the CMY has unseated it. The acronym RYB comes from the English acronym for Red, Yellow and Blue, that is, red, yellow and blue. Just as the primary colors are blue, yellow and red, the secondary colors that are born from the union of these three are green, orange and purple.
This model was born in the 16th century and has been around for many years, until CMY, which is considered an update, has displaced it. Much of the fault that this model is falling into disuse is the synthetic development of pigments, which have corrected the errors that were raised, improving it when creating the CMYK model. However, it is quite common to see that it is still used in many fine arts schools and in arts and crafts classes.
Image: teknonics.com
Get colors by mixing the primaries
A very fun exercise when we are at school, and that can always be entertaining, is to try all the colors that we can get mixing the CMY primaries. If you want to discover it, do not forget to consult our article how to mix colors, for sure you will entertain yourself doing tests.
If you want to read more articles similar to What are the primary colors, we recommend that you enter our category of Crafts and free time.